Effect of Intelligence Mindsets on Math Achievement for Chinese Primary School Students: Math Self-Efficacy and Failure Beliefs as Mediators

Mindset matters: contributions from grit and growth mindsets to successful aging

OBJECTIVE

Though we all age, some age more successfully than others. Health and social connections have been identified as cornerstones to successful aging, yet the contributions from psychological factors are less clear. Our goal was to examine the influence of grit and growth mindset in successful aging in middle and older age. We also assessed whether grit or growth mindset mediated the lifestyle-successful aging relationship.

METHOD

We used a telephone questionnaire to measure grit and growth mindset, successful aging, and lifestyle for 263 adults, ages 40-80 years.

RESULTS

Higher grit-effort and growth mindset predicted more successful aging in younger (40-64 years) and older groups (65-80 years). Additionally, exercise frequency predicted successful aging for the combined sample and partially mediated the relationship between growth mindset and successful aging.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings reveal grit-effort and a growth mindset as important contributors to successful aging in middle and older adulthood. Because psychological constructs are malleable, continued study of grit and growth mindsets is essential to enable their eventual application in changing the aging process.

The effect of parenting styles on Chinese undergraduate nursing students' academic procrastination: the mediating role of causal attribution and self-efficacy

Background

Academic procrastination is common among college students, but there is a lack of research on the influencing mechanism of academic procrastination among nursing students. The purpose of this study was to explore the influence of parental rearing patterns on academic procrastination of nursing students, and the mediating role of causal attribution and self-efficacy.

Methods

Using Parental Bonding Instrument, Aitken Procrastination Inventory, Multidimensional Multi-Attribution Causality Scale and General Self-Efficiency Scale, the data of 683 nursing undergraduates from two universities in China were collected. Moreover, path analysis for structural equation modeling via AMOS 26.0 to evaluate mediation path model.

Results

Positive parenting style was negatively associated with academic procrastination (r = -0.350) and negative parenting style was positively associated with academic procrastination (r = 0.402). Positive parenting style directly or indirectly predicted academic procrastination through the mediating effect of internal attributional style (β = -0.10, 95% CI: -0.18 to -0.04) and self-efficacy (β = -0.07, 95% CI: -0.11 to -0.03), and this mediating effect accounted for 41.46% of the total effect. Positive parenting style directly or indirectly predicted academic delay through the mediating effect of external attributional style (β = 0.12, 95% CI: 0.07 to 0.17) and self-efficacy (β = 0.05, 95% CI: 0.03 to 0.08), and this mediating effect accounted for 42.5% of the total effect. In addition, causal attribution and self-efficacy of nursing students play a chain intermediary role between parenting style and academic procrastination.

Conclusion

Parents should give students more care and autonomy and reduce control. In addition, educators should give students attribution training, which is helpful to improve students' self-efficacy and reduce academic procrastination.

Longitudinal Links Between Parental Failure Mindsets, Helicopter Parenting, and Fixed Mindset of Intelligence in Adolescents

Evidence for the prospective associations among parental failure mindset, helicopter parenting, and children's intelligence mindset is lacking. This three-wave longitudinal study (12 months apart between waves) addressed this research gap by testing whether perceived maternal helicopter parenting mediated the link between perceived maternal failure mindset and intelligence mindset. Participants included 525 Chinese adolescents (47.2% girls, M_age = 15.41 years, SD = 0.22). Random-intercept cross-lagged analysis suggests that mothers with stronger failure-is-debilitating mindsets are more likely to engage in helicopter parenting, which may in turn contribute to stronger endorsements of a fixed mindset of intelligence in their adolescent children. The relation between maternal helicopter parenting and children's intelligence mindset appeared to be reciprocal, i.e., children's fixed mindset may elicit more helicopter parenting over time.

The mediating effect of math self-efficacy on the relationship between parenting style and math anxiety

The present study aims to investigate the associations among math self-efficacy, parenting style, and math anxiety in primary school children. The sample comprised 400 participants, aged between 10 and 11 years old, from an elementary school in China. Participants completed three self-reported questionnaires on math anxiety, parenting styles and math self-efficacy. The results revealed that rejection was strongly and positively correlated with math anxiety, while emotional warmth was negatively related to math anxiety. Interestingly, math anxiety was found to be related to rejection, with math self-efficacy playing a mediating role in this relationship. Conversely, math self-efficacy played a mediating role in the relationship between parenting styles and math anxiety, while over protection exhibited no significant correlation with math anxiety. The study also showed that gender differences existed in the level of math anxiety and math self-efficacy, with boys exhibiting lower math anxiety and higher math self-efficacy than girls. These results provide important insights into the development and treatment of math anxiety in primary school children. Specifically, parents and educators should focus on enhancing children's math self-efficacy beliefs, while adopting a parenting style characterized by emotional warmth and low levels of rejection.

How growth mindset influences mathematics achievements: A study of Chinese middle school students

Introduction

It has been suggested that students with growth mindsets are more likely to achieve better mathematics learning results than their counterparts with fixed mindsets. However, inconsistent and some even contradictory results have been reported in recent studies which examined the associations between growth mindset and mathematics achievements, suggesting the complexity regarding the effects of growth mindset on academic achievements.

Methods

This study aims to examine students' growth mindsets, failure attributions, intrinsic motivation, mathematics self-efficacy, mathematics anxiety and mathematics achievements in one model to capture the sophisticated functioning processes of growth mindset. A total number of 266 middle school students in China participated in this study. Students' mindset and related variables (i.e.,motivations to learn mathematics, attributions of failure in mathematics, mathematics anxiety, mathematics self-efficacy) were measured at year 7, the first year of junior middle school in China. These students' mathematics learning outcomes were tracked from year 7 to year 9, the end of junior middle school. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to investigate the relations among students' growth mindsets, failure attributions, intrinsic motivation, mathematics self-efficacy, mathematics anxiety and mathematics achievements.

Results

The results show that: (1) growth mindset doesn't directly predict mathematics achievements; (2) growth mindset indirectly influences mathematics achievements through intrinsic motivation; (3) failure attributions and mathematics self-efficacy sequentially mediate the association between growth mindset mathematics achievements; (4) failure attributions and mathematics anxiety sequentially mediate the relationship between growth mindset mathematics achievements.

Discussion

The results of this study contribute a better understanding about how growth mindsets make impacts on middle school students' mathematics achievements. These findings have important implications for mathematics education in that we could not simply cultivate students' growth mindset in schools with expectations of higher mathematics learning outcomes. Instead, along with the growth mindset intervention, it is fundamental to make interventions on students' intrinsic motivation, failure attribution, mathematics self-efficacy, and mathematics anxiety in mathematics teaching and learning.

The Impact of Parents' Intelligence Mindset on Math Anxiety of Boys and Girls and the Role of Parents' Failure Beliefs and Evaluation of Child's Math Performance as Mediators

This study aimed to examine the relationship between parents' intelligence mindset and children's math anxiety and the mediating role of parents' failure mindset and evaluations of their child's math performance. A total of 419 Chinese students (196 boys and 223 girls) and their parents were recruited to complete a series of questionnaires on topics such as math anxiety, parent's failure mindset, parent's intelligence mindset, and parents' evaluations of their child's mathematical performance. The results revealed that parents' intelligence mindset was not correlated with children's math anxiety. However, parents' intelligence mindset indirectly predicted children's math anxiety through the chain-mediated role of parents' failure beliefs and parents' evaluations of their child's math performance. Further, sex differences were found through a multigroup analysis, which showed a chain-mediated effect between parents' intelligence mindset and girls' math anxiety.