Mindsets, contexts, and college enrollment: Taking the long view on growth mindset beliefs at the transition to high school.

Socioeconomic disparities in academic progress have persisted throughout the history of the United States, and growth mindset interventions-which shift beliefs about the malleability of intelligence-have shown promise in reducing these disparities. Both the study of such disparities and how to remedy them can benefit from taking the "long view" on adolescent development, following the tradition of John Schulenberg. To do so, this study focuses on the role of growth mindsets in short-term academic progress during the transition to high school as a contributor to longer-term educational attainment. Guided by the Mindset × Context perspective, we analyzed new follow-up data to a one-year nationally representative study of ninth graders (National Study of Learning Mindsets, n = 10,013; 50% female; 53% white; 63% from lower-SES backgrounds). A conservative Bayesian analysis revealed that adolescents' growth mindset beliefs at the beginning of ninth grade predicted their enrollment in college 4 years later. These patterns were stronger for adolescents from lower-SES backgrounds, and there was some evidence that the ninth-grade math teacher's support for the growth mindset moderated student mindset effects. Thus, a time-specific combination of student and teacher might alter long-term trajectories by enabling adolescents to develop and use beliefs at a critical transition point that supports a cumulative pathway of course-taking and achievement into college. Notably, growth mindset became less predictive of college enrollment after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which occurred in the second year of college and introduced structural barriers to college persistence.

The Turnout Gap in Surveys: Explanations and Solutions.

Postelection surveys regularly overestimate voter turnout by 10 points or more. This article provides the first comprehensive documentation of the turnout gap in three major ongoing surveys (the General Social Survey, Current Population Survey, and American National Election Studies), evaluates explanations for it, interprets its significance, and suggests means to continue evaluating and improving survey measurements of turnout. Accuracy was greater in face-to-face than telephone interviews, consistent with the notion that the former mode engages more respondent effort with less social desirability bias. Accuracy was greater when respondents were asked about the most recent election, consistent with the hypothesis that forgetting creates errors. Question wordings designed to minimize source confusion and social desirability bias improved accuracy. Rates of reported turnout were lower with proxy reports than with self-reports, which may suggest greater accuracy of proxy reports. People who do not vote are less likely to participate in surveys than voters are.

Reducing Inequality in Academic Success for Incoming College Students: A Randomized Trial of Growth Mindset and Belonging Interventions.

Light-touch social psychological interventions have gained considerable attention for their potential to improve academic outcomes for underrepresented and/or disadvantaged students in postsecondary education. While findings from previous interventions have demonstrated positive effects for racial and ethnic minority and first-generation students in small samples, few interventions have been implemented at a larger scale with more heterogeneous student populations. To address this research gap, 7,686 students, representing more than 90% of incoming first-year students at a large Midwestern public university, were randomly assigned to an online growth mindset intervention, social belonging intervention, or a comparison group. Results suggest that after the fall semester, the growth mindset intervention significantly improved grade point averages for Latino/a students by about .40 points. This represents a 72% reduction in the GPA gap between White and Latino/a students. Further, this effect was replicated for both spring semester GPA and cumulative GPA. These findings indicate that light-touch interventions may be a minimally invasive approach to improving academic outcomes for underrepresented students. Our findings also highlight the complexity of implementing customized belonging interventions in heterogeneous contexts.