Carol ZanderUniversity of Washington,

Bothell

Lynda Thomas University of Aberystwyth

Beth SimonUniversity of

California, San Diego

Laurie MurphyPacific Lutheran

University

Brian HanksFort Lewis College

Renée McCauleyCollege of Charleston

Gary LewandowskiXavier University

Sue FitzgeraldMetropolitan State

University

ICER ‘05DEBUG

…avoid challenges

…give up easily

…see effort asfruitless or worse

Growth MindsetFixed Mindset

…ignore useful negative feedback

...feel threatened bythe success of

others

CHALLENGES

OBSTACLES

EFFORT

CRITICISM

SUCCESS OF OTHERS

…embrace challenges

…persist in theface of setbacks

…see effort asthe path to mastery

…learn fromcriticism

…find lessons and inspiration in the success of others

intelligenceis static

intelligencecan be developed

Based on a graphic by Nigel Holmes available from :http://www.pvusd.net/Departments/GATE/dweck/

Fixed Mindset

Research of CarolDweck, Stanford

Stanford Study: At Risk Students with GM – Higher GPA

(Aaronson, et. al.)

• 3 1-hr about 10 says apart, 2-5 people•Answer handwritten, fake “pen pal letters”to “at risk” middle schoolers – build in examplesfrom own life•Shown video about how intelligence is growable(with evidence from “brain researchers”)•Picture taken of participant and clipped to letter•Got a thank you note from pen-pal and teacher•Wrote 2nd letter in next session•3rd Session reworked letters into speeches, audiotaped them, listened to audiotapes 2 times

Our Study

•Handout•Mini lecture for 10-15 minutes•Follow-up “saying is believing” activity (5-10 min)

Results – Intervention failed

Results – Intervention failedControl

When life gives you lemons…

…present them at ICER (2008)

Follow-up survey Focus groupsDo you remember a 10 minute talk at the beginning of [your CS1] class by [researcher]?

Do you remember completing an exercise called “The Power of the Challenging Task” which asked you to describe something difficult that you have mastered after persevering and to give advice to future students on coping with the challenge of learning to program?

Did any of the in-class talk on growth mind sets or the “Challenging Task” exercise affect your attitude or approach to programming and/or debugging?

• Quentin Cutts, Glasgow:– Reinforcing message on return of every

programming homework

• New compiler technology?

Take Aways... Growth MindsetsNot for Computing?

Growth MindsetFixed Mindset

15 minute lecture60 hours of compiler errors

More details availableB. Simon, B. Hanks, L. Murphy, S. Fitzgerald, R. McCauley, L. Thomas

and C. Zander. Saying Isn't Necessarily Believing: Influencing Self-theories in Computing. In ICER '08: Proceedings of the Third International Computing Education Research Workshop, Sept. 2008.

B. Hanks, L. Murphy, B. Simon, R. McCauley and C. Zander. CS1 Students Speak: Advice for Students by Students. Forthcoming in Proceedings of the Fortieth SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, March 2009.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0647688. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.