1. Preservice Teachers’ Beliefs about Intelligence and Instruction
Kathleen Cauley, PhD
Joseph Tadlock, M.Ed.
VCU School of Education
Paper presented at the MERC conference, March 13, 2012

2. Beliefs about Intelligence: Two Mindsets
Fixed mindset: Intelligence is an immutable trait that leads people to demonstrate how much ability they have; Entity view
Failure means you aren’t smart; try to arrange successes and avoid failure
Growth mindset: Intelligence is a capacity that can be modified and improved with effort and persistence; Incremental view
Failure isn’t discouraging, it’s a challenge, an opportunity to learn
Give the Dweck scale. Have them score it.
Fixed Incremental
Demonstrate/prove self develop/willing to stretch to learn something new
Sensitive to mistakes
Failure= not smart failure isn’t discouraging, is a challenge
give up persist, improve strategies
Devalue effort (dweck says
It’s startling the degree they don’t
Believe in effort) effort is good
Practice less study more
Self handicapping strategies
Avoid learning/remediation willing to learn (Chinese, neuroscience studies from Dweck & Master 2005, I think)
Don’t want to expose deficiencies

3. Where Do The Mindsets Come From?
Parents and Teachers
Type of praise
Type of criticism
How talk about ability
Standards used to evaluate S’s
Willingness to help
How can students gain faith in their potential???
PRAISE
Praise ability: fixed, reject challenge, keep doing easy stuff, failure means not smart. 40% lie about scores
says we can judge ability from a performance
vs. praise effort: incremental. 90% want challenging task. Failure = try harder. Choose opportunities to learn
CRITICISM
person - helpless, find fewer ways to fix the problem
process- growth
HOW TALK ABOUT ABILITY
Describe famous scientists got there by:
genius
hard work, dedication, passion
STANDARDS
compare performance to others
compare performance to own past performance: can see results of effort
WILLINGNESS TO HELP
managers with incremental beliefs were more likely to provide guidance, useful feedback,
facilitate problem solving, inspire employees to work to potential

4. A Teacher’s Mindset Can Affect Instruction
Teachers with an entity view of ability
are less likely to create autonomy supportive environments (Leroy, Bressoux, Sarrazin, & Trouilloud, 2007).
may be less likely to help students,
or may make decisions that enable students to demonstrate their ability such as grading on the curve or displaying highest grades,
give ability praise
So, if we believe that a growth mindset is important for students, then how do we help inculcate that with students in our classrooms?
Prior research has also shown that teachers’ intelligence beliefs can influence instructional decisions

5. The Objective
Few studies have investigated inservice or preservice teachers’ intelligence beliefs (Dweck & Master, 2005; Jones, Bryant, Snyder, & Malone, 2011).
To determine the intelligence beliefs of preservice teachers and examine the relationship between their beliefs about intelligence and their agreement with particular instructional and motivational strategies.

6. Participants
138 students in EDUS 301 classes: 23% male and 77% female.
62% Caucasian, 19% African American, 7% Asian, 4% Hispanic, and 7% other.
Of the 138, 45% planned to teach elementary students, 6% middle school, 28% high school, and 20% didn’t plan to teach.
Only the 120 students who planned to teach were selected for further study.

7. Online survey had 4 sections
Theories of intelligence: 4 items from Dweck's (1999) theories of intelligence scale.
Attitudes toward instructional practices: developed from work by Dweck (1999) on strategies to support incremental beliefs.
A rating scale regarding autonomy supportive instructional choices, developed from work by Reeve and Jang (2006) and Jang, Reeve, and Deci (2010).
4. Demographics: gender, ethnicity, and level and content participants plan to teach.

8. Findings
On the Dweck scale, 83% of the preservice teachers indicated intelligence beliefs consistent with an incremental view.
The table shows the percent agreement with each of the instructional strategies.

9. Instructional Practices
Teachers should
Incremental Beliefs
% Agree
Entity Beliefs
a. Display the work of students with the highest grades as examples to others
38.2
72.1
b. Provide opportunities for students to compete against one another
56.2
66.6
c. Keep everyone together with the same learning activities and assignments.
47.2
64.7
d. Insist that students redo assignments until they get it.
70.8
e. Avoid telling students the highest score and the average on tests.
38.7
45.5
f. When a student has an easy time with a task, apologize for assigning a task that wasn’t challenging enough to learn from 18
33.3
g. Grade students on a curve
39.3 53
h. Praise capable students frequently with words like “you’re so smart” or “you’re brilliant”
40.5
44.4
Note that many of these allow S’s to demonstrate ability, and many with incremental beliefs endorse them.
A, b, c. g.
H is ability praise, and 40% of incremental endorse it!!!!
Items d and e and f focus more on growth mindset.
---d is good showing, but not everyone
---few agree with e and f

10. Findings Regarding Autonomy
When a student gets stuck
99% said the teacher should offer a hint or suggestion
When students get frustrated and complain
99% would empathize and acknowledge the students’ perspective
When introducing a new concept
75% said students should be given enough time to figure it our in their own way
When a student does well on a test
83% would tell the S “I can tell that you really understand this.
Two possible solutions to an instructional situation were presented, one autonomy supportive and one not autonomy supportive.
Of those with incremental beliefs:

11. Conclusions
While most preservice teachers appear to hold incremental beliefs about ability, not all do.
Those who do have incremental beliefs frequently endorse instructional and motivational strategies that could engender entity beliefs in students
Those of us in preservice education need to help our students understand the motivational effects of instructional techniques

12. Conclusions
To develop incremental beliefs in students, it is best to emphasize effort, persistence and developing ability and
Minimize techniques in grading and instruction that compare students with one another, such as grading on the curve or displaying work with the highest grade, praising ability, etc.

13. “But I really think if you focus on their development, I think the winning will take care of itself.”
Shaka Smart, 3/6/2012 after winning the CAA championship.

14. References
Blackwell, L., Trzesniewski, K. H., & Dweck, C. S. (2007). Implicit theories of intelligence predict achievement across an adolescent transition: A longitudinal study and an intervention. Child Development, 78(1),
Dweck, C. (1999). Self Theories: Their role in motivation, personality, and development. Philadelphia: Taylor and Francis.
Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Random House.
Dweck, C. and Master, A. (2005). Self-theories and motivation: Their impact on competence motivation and acquisition. In Al Elliot and C. Dweck (Eds.) Handbook of competence and Motivation (pp ). New York: Routledge.
Jang, H., Reeve, J., Deci, E. (2010). Engaging students in learning activities: It is not autonomy support or structure but autonomy support and structure. Journal of Educational Psychology, 102(3),
Jones, B. D., Bryant, L. H., Snyder, J. D., & Malone, D. (April, 2011). Intelligence Beliefs of Preservice and Inservice Teachers. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA.
Leroy, N., Bressoux, P., Sarrazin, P., Trouilloud, D. (2007). Impact of teachers’ implicit theories and perceived pressures on the establishment of an autonomy supportive climate. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 22(4),
Reeve, J. & Jang, H. (2004). What teachers say and do to support students’ autonomy during a learning activity. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98(1),