Academic Achievement

Academic Achievement

Academic achievement is a marker of positive adjustment during adolescence and sets the stage for future educational and occupational opportunities. It can be defined as reaching, or even exceeding, the goals of a curriculum and improving academically (Ozcan, 2021). The most serious consequence of school failure, particularly dropping out of school, is a high risk of unemployment or underemployment in adulthood.

Many people, including psychologists, equate intelligence with the successful completion of academically related tasks. The first ever intelligence test, the Binet-Simon test, was specifically created to identify French students who may struggle with the curriculum in French schools (Binet & Simon, 1915). So, do those with high IQ scores have a natural advantage to do well in academic settings? Not necessarily. While general intelligence can be a good predictor of academic achievement, there are other environmental and personal factors that affect it (Lozano-Blasco et al., 2022).

Factors Affecting Academic Achievement

Interpersonal relationships are the socially and emotionally fulfilling connections made between people. For students, this is their family, friends, teachers, and coaches. The support and engagement that a child receives for their education impacts how well they will do academically (Ozcan, 2021). If the people involved in a child’s life value education, that child is more likely to value it as well (Zhang, 2022). However, too much pressure to perform well academically, especially from parents, can have adverse effects on a child’s mental health (Deb et al., 2015).

The institutional environment plays a role in academic achievement as well. The funding that the school receives, the way material is taught, the quality of the social atmosphere, and the perceived safety of the students all contribute to a school’s climate (Darling-Hammond & DePaoli, 2020; Nisar et al., 2017). An overall positive school climate is one that supports learning. Students who attend schools with a good climate have better study habits and higher academic achievement compared to those at schools with a poorer climate (Nisar et al., 2017)

Intrapersonal factors are those that come from within an individual. For academic achievement, this can be attitudes towards education, self-management strategies, adaptability, and personal identity (Amir et al., 2021; Okwuduba et al., 2021).

One interesting phenomenon that has received research scrutiny is the idea of stereotype threat. Stereotype threat is the idea that mental access to a particular stereotype can have real-world impact on a member of the stereotyped group. In one study (Spencer et al., 1999), for example, women who were informed that women tend to fare poorly on math exams just before taking a math test actually performed worse relative to a control group who did not hear the stereotype. Research on stereotype has yielded mixed results (e.g., Agnoli et al, 2021) and we are currently uncertain about exactly how and when this effect might occur. One possible antidote to stereotype threat, at least in the case of women, is to make a self-affirmation (such as listing positive personal qualities) before the threat occurs. In one study, for instance, Martens and her colleagues (2006) had women write about personal qualities that they valued before taking a math test. The affirmation largely erased the effect of stereotype by improving math scores for women relative to a control group but similar affirmations had little effect for men (Martens et al., 2006).

The Pygmalion effect refers to the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people (often children or students and employees) the better they perform. The Pygmalion effect was famously applied to the classroom in the Rosenthal (1968) study. In this study, Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson showed that if teachers were led to expect enhanced performance from some children, then the children did indeed show that enhancement. This influence can be beneficial as well as detrimental depending on which label an individual is assigned. The purpose of their study was to support the hypothesis that reality can be influenced by the expectations of others. Rosenthal posited that biased expectancies can essentially affect reality and create self-fulfilling prophecies as a result. In this experiment, Rosenthal predicted that, when given the information that certain students had higher IQs than others, elementary school teachers may unconsciously behave in ways that facilitate and encourage the students’ success.

One of the biggest contributors to a student’s academic achievement is their mindset.

Mindset

Mindsets (the power of people’s beliefs) are ways in which we formulate our thoughts about our abilities, relationships, and personality that influences our behaviors and how we feel. Students with a fixed mindset believe that their own intelligence and talent are innate traits that don’t change. For example, they might say, “I just can’t learn math.” These students typically worry about not looking smart, get upset by mistakes, and give up sooner on tough tasks. With this mindset, people are more likely to attribute their successes to natural talent. Appearing smart, rather than learning, is more highly valued with this type of mindset in education and in the workplace.

Students with a growth mindset believe that ability can change as a result of effort, perseverance, and practice. They frequently say, “Math is hard, but if I keep trying, I can get better at it.” Students with a growth mindset see mistakes as ways to learn, embrace challenges, and persist in the face of setbacks (Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck 2007). With a growth mindset, a person is more likely to believe that their successes are achieved through determination and hard work, the use of good strategies, and feedback from others. In education and the workplace, learning, rather than appearing smart, is more highly valued with this type of mindset (Dweck, 2006; Dweck 2016).

In an interview for OneDublin.org (Morehead, 2012), Dweck, defined both fixed and growth mindsets:

“In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that’s that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don’t necessarily think everyone’s the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it.”

A large part of Dweck’s research on mindsets has been done in the field of education, and how these mindsets affect a student’s performance in the classroom. The growth mindset is clearly the more desirable of the two for students. According to Dweck, individuals with a “growth” theory are more likely to continue working hard despite setbacks. Individuals’ theories of intelligence can be affected by subtle environmental cues. For example, children given praise such as “good job, you’re very smart” are much more likely to develop a fixed mindset, whereas if given compliments like “good job, you worked very hard” they are likely to develop a growth mindset.

Video 8.3: Mindset

While elements of our personality – such as sensitivity to mistakes and setbacks – can make us predisposed towards holding a certain mindset, we are able to develop and reshape our mindset through our interactions (Aldhous, 2008). In multiple studies, Carol Dweck and her colleagues noted that alterations in mindset could be achieved through “praising the process through which success was achieved” (Cimpian, Aree, Markman, & Dweck, 2007), “having [college aged students] read compelling scientific articles that support one view or the other” (Aldhous, 2008), or teaching junior high school students “that every time they try hard and learn something new, their brain forms new connections that, over time, make them smarter” (Dweck, 2007). These studies all demonstrate how framing and discussing students’ work and effort play a considerable role in the type of mindset students develop and students’ conceptions of their own ability.

Dweck and Jo Boaler have done extensive research on the topics of fixed and growth mindset. However, studies on mindset depict results that show that there is a disparity in the fixed and growth mindsets of female and male students. In Boaler’s (2013) research, she notes that fixed mindset beliefs lead to inequalities in education and are a main reason for low achievement and participation amongst minorities and female students. Many women feel as though they are not smart enough nor capable enough to continue in certain subjects, such as STEM areas of academia, stating that, “gender differences in mathematics performance only existed among fixed mindset students” (Boaler, 2013).

Dweck’s research and theory of growth and fixed mindsets has been useful in intervention strategies with at risk students, dispelling negative stereotypes in education held by teachers and students, understanding the impacts of self-theories on resilience, and understanding how process praise can foster a growth mindset and positively impact students’ motivation levels (Veronikas and Shaughnessy, 2004). What students believe about their own intelligence can affect their effort, engagement, motivation, and achievement as measured by test scores, school grades, passing rate in post-secondary education, and other metrics (Aronson, Fried, & Good, 2002; Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck 2007; Dweck, Walton, & Cohen, 2011; Yeager, Walton, & Cohen, 2013).

Why This Matters: A growth mindset may contribute to better grades in school and a willingness to take on new challenges

1. Lower Failure Rates: Low-achieving students at 13 California high schools failed 7% fewer courses and improved their GPAs by .18 grade points after a one-period class designed to boost growth mindset (Yeager, Walton, & Cohen, 2013).
2. Improved Scores: When a group of struggling 7th grade students in New York City learned to 1) think of their brains as muscles that grow with exercise and 2) visualize new connections developing within their brains, their motivation and math scores improved at a time when math achievement typically declines (Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck 2007).
3. Increased Effort: Seventh-grade students receiving growth-mindset feedback (“I’m giving you these comments because I have high standards and know that you can meet them.”) were twice as likely to revise and resubmit an assignment compared to students who received generic feedback (Yeager, Walton, & Cohen, 2013).
4. More Problems Solved: Students who saw a growth mindset-related message (e.g., “When you learn a new kind of math problem, you grow your math brain!”) correctly solved 3-5% more online math problems compared to those who didn’t see growth mindset-related messages. The effect carried over to the next math topic the students tackled (Yeager, Walton, & Cohen, 2013).

Students with a fixed mindset often do not realize that they can change their mindset and settle with an attitude that they cannot do better. But with a growth mind set attitude students can do anything they want as long as they work hard and consistent until they reach their goals (Figure 3.5).

Grit

According to Angela Duckworth, author of “GRIT,” grit is a combination of passion and perseverance used to achieve a long-term, challenging goal. For some, GRIT can be thought of as a combination of guts (courage), resilience (flexibility), initiative (taking action) and tenacity (refusal to give up).

The concept of grit, originally articulated by Duckworth et al. (2007), has developed and expanded in parallel with the field of positive psychology. Indeed Seligman (2011) in his major textbook “Flourish,” devoted an entire chapter to the concept. Of course, further research will either lead to the consolidation of the importance of grit, or will suggest there are other more important constructs, such as the longer established concept of resilience (Werner, 1996). In this section, we will look more in depth at the concept of GRIT.

Video 8.4 Grit

One of the pillars of Psychology has been research into intelligence, which has looked at both theoretical and applied aspects of grit. For example, individuals of an equal or lesser IQ were consistently outperforming their “more intelligent” counterparts (Duckworth et al., 2007). Indeed, in many cases, individuals with a lower or average IQ were achieving higher qualifications, obtaining more influential job roles and receiving a higher income (Duckworth et al., 2007).

Subsequently, there was a shift in research focus toward the importance of non-cognitive traits and factors in predicting and measuring achievement and success. Although the concepts such as perseverance, mindsets and goal driven behaviors which are identified to be non-cognitive traits were studied earlier in the field of education (Londoner, 1972; Levy & Dweck, 1998). A greater focus on the importance of these non-cognitive traits in this field was made popular by Angela Duckworth, who was mainly concerned with the concept of grit. This can be divided into two sub-components; perseverance of effort and consistency of interest and the importance of fostering grit to enhance personal achievement and success.

Duckworth et al. (2007, pp. 1087–1088) states that grit involves “working strenuously towards challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity, and plateaus in progress.” Also, Duckworth stresses the importance of stamina in grit, and describes a “gritty” individual as somebody who treats their success and achievement as a marathon, rather than a sprint. Prior to Duckworth developing her research into non-cognitive predictors of academic success, educational research had focused on the more traditional measures of academic outcomes and less focus into non-cognitive traits. Thus, the research of Duckworth generated a shift in research focus into predominantly considering non-cognitive traits, such as grit, that showed an individual’s character was much more influential to their academic success.

Throughout the last decade of research into the construct of grit and its many applications, it has been recorded that there are certain demographic differences in grit. Certain individuals are said to be more likely to develop grit and persevere in the face of adversity. Grit has been shown to correlate with gender (Flaming and Granato, 2017), with females scoring higher in grit than their male counterparts (Jaeger et al., 2010; Christensen & Knezek, 2014; Aswini and Amrita, 2017), and age (Cupitt and Golshan, 2015).

Grit has been posited as a highly influential construct linked to academic success and achievement. It has been found that grit is associated with academic productivity and engagement (Hodge et al., 2017); academic motivation (Eskreis-Winkler et al., 2014); academic achievement (Pate et al., 2017); perseverance in challenging tasks (Lucas et al., 2015); academic performance (Kelly et al., 2014); amount of hours studying (Cross, 2014); learning strategies (Weisskirch, 2016); task values and goal orientation (Muenks et al., 2017, 2018); the pursuit and attainment of postgraduate training (Palisoc et al., 2017), and the retention of students (Crede et al., 2017). However, there are also some studies suggesting that grit is not a predictor of academic achievement and performance (Ivcevic and Brackett, 2014; Bazelais et al., 2016; Muenks et al., 2017; Palisoc et al., 2017).

Perhaps not surprisingly in a time of major neuroscientific advance, recent research has also revealed an association between grit and personal achievement linked to the brain activation of a specific area of the brain. The neural substrate for grit has been identified as being located in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC), the region also said to be responsible for concepts such as self-regulation, planning, goal-setting, and reflection of past experiences (Wang et al., 2017). However, this structural knowledge regarding the neural basis of grit should not discourage the idea that grit is a construct that can be fostered and built upon.

A growth mindset has been strongly associated with the presence of grit in individuals (Hochanadel and Finamore, 2015) and an academic environment that promotes growth is likely to foster gritty students who will learn to persist through challenges (Duckworth et al., 2007; Hochanadel and Finamore, 2015). As you have read, there are many benefits to possessing grit and developing a growth mindset.