Abstract:

The purpose of this phenomenological study is to identify what students believe is contributing to how “smart” they are and if there is a link between “smartness” and growth mindset discussion in the classroom. At this stage in the research, “smartness” will generally be identified as students who get “correct answers, fast responses, good grades” (Shafer, 2017). This study investigated how students perceived what it means to be “smart,” and noticed if growth mindset was a contributing factor to their responses. As I began pulling together my literature review, I had noticed overarching themes throughout the many sources that I had read and referred to throughout my research. Some overarching ideas discussed throughout the literature would be the discussion of malleability of intelligence, factors within and outside of the classroom that play a role in impacting the mindset of students and different strategies that educators can implement in the classroom everyday to promote growth mindset learning for all students. The research that was done in this phenomenological study yielded interesting results as a majority of participants were not familiar with nor could define growth mindset and how they see it represented in their classrooms. Furthermore, students had generally defined “smartness” as those who are were good at math, stay focused, and participated in classroom discussions. It is ever so important that students understand that we all learn differently, we all learn at different rates and we can achieve anything we set our minds to. Teaching students the power of “yet” and emphasizing that it is okay to not get something right away, but we will get there and we can do it! It is clear from the data collected by the researcher, that growth mindset discussion is lacking in elementary school classrooms and it is affecting how students are not only perceiving themselves, but others around them as learners and how they are internalizing "smartness."

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