type threat and increase their standardized test performance. Specifically,
seventh-grade students from a low-income, predominantly Hispanic school
enrolled in a year-long computer skills class as part of their junior high curric-
ulum and were mentored by college students who taught them study skills,
helped them design a web page, and also delivered the intervention message.
The mentoring occurred primarily via e-mail throughout the year but also in-
cluded two in-person visits.
For the students in the experimental group, the mentors conveyed that in-
telligence is expandable, and helped each student design a web page that ad-
vocated this view. This message was fortified throughout the year in the e-
mail correspondence between the mentor and the student and via a web space
that the student could surf to learn more about the intervention message. The
control group received a different constructive message (an anti-drug mes-
sage) and performed similar activities vis-à-vis this message.
At the year’s end, the two groups’ math and reading performance on a
state-wide standardized achievement test was compared. Results indicated
that the students in the incremental group received higher standardized test
scores in both math and reading than students in the control group. Although
the incremental manipulation helped all students, it was particularly benefi-
cial to females in math. In the incremental condition, the gender gap in math,
evident in the control group, disappeared. Thus, these two studies provide
good evidence that interventions directed at students’ key motivation-
relevant beliefs can pay off by boosting intellectual performance.
In the third study, Blackwell et al. (2003) designed an intervention for at-
risk minority students coping with the difficult transition to junior high
school. Both the experimental group and the control group received an eight-
session intervention, replete with excellent information, including a unit on
the brain and how it works, study skill training, and a unit on how people
limit themselves by applying trait labels or stereotypes to themselves. How-
ever, for two of the units, the experimental groups received training in the in-
cremental theory (while the control group received information about mne-
monic devices that could help them in their schoolwork.) In the incremental
theory units, students read and discussed an article that, as in the Aronson et
al. (2002) intervention, depicted how the brain grows and changes with use
and conveyed the idea that they were in charge of their intellectual growth.
They also performed a variety of activities that explored this concept and its
ramifications.
At the end of the semester, math teachers (who did not know which group
any given student was in) were polled to determine whether they noticed any
motivational changes in their students. They singled out significantly more of
the students in the incremental group for comment, offering comments like
the following about students in the incremental group:
50 DWECK, MANGELS, GOOD