Stereotype Threat and Growth Mindset: A Systematic Review of Competence-Building Interventions for Academic Achievement

Background and Purpose: Prior research has demonstrated that students’ beliefs about intelligence and stereotypes are predictive of their academic achievement. Students who believe that ability is a stable trait or that certain groups are innately more talented than others may experience threats to their sense of competence, resulting in underperformance. This systematic review identified two intervention categories that promote students’ sense of competence by messaging that ability is malleable (based on growth mindset theory) and unrelated to group membership (based on stereotype threat theory). This review aimed to summarize and compare the effectiveness of growth mindset and stereotype threat interventions as strategies to increase student achievement.

Methods: This review included only randomized growth mindset and stereotype threat interventions. Searches were conducted in PubMed, Web of Science and five EBSCO databases (PsychINFO, ERIC, Education Full Text and Social Work Abstracts). The outcomes of interest for both interventions were final course grades, standardized exam scores and grade point average (GPA). Studies were conducted with middle school (6^th to 8^th grade), high school (9^th-12^th grade) and college students. Interventions took place in school-based and laboratory settings, if the study’s primary aim was to improve long-term academic achievement. Only studies conducted within the United States and published in English were included. Unpublished works, such as conference proceedings and dissertations, were also included to reduce the risk of publication bias.

Results: Twelve studies met the inclusion criteria for this review. Eight studies (67%) were intended to reduce stereotype threat, three studies (38%) were intended to increase growth mindset beliefs, and one study (13%) examined both interventions. Of the eight stereotype threat studies, one study found significant GPA improvement among all students and six studies found significant GPA improvement for only females and racial/ethnic minorities. Reported effect sizes ranged from .29 to 1.10. One study was unable to replicate these results. Three studies examined the effect of teaching students about the growth mindset. Results from two studies indicated improvements in grades and GPA, but one study was unable to replicate these findings. Finally, one study found significant improvements in math exam scores among females in both growth mindset and stereotype threat conditions and significant improvements in reading scores for both females and males in either condition. Reported effect sizes ranged from .52 to 1.50, with no additive effect of combining strategies.

Conclusions and Implications: This review provides evidence that interventions to reduce stereotype threat and to increase growth mindset endorsement are effective at improving achievement outcomes. However, future work will be needed to examine the conditions under which and for whom these interventions are most successful. Whereas growth mindset messaging seems to be beneficial for all students, implementation of stereotype threat interventions appears to be less universally effective. It is possible that, for marginalized students, growth mindset interventions may serve a dual, stereotype threat-reducing function. Overall, the findings of this review highlight a critical role social workers can play to increase academic achievement of all students and to reduce achievement disparities for females and racial/ethnic minorities.