The implicit and the explicit: the impact of teaching academic mindsets and reading strategies on beginning college learners' reading comprehension

Wong, Carol A.The transition to college may present beginning college learners with novel academic opportunities and challenges, including the requirement to learn independently from complex college-level texts. Several achievement motivation factors may play a role in explaining differences in beginning college learners’ use of deep-level reading comprehension strategies to comprehend complex college-level texts. This study examined Dweck’s (1999) theoretical model of implicit beliefs about intelligence by employing an experimental design to examine whether teaching a growth mindset to beginning college learners prior to providing explicit reading comprehension strategy instruction impacted beliefs about their own intelligence, motivational beliefs, reading comprehension strategy use, and reading comprehension. Prior research indicates that maintaining a growth mindset about intelligence contributes to higher self-efficacy beliefs and mastery-approach oriented achievement goals, which are believed to positively influence strategic processes. Prior research also suggests that self-efficacy beliefs and mastery-approach goals may have a positive impact on achievement outcomes through the mediation of deep-level strategic processes. The results of this study are not consistent with Dweck’s (1999) theoretical model. Mastery-approach goals had a suppression effect on the direct relationship between learners’ incremental beliefs and use of reading comprehension strategies. Also, in comparison to the control group, learners in the growth-mindset treatment group did not experience the anticipated positive changes in their pattern of achievement goal adoption, strategy use, or reading comprehension. The results showed that the patterns of motivational beliefs and achievement outcomes were in the opposite direction of the predictions. The findings of this research indicate that there is variability in the ways that intelligence and motivational beliefs interact to impact strategic behaviors and learner outcomes. In addition, the findings highlight the need for examining the influential role of learners’ experiences within learning environments at both the course and institutional level. Limitations of the study, including the significant loss of power for inferential tests, are also discussed.University of Delaware, School of EducationPh.D