Скачать или смотреть College Completion Network: Growth Mindset Project

Research has found that college students taking developmental or gateway courses often fail to complete them or attain a degree. The Growth Mindset project is evaluating whether a 30-minute online module that describes what a growth mindset is can improve the persistence and academic success of students enrolled in developmental or gateway mathematics courses at community colleges.

A growth mindset is the belief that intelligence is something a person can develop through deliberate effort and practice. This mindset has been shown to correlate with positive academic behaviors and to increase resilience and persistence. In the online module, students read an article explaining how brain functioning improves when people confront new challenges, engage multiple learning strategies, and seek out advice. Students then complete several writing activities to internalize the article’s message.

The Growth Mindset team is partnering with 17 open- and broad-access community colleges in California and Indiana. Participating students are randomly assigned to complete either the growth mindset module or a module describing the structures of the brain. In this video, Dr. Sarah Gripshover, director of research at the PERTS Lab, describes the team’s research.

About the College Completion Network: Open- and broad-access institutions—such as community colleges and four-year colleges and universities that accept 75 percent or more of their applicants—are central to the goal of increasing degree completion among U.S. college students. These institutions create opportunities for a large population of students, including a majority of first-time degree-seeking students. Unfortunately, low rates of degree completion at these colleges and universities translate into minimal returns on investments for many of these students and their families. The College Completion Network serves to bring together researchers and practitioners to tackle barriers to college completion and identify and evaluate effective strategies for improving college completion.

Visit the College Completion Network website (https://collegecompletionnetwork.org/) to find resources, tools, contacts, and other information related to degree completion at open- and broad-access institutions.

This product is supported by the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education through grant R305N170003 to the American Institutes for Research (the Network Lead) and to the network teams through grants R305A150253, R305N160025, R305N160026, R305N170020, and R305H170085. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute of Education Sciences or the U.S. Department of Education.