Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

There is an emerging consensus among both educators and policymakers on the importance of mindsets about the malleability of intelligence for students’ performance and learning. Students’ beliefs about whether intelligence is fixed and stable over time (a fixed mindset) or can grow and develop over time (a growth mindset) influence their performance and learning in school (Paunesku et al., 2015, Yeager et al., 2016, Blackwell et al., 2007; Good et al., 2003; Aronson et al., 2002). Teachers may play a key role in shaping students’ mindsets about the malleability of intelligence (Rattan, Good, & Dweck, 2012; Blazar & Kraft, 2016), but there is a huge gap in our understanding of how teachers come to hold either the growth or fixed mindset about intelligence. Considering the meaningful role that teachers play in each other’s effectiveness (Jackson and Bruegmann, 2009) we theorized that teacher-to-teacher interactions may help shape teachers’ mindsets about intelligence. Specifically, we theorized that when teachers discuss struggling students, as they might when seeking advice and support from each other, they transmit their mindsets about intelligence to each other.

We test this hypothesis in a population of 178 student-teachers from 4 different schools of Education in Chile. We randomly assigned student-teachers to pairs and randomly assigned one student-teacher to the role of “messenger teacher”. We randomly assigned messenger teachers into a growth or a fixed mindset condition by having them read an article about the malleability of the brain (growth-mindset condition) or about intelligence being fixed (fixed-mindset condition), following Rattan et al. (2012). Then, student-teachers were asked to talk with his or her corresponding messenger teacher about the case of a hypothetical student who failed the first test of a course. Finally, each teacher, independently, filled out a questionnaire measuring expectations and beliefs about the failing student based on Rattan et al (2012).

We find evidence of social contagion. We first find that student-teachers who asked for advice from messenger teachers in the fixed mindset condition believed that intelligence had a higher role on the success of a student than teachers who received the advice of growth mindset teachers. In addition, teachers who discussed with fixed mindset messenger teachers were more likely to give unhelpful feedback to students and less likely to give strategic growth mindset feedback, than teachers who discussed with growth mindset messenger teachers. Furthermore, teachers who discussed with growth mindset messenger teachers reported higher satisfaction than those who discussed with fixed mindset peers.

No teacher is an island. These results suggest that teachers’ beliefs and self-reported behaviors can be shaped by peer teachers. Those behaviors can, in turn, impact a student’s motivation (Rattan et al, 2012). Thus, understanding how peer teachers undermine or strengthen teachers’ mindsets is crucial to improve teacher effectiveness. Policy makers and school leaders alike, must consider this contagion when deciding how to select, develop and retain teachers.