Vorträge in der Woche 10.02.2020 bis 16.02.2020

Dienstag, 11.02.2020: Growth Mindset and Gender-Fair Beliefs: Two Factors That Drive Students’ Math Competence and Achievement

Jeesoo Lee, Ph.D. (Korea University)

The effectiveness of a math confidence intervention program among 238 Korean fourth-graders was tested. After six bi-weekly lessons on the development of a growth mindset and the investigation of gender stereotypes, students in the intervention group demonstrated a significantly stronger growth mindset and weaker gender-stereotypic beliefs compared to students in the control group. The intervention students also expressed significantly higher perceived competence, persistence, and achievement in math compared to the control students. While the overall intervention effects did not differ between genders, multi-group path analysis revealed several significant gender differences. Growth mindset was a stronger predictor of persistence for boys than it was for girls. In addition, whereas the gender-stereotypic beliefs of boys predicted higher test anxiety in math, the gender stereotypic beliefs of girls did not predict test anxiety. The benefit of simultaneously addressing young students’ mindsets and gender stereotypes to improve their math motivation and achievement are discussed.