While the main focus of the media coverage on PISA 2018 will be on the rankings, two other volumes are also released today with a special spotlight on… the growth mindset by Carol Dweck.

But while 15-year olds around the globe were filling in the OECD-questionnaires, 2018 turned out to be not such a great year for growth mindset, or more specific: working on a growth mindset.

An overview:

• A preregistered replication with the cooperation of Carol Dweck of Growth mindset research produces a .03 improvement in GPA (and sets a gold standard for educational research)
• In the same month, a double meta-analysis of a growth mindset was published! Main results:
  1) Correlation of growth mindset with achievement is tiny, r = .1;
  2) Effect of growth mindset interventions on achievement is tiny

And in 2019 the hits kept coming with a large EEF trial that resulted in this conclusion:

The EEF commentary advises that teachers should be cautious about using the approach as a standalone method of improving pupil achievement.

In our new myths book we don’t call growth mindset a myth, as it can have a significant but small effect on students from a poor background, but do warn that some studies have even shown a possible negative effect (e.g. for adults). But I can imagine that the good people at the OECD didn’t like what has been happening while their train was already rolling.

Further reading or watching:

• Casper Hulshof talking about “Voodoo, rats and… growth mindset”
• The Growth Mindset Problem (Carl Hendrick)