![\"mindset-table\"](\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fyswns7\/files\/2015\/09\/mindset-table-300x169.png\")
<\/p>\nCarol Dweck\u2019s essay \u201cIs Math a Gift? Beliefs That Put Females at Risk\u201d explains the research that suggests the approach to intellectual ability as a gift leaves women vulnerable to discouragement from the challenges of math and science. Dweck\u2019s study with Licht in 1984 showed that girls in fifth grade, who had not yet been exposed to the stereotypes of females\u2019 math abilities, were not able to cope with new confusing material. Although they were bright girls earning higher grades than boys, they were unable to learn after encountering the confusing setback, while the boys were much successful and \u201cenergized\u201d by the confusion. Her later research demonstrated the girls were affected in this way because they viewed intelligence as a fixed entity, so they lost their motivation from the setbacks because their confusion signaled that they did not have this \u201cgift.\u201d When female students believe their intelligence can be expanded, there is almost no gender gap in performance, as exhibited in Dweck and Grant\u2019s study of first year students at Columbia University in 2003.<\/p>\n
Dweck wanted to reverse this issue so she researched how to give women more lasting confidence. She starts by countering the assumption than praising students\u2019 abilities is the obvious solution. Her research with Mueller in 1998 demonstrated that praise actually just reinforces that intelligence in a gift and makes students resistant to taking on challenges where they could make mistakes. Instead, women need to be taught the \u201cnature of ability\u201d as capable of growth. To accomplish this, she designed an intervention that taught a group of students that skills can be developed, which was successful in significantly increasing the math grades over the control group that was not exposed to this way of thinking. She concluded that \u201clearning intellectual skills could be acquired – rather than simply bestowed as a gift – led to important gains in female students\u2019 math achievement.\u201d She stresses the messages that underly teaching really do matter and the can be adjusted to allow females to reach their full potential.<\/p>\n
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(picture source:\u00a0http:\/\/trainugly.com\/mindset-makers-breakers-pt1\/)<\/p>\n
As I read this chapter, I almost felt inspired by Dweck\u2019s findings. I agree with her idea \u201cthere is no genius, no great contributions, without great effort.\u201d All of Dweck\u2019s research comes back to the idea of the entity versus incremental theories of intelligence. When women see their learning from an entity theorist\u2019s perspective, they fall vulnerable to the setbacks of challenges and worry their fixed capabilities are not enough to allow them to be successful. When women see their learning from an incremental theorist\u2019s perspective, they are less phased by setbacks and have the believe that they can increase their learning and persevere through an obstacle. This was discussed in the first essay with the contrasting test scores of Japan and the United States (Valian, pg. 29). Our education system in the U.S acts as an entity theorist, while Japan acts as an incremental theorist. It is not surprising that Japan has the higher scores no matter gender since they are teaching their students with the messages that they can improve their intelligence and should embrace challenges for growth. I think I could attribute my success in high school to my dedication to hard work and attitude that my effort would earn my grades, not any inherent ability. I am very self motivated, but I could easily see how that motivation would disappear if I thought my efforts did not matter and my success had been predetermined by the \u201cgifts\u201d with which I was born.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Carol Dweck\u2019s essay \u201cIs Math a Gift? Beliefs That Put Females at Risk\u201d explains the research that suggests the approach to intellectual ability as a gift leaves women vulnerable to discouragement from the challenges of math and science. Dweck\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29790,29798],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2015","category-student-blogs","column","twocol"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fyswomeninscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fyswomeninscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fyswomeninscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fyswomeninscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fyswomeninscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fyswomeninscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1276,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fyswomeninscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580\/revisions\/1276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fyswomeninscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fyswomeninscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fyswomeninscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}