<br/>Self-beliefs about academic ability (mindsets) can fall on a spectrum ranging from fixed mindsets to growth mindsets. Individuals with fixed mindsets tend to believe that their abilities are stable and cannot change, while those with growth mindsets recognize that these abilities are malleable. With the work pioneered by Dr. Carol Dweck, researchers have investigated how these mindsets shift, as higher academic performance as well as persistence is attributed to a growth mindset. Messages from instructors have been shown in a variety of disciplines to significantly shift students away from a fixed mindset. These interventions are fairly short, yet produce dramatic results in student attitudes. Clearly, peers influence each other in a variety of ways, yet the growth mindset literature is lacking any evidence of peers influencing mindsets in the classroom. Findings from chemistry courses have never been published. Therefore, our main research question was, “Rather than just instructors imparting growth mindset messages, can peers influence mindsets in the classroom?”. In addition to traditional growth mindset messaging adopted campus-wide in our quality enhancement plan, in our general chemistry laboratories, we have implemented formative peer evaluations to help students identify their peer's mistakes on laboratory notebook entries and acquire effective ways to learn from those mistakes. Using a validated mindset instrument, scores from these students were compared to the mindset scores of those in course sections where just traditional growth mindset messages were used. Preliminary results show that the majority of our lab students have growth mindsets even at the start of the study, and they remain growth-minded by the end of the semester. Compared to scores from before this quality enhancement plan began, mindsets have shifted toward a stronger growth mindset score.  In addition, students who participated in the peer assessment activities reported a 7% increase in responsiveness to peer feedback by the end of the semester compared to a 2% decrease among students who did not complete the peer assessments. The results of this ongoing study will add to the emerging field of the growth mindset and provide valuable tools that can be easily implemented in chemistry courses.<br/>

Peers promoting a growth mindset in the general chemistry laboratory

255th National Meeting (2018)

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