Beliefs About the Intelligence Brunning - Chapter 7 Beliefs About the Intelligence

Implications for Teaching Everyone holds beliefs about intelligence and knowledge Beliefs about intelligence and knowledge affect our behaviors Beliefs about intelligence and knowledge affect the way we reason Education affects the kinds of beliefs we hold Educational experiences affect reasoning skills Beliefs are not strongly related to ability

Implicit Beliefs About Intelligence Are unconscious personal beliefs about key aspectsof learning set of tacit assumptions about how something works Class, look at your learning behaviors and decide where you belong Incremental Theory: Learning (mastery goals) Improve competency Entity Theory: Performance goals Prove competency Improving competence Seeks challenge Persists Successeffort + response to failure Self regulated Providing competence Avoids challenge Successability response to failure Quits Helpless

Constraints on Classroom Behaviors Classroom factors that affect student orientation positively Situational factorsclassroom climate/home environment (little is known) Classroom structurenorm-referenced vs. criterion-referenced Is Intelligence Changeable? Attributional theoristsNo! (internal/stable/ uncontrollable Brain-basedYes! (plasticity “ability to adapt successfully to environment”)

Guidelines for Fostering Adaptive Goals Promote the view that intellectual development is controllable—it’s up to you! Reward effort and improvement while deemphasizing native ability Emphasize the process, rather than the products of learning Process = how long I spent studying? How do I organize my information? Am I ready for my classes? Stress that mistakes are normal part of learning Encourage individual, rather than group evaluative standardsare you improving in your learning behaviors?

Epistemological Beliefs or…Beliefs about Knowledge Right Wrong Dualistic perspective (early stages) Perry (1970) Ryan (1984) = Knowledge must be evaluated on a personal bases by using the best personal evidence (experimentation) Relativists Relativists Based on their experimentation * Develop different beliefs * Have different approach to learning Dualists * Search for fact oriented information * Remember information reported explicitly * Knowledge is viewed as absolute * Do not questions authority * Knowledge accepted as faith Experiment: Asked students to describe strategies they used to monitor their comprehension Results show: Dualist do not do as well in final grades Dualist fact-centered information Relativistscontext centered information Validated by SAT scores

Schommer (1990) Extremely Complex Beliefsused a Self Report Inventory Simple Discrete Unambiguous Facts Certain Constant True and Forever Fixed Ability Genetic Quick or no learning Amount of higher ed received is inversely related to their beliefs The longer the S attend college, the more likeable to believe that knowledge is tentative and subject to personal interpretation = constructivist Females = learning is gradual = persistence SS with less education acquire new knowledge = all or nothing situation, oversimplified conclusions Prior knowledge = broader conclusions Beliefs in simple knowledge negatively affects complex problem solving SS in soft disciplines = knowledge is uncertain SS in hard disciplines = knowledge is fixed Kuhn (2000)epistemological beliefs are related to one’s ability to argue persuasively that knowledge: Absolutist 2. Multiplist 3. Evaluative (right or wrong) (knowledge is relative) (depend on rules of learning)

Reflective Judgment Kitchener & King (1981) Judgment is defined as one’s ability to: Analyze critically multiple facets of a problem Reach an informed conclusion Justify one’s response Developmental Stages of Reflective Judgmentbased on certainty of knowledge, process of acquiring knowledge, and type of evidence used to justify one’s view of the world Knowledge - unchangeable, absolute, and accessible Knowledge - certain, but may not be accessible by everyone Knowledge - is certain, though it may be accessible to anyone Knowledge - is uncertain and idiosyncratic Knowledge - is uncertain though contextually interpretative Knowledge - is relative yet justifiable on the bases of rational arguments Knowledge – is relative, though some interpretations have greater truth

Hope in Life and Attitude Change Agency Pathways Hope inventory scores correlated with “will” “ways” life orientation, life experiences, self- esteem, and hopelessness Self Generation Determination of workable High hope SS showed greater self- Perseverance solutions determination CHALLENGE Prefer difficult tasks How easily can maladaptive beliefs can be changed? Changing beliefs = complicated Beliefs are formed based on cognitive and affective information When beliefs were formed initially Those based on affective responses may be difficult to change by cognitive means Those based on cognitive responses may be difficult to change based on affective persuasion Teacher beliefs = assumptions about students, learning materials to be taught and class organizationpreservice teachers tend to leave with many of the beliefs and attitudes they held when entering the program