A CORRELATIONAL STUDY OF SELF-EFFICACY AND MINDSET: BUILDING GROWTH MINDSET THROUGH MASTERY EXPERIENCE AND EFFORT-BASED VERBAL PERSUASION

Abstract

Growth mindset and self-efficacy are two important characteristics to help learners in the 21st century constantly develop themselves to become more skillful and to be confident in their own ability to accomplish certain tasks. It is hypothesised in this study that these two are theoretically associated in that mastery experience and verbal persuasion (both form one’s self-efficacy) play essential roles in the development of one’s mindset. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence to show their statistical correlations. Therefore, this quantitative study is set to explore such relationships. An online survey using 18 closed-ended items based on a 5-Likert scale with 206 high school respondents was carried out. Correlation tests revealed that the theoretical assumption was valid from a statistical point of view. There were weak positive correlations between growth mindset and mastery experience (r = 0.3), growth mindset and verbal persuasion focused on effort (r = 0.4), as well as mastery experience and verbal persuasion focused on effort (r = 0.4). Not only statistical confirmation of the theoretical perspective, this study does also raise awareness for teachers and parents to help provide direct experiences and give compliments that focus on their effort rather than their intelligence, as these would potentially help them develop a growth mindset. In addition, educational implications can be made that it is crucial to adopt active learning approaches where students can expose themselves to hands-on experiences and interact with one another.