Student Perceptions of Teachers’ Mindset Beliefs in the Classroom Setting

Abstract

Academic Mindset is a collection of 4 beliefs that directly impacts student academic perseverance, academic behaviors and academic performance (Farrington et al., 2012). Research suggests teachers and students hold beliefs about the stability/malleability of ability (Dweck, 2006); however, little is known about the nature of the relationship between student ability beliefs and teacher ability beliefs in classroom settings. The current research explores the nature of Student Mindset beliefs (n=359) (SM), Students’ Perception of Teacher Mindset beliefs (SPTM) and Teacher Mindset (TM) beliefs. Results suggest that Student Mindset (SM) is related to Teacher Mindset (TM) and fully mediated by Student Perception of Teacher Mindset (SPTM). Implications for educators are discussed.