An Experiential Exercise for Teaching Growth Mindset to Business Students

Abstract

This article presents an exercise designed to instill growth mindsets in business students and to demonstrate their effects on achievement motivation. The main points of the exercise are to introduce implicit theories of intelligence (i.e., fixed and growth mindsets), demonstrate that mindsets are malleable, apply growth mindset strategies, and develop a growth orientation to continuous learning. I adapted an experiential juggling exercise to demonstrate mindset concepts. Students are given a juggling lesson and are divided into two groups. One group gets instructions designed to induce a fixed mindset while the other group gets growth mindset instruction. Results across graduate and undergraduate business students reveal a material difference in students’ expectations about the likelihood of learning to juggle. This exercise serves as the basis for training on growth mindset strategies for learning difficult business school curricula and extending this learning mindset into organizational life.

Keywords

growth mindset fixed mindset resilience experiential exercise academic achievement

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