Psychology – Rewarding Student's Intelligence
When it comes to success, there are many beliefs on what it takes to acquire it. The most common or strongly believed idea for being successful at anything in life is the belief that one must have superior intelligence. However, it is mainly thought that such intelligence only belongs to the people that are naturally born with such talent or gift. This ideology has for years been followed in American school systems. Teachers and parents have observed that some of the students in schools would perform higher beyond their peers. They would be on the top of their class, earning awards and outstanding grades, or are bored easily by the non-challenging material in class. Thus, the teachers and parents
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Dweck, discussed one of the biggest issues when it comes to teaching students in school. The research tackles on our society’s strong belief that success only comes to those with superior intelligence and talents and confidences to depend on such skills (Dweck). Our school system has long enforced this belief, rewarding the students with honor roll awards, setting them apart in “gifted” programs or advanced classes. Researchers have hypothesized that there are differences in the students’ mind when it comes to learning in school. They believe that by addressing the student’s skills with praise doesn’t help to encourage them to take on harder challenges or improve themselves. Acknowledging the students’ talents throughout their early years of education cause them to develop a “fixed mindset”, the student starts to believe that intelligence has no place for improvement, if they face a new challenge far from their understanding, they will rather not attempt to solve the problem and blame their limited knowledge then to struggle and learn from their mistakes (Dweck). However, researchers believe that students should be taught that success can only be achieved through learning, practice, and hard work; in other terms, the students should not depend on their talents and intelligence and develop a “growth mindset” …show more content…
The study divided up the students into two groups, with one group kept as the control group to test the effects of believing that success depends on the person’s intelligence, and the remaining group as the change group to test the effects of relating success with hard work. The study stretched down the student’s early education path. The researchers could observe key differences from early in the study to later. From the start, students from the control group were taught to believe that their intelligence is fixed and that their success is dependent on it. Students that graded well in the math tests were rewarded for their performance, highlighting the need to depend on their current intelligence. As for the change group, students were taught that success can only be achieved through hard work. These students have not emphasized the idea that their success came from their
As Dweck explains, children who are praised for their intelligence does not want to learn hence develop a fixed mindset. A fixed mindset is where people believe that their qualities such as talent and intelligence are essentially fixed traits. Such people would only concentrate on documenting their intelligence instead of looking for ways for developing the same. In addition, these people make the assumption that their intelligence would make them successful. On the other hand, a growth mindset is where people are aware that it is possible to develop their abilities through hard work and dedication. When I was in Grade 7, a teacher encouraged all students that they all had the ability to perform well in science. After the initial interaction, the teacher was aware that a certain percentage of the class performed way below average; yet, he did not water down their spirit. I remember the way he used to acknowledge even some insignificant improvement made in his tests by comments such as “You are making good progress so far”. Primarily, this teacher focused on the perseverance, strategies, and efforts the students put towards improvement as opposed to praising talent (Dweck 5). The result was that we changed our attitude and focused more on self-improvement.
In Carol Dweck’s article titled, “Brainology” Dweck discusses the different mindsets that students have about intelligence. Some where taught that each person had a set amount of intelligence, while others were trained that intelligence is something they could develop and increase over time. in Dweck’s article she writes, “ It is a belief that intelligence can be developed that opens students to a love of learning, a belief in the power of effort and constrictive, determined reactions to setbacks” (Dweck pg. 2). Dweck is talking about a growth mind-set in which is how students perceive the growth of knowledge and that no one person is born with a certain amount of intelligence, it too can be trained and developed over time. By introducing Dweck’s ideas of a growth mind-set to students, students will enjoy learning and be less devastated by setbacks, because they know they can develop intelligence. Dweck also writes that students with a growth mind-set, “believe that intelligence is something that can be cultivated through effort and education. They
In the article Mind-Sets and Equitable Education, Carol S. Dweck studies the link between mind-sets and beliefs and the influence it has on student success. This article examines how beliefs about how you learn impact the manner in which you learn. It is stated that growth mind-set as opposed to fixed mind-set promotes student success and achievement. Growth mind-set is the idea that intelligence is not something individuals are born with, but is rather a skill that individuals can develop through hard work and perseverance. Fixed mind-set opposes this idea as it views intelligence as an immutable trait individuals are born with. The article mentions that not only personal mind-set impacts an individual’s success but how they perceive the mind-set
Commending students effort encourages them to challenge themselves. Some may argue that complimenting children for their intelligence has the same
Meaning that when children grow up with praise such as “oh you must have been so smart to get an A on that test”, instead of “you must have worked really hard on that lesson”, children could take the praise to their intelligence the wrong way and think that since they are “smart” instead of their effort on a task which will cause them problems in the future and they might want to give up and quit. I have seen this first hand and this has actually happened to me before, so I know from experience that this could have a negative effect impact on a student not just students in elementary school but also adults who are going to college or young adults who are looking for a job. In contrast, some students love to get that kind of compliment but they would always end up expecting that so when I work with children I will be complimenting them on the effort they put into everything that they do. From now on, I will be praising children on their effort and not on their
Also, in Carol Dweck’s research article “Brainology”, she states the subtitle “Transforming Students’ Motivation to Learn”. She dishes mindsets and achievement, how do students learn these mindsets, and so on… … Dweck suggests, “Many students believe that intelligence is fixed, that each person has a certain amount, and that’s that. We call this a fixed mindset, and, as you will see, students with this mindset worry about how much of this fixed in intelligence they possess”. Many students believe that the challenge encountered in learning is a threat to their growth path. She put forward two different minds of the ideological study contrast, the finds showed that students studied with a growth mindset were more interested in learning and
There are many attitudes that form certain mindsets. Some of these mindsets can change how a person does and perceives things. Some mindsets that can do just that are Dweck’s example of a growth mindset and fixed mindsets. According to Dweck, a fixed mindset is one in where “.. students believe that intelligence is fixed..” and a fixed mindset is the “..believe that intelligence is a potential that can be realized through learning. As a result, confronting challenges, profiting from mistakes, and persevering in the face of setbacks become ways of getting smarter. Because people with growth mindsets can through setbacks, and find alternatives to better themselves; They turn to perseverance and hard work to achieve their goals.
Every parent desires to have a child who will be successful in life. In “Brainology” author, Carol Dweck explains that there are consequences for praising children for their work. Dweck also explains that there are different types of mindsets that enable an individual’s development. She claims that there are two types of mindsets that people have. In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work ( Dweck 1). Furthermore growth mindset individuals love learning and are resilience that is essential for great accomplishment. (Dweck 1). One more theory, Dweck mentioned was fixed mindset. The author states “In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence
We were taught as a child that the road to success is based on our intelligence. The ability to thrive in our education and career will lead us to a happy healthy life. Paul Tough an American Canadian, wrote a book called “How children Succeed,” he explain that intelligence is not the only the key to success, but there are more to it than having cognitive skill because non cognitive plays an important role in a child life. In chapter 1, Tough argues that a positive surrounding in a children life can help shape a positive outcome to a child achievement in life.
Results of students who received praise for intelligence: The students in this category had negative results after receiving praising. When asked afterwards if they wanted to do the same level of problems or try more challenging ones, they chose the task that would allow them to look smart and do well on. Consequently, while telling a child how smart he or she is, we are sending a message to not take risks and just look the part. Afterwards, these children were given a hard task, which they performed poorly on, and they know longer liked the problems and did not want to practice them at home. Children also felt “dumb” and when given the initial task (in which they did well), they performed significantly worse. Lastly, their opinions of intelligence reflected that it was an innate capacity as though you cannot improve.
most likely will not succeed because of the environment they are surrounded by. A student has trouble
Praise of intelligence had backfired. Dr. Dweck had suspected this would happen. She explained that quote, "Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control...They come to see themselves in control of their success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child's control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to failure," unquote. Children who believe intelligence is the key to success discredit effort and don't seem to understand its importance. When labeled "smart," kids think, "I'm smart, I don't need to put effort." Dr. Dweck repeated her experiments on different groups of students, and results were the same, regardless of socioeconomic status, age, or gender. Preschoolers even showed the same
In her article “Brainology transforming students’ motivation to learn”, Carol Dweck argues that possessing a mindset that embraces intelligence as static has destructive effects to students’ motivation for learning. That being the case, she claims that students learning under the growth mindset find ways to turn mistakes made into gainful experiences and look upon their setbacks as a way to get smarter. Specifically, Dweck notes “Students with this growth mindset believe that intelligence is a potential that can be realized through learning”. In other words, she believes that learning with the mindset that intelligence isn’t fixed will greatly develop the student. Ultimately, to prove her argument, Dweck conducted research on a body of students
In the reading “Mindset: How you can fulfil your potential” by (Dweck, 2012) Chapter One introduces the reader to the Fixed and Growth mindset, and identifies how basic qualities and intelligence can be improved by effort.
1940 The Thirty-ninth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education: Factors Influencing the Growth of Intelligence in Young Children. US Public School Publishing Co. Cherry, Kendra “What Is Nature versus Nurture?” Accessed February 20, 2014.