Can growth mindset interventions improve academic achievement? A structured review of the existing evidence
[full open-access text read at source; the review states that it was not preregistered] Gazmuri, C. (2025). 'Can growth mindset interventions improve academic achievement? A structured review of the existing evidence.' Review of Education, 13, e70066. doi:10.1002/rev3.70066. the most recent independent assessment and the source of both the sharpest negative and the fairest positive sentence. 24 randomised controlled trials rated by Gorard's sieve approach, which underlies the EEF's own security ratings. Her headline: the strongest studies, characterised by larger sample sizes, minimal missing data and high data quality, exhibit null or very small effect sizes ranging from minus 0.01 to plus 0.065. Four evaluations met her bar for both trustworthiness and absence of conflict of interest: two show no discernible impact and two show a very small one. She excluded Paunesku and colleagues 2015, Yeager and colleagues 2016 and Yeager and colleagues 2019 entirely on the stated ground that each reports only a subgroup and not the entire randomised group, which the article uses as the clearest statement of the divergence. HER CLOSING SENTENCE, quoted in the article because a sceptic wrote it: 'if there is an opportunity to implement such interventions at a minimal or negligible cost, or as part of another objective, it might be reasonable to proceed with them,
[full open-access text read at source; the review states that it was not preregistered] Gazmuri, C. (2025). 'Can growth mindset interventions improve academic achievement? A structured review of the existing evidence.' Review of Education, 13, e70066. doi:10.1002/rev3.70066. the most recent independent assessment and the source of both the sharpest negative and the fairest positive sentence. 24 randomised controlled trials rated by Gorard's sieve approach, which underlies the EEF's own security ratings. Her headline: the strongest studies, characterised by larger sample sizes, minimal missing data and high data quality, exhibit null or very small effect sizes ranging from minus 0.01 to plus 0.065. Four evaluations met her bar for both trustworthiness and absence of conflict of interest: two show no discernible impact and two show a very small one. She excluded Paunesku and colleagues 2015, Yeager and colleagues 2016 and Yeager and colleagues 2019 entirely on the stated ground that each reports only a subgroup and not the entire randomised group, which the article uses as the clearest statement of the divergence. HER CLOSING SENTENCE, quoted in the article because a sceptic wrote it: 'if there is an opportunity to implement such interventions at a minimal or negligible cost, or as part of another objective, it might be reasonable to proceed with them,
Written from the full open-access text read at source; the review states that it was not preregistered.
What our sources record
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Gazmuri, C. (2025). Can growth mindset interventions improve academic achievement? A structured review of the existing evidence. Review of Education, 13, e70066.