We evaluated a curriculum that focused on bolstering grit and locus of control in seventh grade students at a school in upstate New York. The intervention included lessons aimed at building a growth mindset and determination, along with writing projects and collaborative work. A pre-post design was utilized such that surveys measuring grit and…

The in-between space ignites learning as individuals journey from dependence on the institution to independence from the institution. This space has hitherto been holistically undefined in the context of higher arts education. The study aims to explore such experiences within the lifeworld of student scholars in the fields of arts and design.…

Trainee psychologists, like those completing a postgraduate master's programmes are vulnerable to experiencing impostorism. To help assess this risk and develop intervention strategies, there is a need for a brief validated measure of impostorism. The Leary Impostorism Scale (LIS) is a brief self-report measure that demonstrates satisfactory…

By teaching students about the concept of growth mindset and ways to cultivate it, teachers can enhance students' academic progress. This article offers concrete ideas to help teachers foster the growth mindset explicitly among their students. The lesson is flexible and can be applied to all levels.

Educational outcomes remain highly unequal within and across nations. Students' mindsets--their beliefs about whether intellectual abilities can be developed--have been identified as a potential lever for making adolescents' academic outcomes more equitable. Recent research, however, suggests that intervention programs aimed at changing students'…

In this longitudinal qualitative study I explored the development of self-authorship among 21 student affairs master's candidates at 2 institutions. The findings suggest that growth, regression, and stasis in newcomers' developmental capacities for self-authorship occurred as they matriculated, and that these developmental trajectories reflected…

This paper explores the intersection of feminism and service-learning by describing the creation of a women's studies course for girls attending an alternative high school. In the course participants could critique sexist practices in the media and in the school, as well as establish cultural competence through engaging in service projects that…

Sports are popular across the nation and youth sport participation is at an all-time high, yet children are quitting youth sports at an alarming rate. If this trend is going to change, several areas of concern must be addressed. The climate created on youth teams can be polarizing, having the potential for significant positive or negative…

Student affairs professionals seek innovative methods to enhance academic achievement for students. A recent study highlighted the need to bridge student development work with course curricula (Kilpatrick, Stant, Downes, & Gaither, 2008). This study also linked the importance of nonacademic cognitive variables, such as locus of control, to…

Locus of control (LOC) is a dimensional construct representing the degree to which individuals perceive reinforcing events in their lives to be the result of their own actions (an "internal" LOC) or fate (an "external" LOC). LOC is meaningfully related to several variables associated with academic achievement. Specifically, high scoring students…

Evaluated an assertion training program for adolescents (N=23) in a middle-school setting. Results showed the group who received the training significantly improved their scores on the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale and the Intellectual Achievement Responsibility Questionnaire. The control group showed no change in their scores. (JAC)

Examines three major reasons why individuals shirk responsibility: feelings of powerlessness (external locus of control), belief in a systems world (society as self-regulating balance of objective forces), and consequences of extreme introversion or extraversion. Discusses the role of education in fostering development of student attitudes and…

This study, with 87 underachieving and 77 achieving gifted students in grades 6-9, found that general locus of control measures did not differentiate between the 2 groups, that both scored significantly higher on positive internal than on negative internal locus of control, and that there were no gender or grade effects. (Author/DB)

Investigates relationships between adolescents' perceptions of their parents' responsiveness and demandingness, locus-of-control orientation, and self-concept rating with students in eighth and ninth grades (N=198). Findings indicate authoritative style of parenting may contribute to development of self-adequacy by being associated with internal…

Attributional retraining, the restructuring of an individual's explanations for events in his environment, is proposed as one method of enhancing college student motivation and achievement, particularly for high-risk students. Drawing on previous research and theory, the most promising strategies for using attributional retraining with this…