A Growth Mindset Intervention: Enhancing Students’ Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy and Career Development
DOI
10.1177/104225871986
Abstract
Despite mounting interest in growth mindset interventions, this approach has yet to be applied to the domain of entrepreneurship. In the present research, we developed and tested if a growth mindset intervention could be leveraged to promote students’ entrepreneurial self-efficacy and if this, in turn, predicted career development (i.e., academic interest, career interest, task persistence, and academic performance). We report on our findings, from an Open Science Framework (OSF) preregistered study, that is a randomized controlled trial implementing a growth mindset intervention. We randomly assigned undergraduate students (N = 238) in an introduction to entrepreneurship class to either the growth mindset intervention or to a knowledge-based attention-matched control. Students in the growth mindset intervention, relative to the control, reported greater entrepreneurial self-efficacy and task persistence on their main class project. The intervention also indirectly improved academic and career interest via entrepreneurial self-efficacy. However, the intervention failed to directly or indirectly impact performance on a classroom assignment. Additionally, and somewhat surprisingly, gender and past experience in the field failed to moderate any effects of the intervention on outcomes. Theoretical implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-13-2019
Publisher Statement
© The Author(s) 2019.
Recommended Citation
Burnette, J. L., Pollack, J. M., Forsyth, R. B., Hoyt, C. L., Babij, A. D., Thomas, F. N., & Coy, A. E. (2019). A Growth Mindset Intervention: Enhancing Students’ Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy and Career Development. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 44(5), 878-908. https://doi.org/10.1177/1042258719864293 (Original work published 2020)
