About this srcd poster session

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Panel information
Panel 23. Social, Emotional, Personality

Abstract

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Students’ views about the nature of ability can shape their motivation and achievement in school (Blackwell et al., 2007). These views can concern different properties of ability, such as its malleability, universality (distribution in the population), importance for success, origins, and responsiveness to intervention. Among adults, these nuanced beliefs are empirically distinct and linked with processes involved in achievement motivation. Past studies have examined only some of these beliefs separately among children. However, the extent to which these beliefs represent a network of distinct, coherent, and motivationally relevant beliefs is not yet clear. Do young children hold and understand nuanced beliefs about the nature of ability? And if so, do these beliefs relate to children’s achievement-related attitudes and behavior?

Five- to 11-year-old children (n = 231; 116 girls; Mage = 8.54) recruited from the US and Canada were asked to rate their agreement with different statements concerning five properties of intellectual ability (malleability, universality, importance for success, origins, and responsiveness to intervention). Children also completed measures tapping their learning goals (vs. performance goals), challenge-seeking behavior, and evaluative concern.

We first tested the structure and coherence of children’s beliefs about ability’s malleability, universality, importance for success, origins, and responsiveness to intervention. With respect to structure, results of confirmatory factor analyses indicated that a five-factor model fit the data well: χ²(63) = 78.73, p = .087; RMSEA = .033; TLI = .98, CFI = .98; SRMR = .038. This suggests that children’s beliefs exhibit a structure in which the malleability of ability, its universality, importance for success, origins, and responsiveness to intervention are represented by separate underlying dimensions. With respect to coherence, among both younger and older children, the five belief dimensions exhibited a small-to-medium level of concordance: |r| = .30. Children who thought that ability was malleable also tended to think it was universal, acquired, and that high levels were less important for school success.

Next, we tested whether these beliefs are involved in motivational processes by examining each component belief’s unique contribution to children’s goals, challenge-seeking, and evaluative concern. Results of a path model suggested that several of these beliefs were linked to children’s achievement-related attitudes and behavior in theoretically expected ways. Specifically, children who believed that ability is malleable oriented toward learning goals (rather than performance goals; β = 0.16, p = .022) and opted for more challenging tasks (β = 0.18, p = .015); children who believed ability stems from innate sources oriented toward performance goals (rather than learning goals) (β = −0.16, p = .014); children who thought high levels of ability (i.e., brilliance) are required for success in school had higher levels of evaluative concern (fear that mistakes might prompt others to judge the self negatively) (β = 0.21, p = .013).

In summary, children’s views about the nature of intellectual ability comprise a coherent, multidimensional network of beliefs; several of these beliefs were linked with processes involved in achievement motivation. Together, these findings suggest that even young children hold surprisingly sophisticated, motivationally active ability representations.

Author information

Author	Role
Melis Muradoglu, Stanford University	Presenting author
Bethany Lassetter, New York University	Non-presenting author
Madison N. Sewell, Williams College	Non-presenting author
Lenna Ontai, University of California, Davis	Non-presenting author
Christopher M. Napolitano, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	Non-presenting author
Carol Dweck, Stanford University	Non-presenting author
Kali Trzesniewski, University of California, Davis	Non-presenting author
Andrei Cimpian, New York University	Non-presenting author

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