DO TEACHERS’ BELIEFS ABOUT INTELLIGENCE AND FAILURE IMPACT STUDENTS’ BELIEFS ABOUT INTELLIGENCE WHEN ACCOUNTING FOR PARENT INFLUENCE?

Abstract

Children’s beliefs about their intelligence (i.e., growth vs. fixed mindset) have been shown to strongly influence subsequent behaviors. Failure, and the beliefs one has when encountering failure, have only begun to be studied. Previous research argues that beliefs about failure in parents are more concrete to children, and thus, more prominent in shaping their beliefs about intelligence. This study utilized hierarchical linear modeling to explore how 87 4th and 5th-grade students’ beliefs about intelligence were influenced by perceptions of parental implicit beliefs and parental perceptions of beliefs about failure as well as teacher beliefs about failure and implicit beliefs about intelligence. The low number of teacher participants did not allow for any exploration of a possible influence on student beliefs. Hierarchical linear modeling showed a significant interaction effect between children’s perceptions of parental implicit beliefs and perceptions of parental beliefs about failure. This effect was further explored using simple slope analyses which showed that it is not enough for a parent to just be perceived as having a growth mindset, they must also be perceived as having a failure-is-enhancing mindset if they are to “lift” their children’s beliefs towards a more incremental mindset.