Law school and the practice of law require constant progress and improvement. Carol Dweck’s research on growth mindset infiltrated many law schools, and many in ASP continually promote Dweck’s theories. I definitely fall into the category of advocates. Anecdotally, I interact with students who clearly believe improvement can happen with hard work. Unfortunately, I also see students who don’t believe he/she can get better. The former group tends to work harder and achieve better results than the latter group.
I work in all my classes to promote the growth mindset to encourage success. However, a recent article in Education Week recounted more recent research indicating some efforts to promote growth mindset may not actually help. Read the article here. The newer research looked at whether only effort praise promoted a growth mindset. In middle and high school students, effort praise alone didn’t work. The students were skeptical of the praise and even believed the teacher didn’t possess a growth mindset. The article called this praise a "False Growth Mindset."
The article does say effort praise combined with self-reflection of what worked in the process promoted growth mindsets. Academic Support Professionals continually promote feedback and self-reflection in classes. This further supports our advocacy for more assessment with feedback and self-reflection exercises. Praise alone doesn’t provide the necessary reflection or feedback to help students grow. More specific feedback is necessary to promote the growth mindset.
I try to keep my praise focused on what students did correctly as a feedback tool. However, I am sure I have given solely effort based praise without feedback. Growth Mindset is my goal, so as the new research comes out, I plan to try to keep modifying my approach to help students.
(Steven Foster)
