Preservice Teachers’ Beliefs about

Intelligence and Instruction

Kathleen Cauley, PhDJoseph Tadlock, M.Ed.

VCU School of Education

Paper presented at the MERC conference, March 13, 2012

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

Beliefs about Intelligence: Two Mindsets

Parents and TeachersType of praiseType of criticismHow talk about abilityStandards used to evaluate S’sWillingness to help

Where Do The Mindsets Come From?

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

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.

The Objective

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.

Participants

1. Theories of intelligence: 4 items from Dweck's (1999) theories of intelligence scale.

2. Attitudes toward instructional practices: developed from work by Dweck (1999) on strategies to support incremental beliefs.

3. 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.

Online survey had 4 sections

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.

Findings

Teachers shouldIncremental

Beliefs% Agree

Entity Beliefs% Agree

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 66.6

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

Instructional Practices

When a student gets stuck99% 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 concept75% said students should be given

enough time to figure it our in their own way

When a student does well on a test83% would tell the S “I can tell that you

really understand this.

Findings Regarding Autonomy

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

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.

Conclusions

“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.