Evaluation

• places failure very firmly on the student

  if they fail to achieve, it is because they have a fixed mindset or they didn’t try hard enough. This doesn’t take into account other factors for failure, such as personal circumstances like bullying, which may be affecting their ability to learn or concentrate. The emphasis on fixing the blame on the mindset of the child could have a detrimental effect on their self-esteem and mental health.
• Was challenged by a large scale study

  The education endowment foundation (EEF; 2015) funded research into growth mindsets in schools in the UK. Children in 30 schools were given an intervention that taught them about growth mindsets. Results showed that there was no significant difference in progress in maths and English compared to the control group. This research does NOT support Dweck’s theory.
• Nurture is a key aspects of this theory as it assumes that the child can make the changes themselves, but this can have a negative impact on their self-esteem if they fail to succeed. It might be that innate traits have a greater impact on a person’s ability to succeed than Dweck recognises.