Promoting a Growth Mindset in CS1: Does One Size Fit All? A Pilot Study

This paper describes a pilot intervention conducted in CS1, in the academic year of 2016-2017. The intervention was based on the work of Dweck, promoting a growth Mindset in an effort to increase performance in introductory programming. The study also examined data from a previous year (as a control group) to compare and contrast the results. Multiple factors related to programming performance were recorded with the control and treatment group, which were measured at multiple intervals throughout the course, to monitor changes as the pilot intervention was implemented. This study found a significant increase in programming performance when the intervention was deployed. However, although performance increased for the treatment group, the average Mindset did not significantly change towards a growth Mindset (replicating the findings of Cutts et al, 2010). To further explore this finding, a preliminary deeper investigation using k-means clustering was carried out. The investigation found that the intervention promoted a growth Mindset for some student profiles and a fixed Mindset for others. This finding is important for educators considering intervention development or implementation of Mindset, and demonstrates that a Mindset intervention may not be suitable for all learners.