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  • Open Access

Prevalence of a growth mindset among introductory astronomy students

Moire K. M. Prescott*

Laura Madson

Sandra M. Way

Kelly N. Sanderson

  • Department of Astronomy, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003, USA

  • Department of Psychology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003, USA

  • Department of Sociology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003, USA

  • Department of Astronomy, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003, USA

  • *mkpresco@nmsu.edu
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Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 20, 010140 – Published 10 May, 2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.20.010140

Abstract

While many previous studies have indicated that encouraging a growth mindset can improve student learning outcomes, this conclusion’s applicability to college-level astronomy classrooms remains poorly understood owing to the variation in students’ overall and domain-specific learning attitudes. To address this, we surveyed undergraduate students in an introductory astronomy class about their attitudes towards learning astronomy over the course of five semesters. Overall, students felt an affinity for astronomy, felt moderately competent, perceived astronomy to be intermediate in terms of difficulty, and agreed strongly with standard statements reflecting a “growth mindset,” i.e., the belief that intelligence is malleable rather than fixed from birth. Their responses were stable over the course of the semester and did not appear to depend strongly on student demographics. The unexpected start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated shift to all-virtual learning correlated with a drop in their affinity for astronomy, a small decrease in their perceived competence, and an increase in the perceived difficulty of the topic. Their overall learning mindset showed negligible change during this time, emphasizing the stability of their belief in a growth mindset as compared to other measured learning attitudes. However, more nuanced questions about their behaviors and interpretations in the classroom, about how they felt “in the moment,” and about what factors were most important for their success in the class revealed significantly lower alignment with a growth mindset. This suggests that while introductory astronomy students may believe that they have a growth mindset, this mindset is not necessarily reflected in their self-reported classroom behaviors or measured responses to actual learning challenges.

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Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 20, 010140– Published 10 May, 2024
  • Received 15 September 2023
  • Accepted 2 April 2024
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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