The Effect of Growth Mindset Interventions on Students’ Self-Regulated Use of Retrieval Practice

Although general growth mindset interventions have been found to improve learning outcomes, relatively little research focused on effects of specific growth mindset interventions. However, domain-specific growth mindset beliefs may be a more accurate predictor of performance within that same domain. The current study investigated the effect of a specific growth mindset intervention designed to enhance self-regulated learning on learners’ adoption of retrieval practice while studying image–name pairs. The impact of this targeted approach was compared to the effects of a broader, general growth mindset intervention, which emphasized the brain’s malleability. Participants were 178 first-year university students, who were randomly assigned to three groups: a general growth mindset group (n = 58), a specific growth mindset group (n = 64), and a control group (n = 56). All groups were informed about the benefits of retrieval practice after the intervention. Our results showed that higher education students can benefit from mindset interventions in terms of their growth mindset beliefs. However, no effects on the use of retrieval practice were found, possibly due to the high difficulty of the learning material. Future research could explore the difficulty of learning materials when investigating the effect of mindset interventions on students’ use retrieval practice during self-regulated learning.