College Students and Test Grades

From the very beginning, Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset, is far different from Outliers. Dweck discusses the importance of having the right mindset in order to succeed. She says there are two types of mindset—fixed and growth. The people with fixed mindsets tend to “prove [themselves] over and over,” while people who have growth mindsets encourage people to improve themselves (Dweck, 2008). She uses these mindsets to explain a situation involving college students and their test scores. She says that students who have this fixed mindset chose to only look at others’ exams that had done worse on the exam themselves, rather than those who had done better. On the other hand, the students with the growth mindsets were eager to look at people with higher scores. This directly falls back on the definitions of the two mindsets. The students that are fixed are continually trying to prove themselves, and by acknowledging that they had done poorly on a test, or at least worse than someone else, would be a direct contradiction to their feelings of being the best. They would find the scores discouraging and as a blow to their ego. The growth individuals, however, would be encouraged to look at others’ test and would see it as a way of improving their next test score. They could reevaluate their study partners and get study tips from the students that did better.

            It’s funny, because I can see myself as someone with both mindsets. In some cases, I can empathize with the people that didn’t want to see those who had done better. If I know someone studied less, or acted like the exam was irrelevant, and I studied for hours and put everything I had into it, I’m bothered if they did better, and I certainly don’t want to look at how much better they did. on the flip side, if I miss a question or do poorly on a test, I like to confer with someone who got the right answer or a better score and see how/why they got that so I know for next time.  I can see why either side would choose to look or not to look.

So far, I really like Dweck’s interpretation of success and how it is attained, but then again, I don’t like the use of “fixed” for describing a mindset. I don’t necessarily think everyone has a fixed mindset, much less a fixed “fixed” mindset. I think there is always room for improvement and that a lot of people, once they realize they are looking at things in a close-minded way and not looking to better themselves, can change their ways and be more open to improvement.

Dweck, C. S. (2007). Mindset: the new psychology of success. Ballantine Books.