Is changing your mind enough? Growth mindset intervention fails to translate to implicit measures

Growth mindset interventions aim to foster learners' implicit beliefs that their abilities will improve with effort and practice. However, research on how these interventions affect the mindset is inconsistent. One problem might be that mindsets are traditionally measured through self-report questionnaires, which fail to capture the implicit nature of beliefs. We pursued a multi-method approach to investigate whether a growth mindset intervention affected different mindset facets. In two experimental studies using a mixed between-within subjects design, we measured learners' mindset with a self-report questionnaire, a scenariobased test, and a reaction-time based test. In Study 1, university students (N = 89) completed a mindset intervention or a control intervention. The mindset intervention improved learners' mindset when measured by self-report, but had no effect on the scenariobased or reaction-time based mindset. In Study 2 (N = 50), the mindset intervention improved students' self-reported mindset again, although not as consistently as in the first study. We found only a minor effect on scenario-based mindset and, again, no effect on reaction-time based mindset. We conclude that fine-grained tools that measure mindset directly and indirectly are needed to capture different facets of learners' mindsets. Such tools will help us understand how interventions can change the mindset sustainably.