Is Having a Good Mindset all you Need to be Successful in School?

One of the major beliefs in the world is if you have good mindset or positive attitude, you will be successful. Is that really true? Is that all you will need? I wanted to investigate further into this belief. 

Researchers from Stanford University conducted a large scale study of 168,000 Chilean 10th graders. The goal was to in still a positive mindset on these students and see if it effected their academic achievement. "Students with a growth mindset believe that skill and academic strength can be developed through effort and practice," said Stanford University researcher Susana Claro, This is contrary to those students who have a fixed mind set and believe they born with the intelligence they have. After the study researchers found that there was a positive correlation between students with a growth mindset and students who succeeded academically. However researchers did recognize that students from low socioeconomic backgrounds were twice as likely to have a fixed mindset, "Mindset is an important part of how socioeconomic disparities get replicated from generation to generations. ... Structural barriers get in the way of people being able to succeed, and they reinforce mindsets that tell [students] they can't succeed."- David Paunesku (Stanford Researcher)

More research was done by Madeleine P. Michelli for her Honors Thesis at the University of Mississippi. There were 266 5th grade students from a school in Southern Mississippi who participated in this study. A questionnaire was completed by students about their attitudes toward school. This was done anonymously and researchers were not present when students were filling out the questionnaire. The final conclusion of the data was that there was a 0.276 correlation between positive attitudes and academic achievement. That is not nearly a strong enough correlation to believe that this is true. 

One thing I really wanted to know was if schools are actively trying to promote a positive attitude in their schools. There is something happening in in Scotland. There is an emerging Curriculum for Success in Scotland that emphasizes confidence how it can affect a student’s academic achievement. “It identifies personal and social development as one of the foundations of the curriculum at all stages.” Professor Martin Seligman is one of the biggest advocates for optimism/positive thinking. He believes that it is all about how we perceive thing that happen to us. People who are able to see the bright side of a bad situation are often happier and can achieve more. I would say that those types of people are problem solvers who are usually the type of people who succeed in society.

In a study posted on Leadout education Consulting, they found that there was only a 0.1 correlation between students with a growth mindset and academic achievement. There are other factors that lead to achievement according to this study.

After all of this research I would have to conclude that having a positive attitude/growth mindset is not all it takes for someone to be successful. There are many other factors for a student to be successful. Often times if students have a bad home life they will not succeed in school. Students need to have all of their basic human needs met before they can succeed. If a student is worried about the fact that they are hungry or they don’t know where they are sleeping that night, there is no way they could focus on school work. So having a positive mindset can help a student be successful but they will not be able to be successful simply by having a good attitude. 

Work Cited

Blad, Evie. "Mindset a Key Factor In Student Success." Education Week. N.p., 03  

                  Aug. 2016. Web. 02 Oct. 2016.

Michelli, Maddeline P. "The Relationship between Attitudes and Achievement in Mathematics among Fifth Grade Students." University of Southern Miss. The Aquilla Digital Company, May 2013. Web. 2 Oct. 2016.

"Research Summary - Positive Thinking." Positive Thinking. Education Scotland, n.d. Web. 02 Oct. 2016.

@monkrob. "Does Having a Growth Mindset Correlate with Higher Academic Achievement?" Leadout Education Consulting. N.p., 24 Aug. 2016. Web. 02 Oct. 2016.