Collaboration: Motivate Lab and tHe bill and melinda gates foundation (Gates)

Project Focus

High school is a critical developmental stage, as students prepare to transition from structured school and home environments into the adult world. Academic achievement is paramount for successful entry into the job market and higher education.

Nevertheless, many students report declining achievement and engagement during high school, with declines most pronounced among students from traditionally underrepresented groups (e.g., underrepresented ethnic/racial minority, low socioeconomic status). Poor achievement and engagement in high school can influence students’ decisions to pursue higher education, which in turn limits the opportunity for upward economic mobility.

As evidence, the income gap between the median college educated male and the median high school educated male has doubled over the last three decades, with college graduates earning over 95% more in weekly wages than individuals with only a high school diploma.

The Learning Mindset model

A growing body of research suggests that learning mindsets—individuals’ beliefs about learning that shape how they interpret difficulty—are crucial for success in high school and college. Learning mindsets can be categorized into three groups of beliefs: growth mindset (the belief that one can improve through effort), purpose (the belief that an activity has value), and social belonging (the belief that one fits in with peers, colleagues, and teachers). Unlike other factors contributing to academic achievement and persistence (e.g., school resources, peer influence), learning mindsets can be altered through activities targeting students’ beliefs about school directly or perceptions of the learning environment (i.e., learning mindset-supportive practices). Importantly, learning mindset-supportive practices are effective at reducing equity and opportunity gaps for students from traditionally underrepresented groups. Given their malleability and relation to academic outcomes, learning mindsets may be a promising target for bolstering K-16 achievement and persistence.

Belief that intelligence can be developed (Growth Mindset)

Belief that schoolwork is valuable because of personal relevance (purpose & relevance)

belief that one is connected to and respected by peers, cared for by teachers and mentors, and fits in with culture (sense of Belonging)

elaborated Project Goals

As they progress through high school and make decisions about applying to college, students receive numerous messages from other students, instructors, and mentors that shape perceptions of whether they belong in college and have the potential to succeed. Those perceptions, in turn, can affect students’ achievement in their high school classes, decisions to apply to colleges, and persistence in higher education.

College access programs, designed to help students prepare for and navigate the transition to college, can play a critical role in fostering the learning mindsets students need to be successful in college. Along with equipping students with practical knowledge, leading innovators in the college access space have begun focusing on how to foster adaptive learning mindsets among students. However, the strategies they use to do so have yet to be documented in a way that they can be readily shared among programs or directly connected to research evidence on learning mindsets.

This project seeks to accelerate the adoption of evidence-based learning mindset-supportive practices among college access programs by codifying practices already underway among innovative programs, building capacity to integrate new practices into the post-secondary advising space, and laying the infrastructure for infusing practices into college access programs more broadly. Together, these activities will synthesize key practices across the research and practice spaces to inform the field of college access programming.

interested in learning more?

If you to keep up to date about the happenings within the Navigate Project, check out their home page. Or if you want to learn about how you can get involved in the Navigate project, email Monique Calderon Dotson, Postsecondary Pathways Director, or Terra Browne, Project Associate.