What You Say and Do Shapes Student Success

Learning mindsets are our beliefs about ourselves as learners and our learning environments. Motivate Lab focuses on three learning mindsets in particular: Growth Mindset, Purpose & Relevance, and Sense of Belonging, which we call our Mindset GPS framework. Just like the GPS in your phone helps you navigate new places physically, your Mindset GPS can help you navigate psychological uncertainty:

G

Growth Mindset

Belief that abilities can be developed through effort, the use of effective strategies, and help from others when needed.

P

Purpose & Relevance

The belief that one’s schoolwork is valuable because it is connected to a larger purpose and/or relevant to one’s life.

S

Sense of Belonging

The belief that one is academically and socially connected, supported, and respected.

 

 

Learn more about the Mindset GPS framework and the research behind it:

Change the Psychological Air of Your System

Research is just the beginning. We aim to translate motivation science into tools and strategies that transform the psychological air of the environments where people learn—improving motivation, well-being, and success at scale.  

Here are a few of our featured tools and resources:

Diverse group of students studying in a library. Students reading, discussing, and collaborating. Library setting with books and study materials. High school students reading books in library.

Learning Mindset Climate Survey (LMCS)

MEASURING BOTH INPUT AND IMPACT

A program improvement tool for schools and postsecondary advising programs to gather input on how effectively they support students’ learning mindsets during the transition to postsecondary contexts.

Diverse group of college students studying IT together at table in school library and using laptop with code lines on screen

Build Connections Activity

CREATING STRONGER CONNECTIONS

Creating stronger connections within the classroom contributes to a healthier learning environment, where students feel free to learn and express their thoughts openly.

Teacher high fiving student.

The Navigator Toolkit

 A REPOSITORY OF EVIDENCE-BASED RESOURCES

The toolkit is designed to support postsecondary advisors in identifying ways to implement growth mindset, purpose and relevance, or sense of belonging practices into their programming.

Diverse group of young people sitting at table reading books. University students in cooperation with their assignment at library.

Student Voices Initiative

AMPLIFYING STUDENT PERSPECTIVES TO INSTIGATE SYSTEM CHANGE

Student Voices Initiative (SVI) is a student focus group protocol to help understand what strengthens or undermines students’ sense of belonging at their institutions, using student voices and activism to drive actionable, systemic change within their institutions.

Explore More of Motivate Lab’s Tools & Services

TOOLS & SERVICES

 

Our Impact

From elementary schools to universities and beyond, we help educators apply research-backed strategies that foster growth, belonging, and purpose.

How we’ve made an impact

MOTIVATE LAB’S

Funders & Partners

By combining psychological science with design thinking and leveraging research-practitioner partnerships, we seek to instigate positive change in organizations, from the individual to the policy level. We’re partnering with classrooms, colleges, school systems, summer camps, sports teams, and more to study the mindsets that lead to deep learning across a variety of settings.