Students' Response to Academic Setback:

The purpose of this article was to understand why some students are able to overcome setbacks, while others cannot bounce back from the same setback. The study was conducted on 123 second semester university students in Indonesia. The participants were an average of 18.67 years old and 81% female. All participants were enrolled in a difficult statistics class. Before the start of the semester, they were given a survey that asked about their beliefs about intelligence, academic ability, and goal orientation. They were also measured for effort attribution and de-motivation one week after the mid-term. The setback in this study was the mid-term. Those who received a score of 66 or lower were in jeopardy of failing the course and this event was labeled as the setback. This study revealed that lower test scores correlated with the students that experienced more de-motivation. Although the growth mindset didn’t directly affect the test scores of the students, it indirectly affected them by altering their learning goals, effort attribution, and de-motivation. The results also showed that a growth mindset about intelligence was able to predict their mindset about ability, learning goals, and effort attribution which are all negatively linked to de-motivation. Overall, the study showed that a growth mindset about academic ability caused those students to create a learning goal and the effort needed to buffer against de-motivation. One implication that came from this study was that the focus on psychological factors is just as important as the physical material and assignments because the de-motivation that may occur from a lack of a growth mindset can become harmful for a student facing a challenge or a setback.