Carol Dweck’s implicit theory of intelligence describes that some students believe intelligence is fixed and arises from natural ability. Conversely, some students believe that intelligence can grow through effort and challenging learning opportunities. These fixed and growth mindsets are known to be context-dependent and to be influenced by non-cognitive factors such as attributions for success and failure. Our research aims to characterize students’ mindsets in the context of a first-year university chemistry laboratory by analyzing students’ descriptions of their beliefs about effort, ability, and success. Students’ actions and conversations were recorded in the laboratory through the use of first-person action cameras, followed by semi-structured, video-stimulated recall interviews. Students were asked to describe 1) how they define effort, ability, and success in the chemistry laboratory, 2) how their experiment involves effort and ability, and 3) how they attribute their success in lab to effort and/or ability. The data corpus was analyzed both deductively and inductively. Findings will be reported regarding the variability in students’ beliefs about intelligence, particularly their attributions of effort and ability to being successful in the chemistry laboratory.

Investigating students’ beliefs about intelligence in the undergraduate chemistry laboratory through video-stimulated recall interviews

ACS Spring 2022

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