Mindset Theory: Pre-service Teachers’ Beliefs About Intelligence and Corresponding Pedagogical Decisions

This replication study explored the relationships between pre-service teachers’ intelligence beliefs and their expectations for students’ future success, inferences about student ability, and election of pedagogical practices in mathematics. After learning of one failing test score, participants self-reported how they might respond to a struggling male student. The quantitative study used a series of four individual surveys obtained during the participants’ (N = 45) final semester of student teaching. Linear regression analyses were conducted to determine the relationship between theory of intelligence and teacher expectations, perceptions, and instructional elections. Results from this study indicate that pre-service teachers’ entity beliefs are related to their pedagogical decisions. The findings of this study may support teacher education programs when making curricula decisions as addressing intelligence beliefs in conjunction with methods and philosophies of education may increase student motivation and continued engagement in the STEM fields