This study examines students' perceptions of personal growth by applying growth mindset principles through a grounded theory approach. Using qualitative data collected from interviews, the research focuses on beliefs about effort, responses to failure, feedback, and the malleability of intelligence. A theoretical sampling strategy, integral to…

This study was the first to investigate the prospective effects of failure mindsets on implicit theories of intelligence (ITI), whose profound effects on learning, motivation, and academic achievement have found increasing support. Participants were 240 Chinese university students (180 females, M[subscript age] = 19.13) who completed a baseline…

Failure can be an effective tool for learning, but it comes with negative consequences. Educators and learners should practice strategies that leverage the benefits of failure while managing its negative consequences on learners' motivation and persistence. Towards that goal, this paper examines the biological effects of failure on learning to (1)…

Currently, in traditional higher education courses, the design of failure and its perceived and applied consequences have created an atmosphere of learning where students are often afraid to explore, try, and engage. Furthermore, when the same students do attempt goals and are met with failure, they are often dejected and demotivated. Yet, the…

In academic contexts, failure, as compared to success, is likely to threaten self-esteem and thus, to increase the risk of psychological disengagement from one's studies. The goal of the present research is to examine whether belief in school meritocracy (BSM) increases (vs. decreases) the effect of academic performance on self-esteem and…

Students face frequent formal and informal tests, both in the academic context and social life. On each of these occasions, they risk falling short of their own or others' expectations. Facing failure is a psychological challenge, and people can react with defensive strategies, which may have negative consequences. Here we investigated the role of…

Lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, through trial and error and sharing stories of successes and failures, have resulted in progress in the quest to resume what we refer to as normal or regular college life for students, faculty, and staff. However, it is doubtful that we will ever get back to the exact same situation that we were in…

Background and Context: Productive failure (PF) is a learning paradigm that flips the order of instruction: students work on a problem, then receive a lesson. PF increases learning, but less is known about student emotions and collaboration during PF, particularly in a computer science context. Objective: To provide insight on students' emotions…

Athletic buoyancy is the ability to handle everyday challenges in sports, though little research has been conducted. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine intrapersonal and interpersonal factors related to athletic buoyancy, as well as a potential outcome variable. Collegiate club sport athletes (N = 239) completed a questionnaire…

This research attempts to measure the direct and moderated influence of entrepreneurial passion (EP), motivation (EM) and creativity (EC) on intention (EI) while being moderated by entrepreneurship education (EE). This study also instrumentalizes the conditional interaction effect of fear of failure on the moderated paths. A data sample of 1090…

Background: Encouraging students to adopt a mastery goal orientation can help increase learning and motivation. However, the effect of mastery goal orientation interventions specifically in upper-division online elective psychology courses has not been studied. Objective: The purpose of this replication study was to examine the effects of a…

Low completion rates amongst students from Black working-class backgrounds remain a persistent challenge to post-apartheid university transformation in South Africa. Notions of universities as colour-blind, meritocratic, and post-racial have developed around a deficit and victim-blaming majoritarian narrative that individualises educational…

This dissertation examines how the recent rise in college going for young people from low-income families in the United States has shaped processes that reproduce poverty. Drawing on 2,400 hours of ethnographic fieldwork conducted over 25 months with eight young Black men in New Orleans, the study provides an in-depth look at the experience of…

Mistakes occur frequently in mathematics. Reframing mistakes into positive moments can be psychologically important in a student's educational journey. We investigated two tertiary math classes that explicitly valued mistakes through a pedagogical requirement called "productive failure". For a percentage of their grade, students…

Unscaffolded problem-solving before receiving instruction can give students opportunities to entertain their exploratory hypotheses at the expense of experiencing initial failures. Prior literature has argued for the efficacy of such preparatory activities in preparing students to learn from instruction. Despite growing understanding of the…