Resilience in Education: Nurturing Student Growth Mindset and Grit

1. 2017 Students & Enrollment Professional Development Conference Planting the Seeds for Tomorrow RESILIENCE: Supporting Student Capacities for Risk, Reflection, and Retention February 22, 2017

2. Credit: Content taken from Original Presentation by: Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors National Conference Presenters: David Albert Abigail Lipson David Reetz November 11th, 2014

3. Inaugural Opening of the National Council on Measurement in Education – April 14th, 2012 John Q. Easton Director of Institute of Education Sciences (IES) “. . .I hypothesize that the effective teachers [educators]. . . are indeed boosting their students’ achievement, buy they are also boosting other important skills, traits, or attributes that aren’t measured. . . I am betting that they could be psychological constructs like grit, perseverance, self-control, engagement, emotional intelligence, social emotional learning, or sense of mastery, concepts that I haven’t mentioned today. These are things that I believe are highly valuable and that both we in the measurement and research community and our partners in schools and districts should be more mindful of. The test score accountability movement has pushed aside many of these so-called ‘non-cognitive’ or ‘soft’ skills and they belong back on the front burner.”

4. Resilience Constructs • Academic Tenacity • Growth Mindset • Grit • Perseverance • Emotional Intelligence • Soft Skills

5. Resilience Constructs • Growth Mindset • Grit • Perseverance

6. Resilience Constructs • Growth Mindset Suggests you have ability OR you have to expand effort.

7. Resilience Constructs • Fixed Mindset • Definition of “smart” – Make no mistakes; Finish tasks quickly; Find tasks easy. • Potential is innate; “you’re a natural”; You are. • Have to be. (No flexibility- only option) • Being smart defined as special, different from others, or better than others. • Feel urgency to succeed. • Failure is intolerable and provides no future direction. • Growth Mindset • Definition of “smart” – When I figure something out; harder the better. • Potential is developed over time; You become. • Luxury of becoming. • Being smart defined as improving individually and is no different than others. • Success is cultivated. • Failure hurts but isn’t defining.

8. Research Support • Several hundred adolescents given ten fairly easy items from non-verbal IQ test. • Group 1: praised with Wow, you got 8 right. That’s a really good score. You must be smart at this. • Group 2: praised with Wow, you got 8 right. That’s a really good score. You must have worked really hard.

9. Empirical Support Group 1: YOU MUST BE SMART AT THIS GROUP 2: YOU MUST HAVE WORKED HARD AT THIS • When given more difficult questions: • Didn’t feel smart anymore • Did feel deficient – something’s wrong • When given a choice, selected easier questions • Avoided opportunity for more difficult questions • Performance continued to diminish even for easier questions • When given more difficult questions: • Enjoyed the challenge and focused on learned the solution • Continued to select more challenging questions • Performance continued to improve

10. Empirical Support • College students, after doing poorly on a test, were given the chance to look at tests of other students. Those in the growth mindset looked at the tests of those who had done better than they had to correct their deficiency. Students in the fixed mindset chose to look at the tests of people who had done really poorly. (Nussbaum & Dweck, 2008) • When challenged with difficult material, students with growth mindset explored alternative learning strategies, those with a fixed mindset continued to re-read material and eventually stopped trying as material was deemed too difficult. (Grant & Dweck, 2003)

11. Resilience Constructs Grit/Perseverance/Tenacity Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term goals that entails working strenuously toward challenges, maintaining effort and interest over time despite adversity, and plateaus in progress. Duckworth, et al. (2007)

12. Resilience Constructs • The Grit Scale • https://sites.sas.upenn.edu/duckworth/pages/research

13. Resilience Constructs Empirical Support for Grit The West Point Study Whole Candidate Score (index of talent) SAT Class rank Demonstrated leadership Physical aptitude The Grit Scale Best predicted drop out Duckworth, A., Peterson, C., Matthews, M., & Kelly, D. (2007).

14. Resilience Constructs Empirical Support for Grit The National Spelling Bee Study • The Grit Scale best predicted advancement to later rounds and strongly correlated with hours spent in controlled effortful practice. Duckworth, A., Kirby, T., Tsukayama, E., Berstein, H., & Ericsson, A. (2010).

15. Aurora University First-year Resilience Initiative (595 students) • Orientation Week Presentation “The Rock” • Small Group Discussion “Small Repeated Action Steps” • Grit Scale Administration • 10-min “Inspirational Speech” • Conditional Admits (STAR Program) Training • Mission statement • Willingness to fail • Willingness to sacrifice • Willingness to commit time • Willingness to accept when not fun • Willingness to re-evaluate

16. Baseline Data • Grit Scale administered first week of class to 96% of first-year class • Correlations: ACT r=-.004 SAT r=-.025 HS GPA r= .111; p=.008 Perseverance r= .795; p=.000 Long-term Goals r= .855; p=.000 Perseverance : Long-term Goals r= .365; p=.000 STAR Students (Avg. ACT = 18; Avg. GPA = 2.49)

17. University of Chicago

18. The UChicagoResilience Project • College can be a stressful experience for many young people. Hardiness on campus has been raised as an issue. • Can students benefit from an educational intervention that provides training in resilience-related cognitive and behavioral skills?

19. Pilot (2012-2013) • Assess Feasibility • Recruitment & Attendance • Retention & Engagement • Estimate Short-Term Impact • Psychological resilience • Perseverance • Anxiety and depression • Findings • Popular with students • Increased measured resilience

20. Study (2013-2014) • Objective • Test intervention against non-treated comparison group • Design • 9 workshops across 3 quarters • Measures • Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale • Grit Scale • Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) • Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7)

21. Study (cont.) • Design (cont.) • Experimental group • 47 participants (25 College/12 graduate) • 56% attendance across 9 sessions • Comparison group • 47 participants • 98% attendance across 3 data collection points • Incentivized with $20 gift cards

22. Session 1 – 3: Finding Your Mission When we know why we are doing something we are more likely to persevere. Students develop a personal mission statement for their life, and learn to leverage their statement in times of adversity and discouragement. and their workshop group. Exercise: Exhaustively list joyful activities and events and use the list to deduce passions and construct a preliminary statement. By session 3 students share their statement with the group for feedback and encouragement.

23. Session 4: Managing Expectations Expectations of task difficulty impact how we respond to failure Students learn to form realistic expectations about a goal or challenge by gathering data from others. They use this data to develop a set of expectations and process for achieving their goals. Exercise: Interview a classmate about a difficult experience or challenge. Collect objective data on their experience and use it to set expectations for your own experience.

24. Session 5: Willpower Resisting temptation and developing positive habits are key to achieving goals. Students learn and practice habit formation, avoidance, and distraction techniques. They use these skills to resist temptation, change negative behaviors, and develop new positive habits. Exercise: Discuss a habit you want to change with your group. Using your understanding of behavior change, work together to create a set of strategies to modify your daily routine.

25. Session 6: Self-Explanatory Style The stories we tell ourselves affect our resilience. A feeling of personal agency is key. Students learn about self-explanatory style and discover their own style of explaining positive and negative events. Exercise: Consider an adverse event you have experienced and write a list of alternative explanations. Share your list with your classmates and discuss the importance of looking past your first explanation.

26. Session 7: Acceptance Avoidance of negative affect ultimately hinders success. Students learn to accept the negative emotions associated with certain goals they want to achieve. They commit to the goal and cling to that commitment rather than the natural desire to avoid unpleasant feelings. Exercise: Write down a goal you have been avoiding because of pain. List the required steps, and the negative feelings associated with each step. Share your goal and feelings with your group and make a commitment.

27. Session 8: Letting Go Accepting loss and looking ahead is a critical aspect of resilience. Students learn about the process of changing or letting go of a loss. They learn about wisdom’s role in deciding when it is time to let go. Exercise: Write down something you lost. Try to observe or predict what benefits you received. Share your experience with your group.

28. Session 9: Gratitude Positive affect increases resilience. Feelings of gratitude are second only to love and can be willfully elicited. Students learn to be grateful for gifts and opportunities they have been given. They learn to vividly imagine loss and change in order to increase their gratitude. Exercise: Consider something you are grateful for. Make a list of ways your life would be different without this person or thing, and use your list to find reasons to be grateful. Share your list with your group.

29. Impact – Experimental Group

30. Impact – Comparison Group

31. Impact – Experimental Group

32. Impact – Control Group

33. Study Limitations and Next Steps • Limitations • Groups not randomized • Untreated comparison group also reduced GAD-7 • Effect seen may not be sustainable • Next Steps • Follow both groups for another 12 months • Complete all measures every 3 months to test for sustainability • Year 3 (current year): 100 participants, 10 facilitators • Eventual goal: 50% of student body over 4 year period (1,500 students/year)

34. Harvard University http://successfailureproject.bsc.harvard.edu The Resilience Consortium www.resilienceconsortium.bsc.harvard.edu

35. Discussion Questions 1.       Identify one thing you heard during the presentation that particularly struck you, for whatever reason, and share your comments/reactions. 2.       Do you see in your work a need for programming designed to promote student resilience?  Does such programming already exist, and if so, where?  Do you see any opportunities for leadership/collaboration on your campus regarding resilience-oriented programming? 3.       Name one practical step you might take to follow up on ideas from this session – e.g., I will explore the xxxxx.edu website.  I will do some reading on the topic of resilience.  I will contact a faculty member or program coordinator on my campus who is doing work in this area to see how we might be able to collaborate.

36. References Duckworth, A., Kirby, T., Tsukayama, E., Berstein, H., & Ericsson, A. (2010). Deliberate practice spells success: Why grittier competitors triumph at the National Spelling Bee. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 0(0), 1-8. Duckworth, A., Peterson, C., Matthews, M., & Kelly, D. (2007). Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term learning. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(6), 1087-1101. Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York, NY: Random House. Dweck, C., Walton, G., & Cohen, G. (2011). Academic tenacity: Mindsets and skills that promote log-term learning. Paper presented at the Gates Foundation, Seattle WA. Easton, J.Q. (2012). Inaugural Opening Plenary Session. Institute of Education Sciences. Washington D.C. Farrington, C., Roderick, M., Allensworth, E., Nagaoka, J., Keyes, T., Johnson, D., & Beechum, N. (2012). Teaching adolescents to become learners. The role of noncognitive factors in sharping school performance: A critical literature review. Chicago: University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research. Grant, H. & Dweck, C. (2003). Clarifying achievement goals and their impact. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(3), 541-553. Lickerman, A. (2012). The Undefeated Mind: On the Science of Constructing an Indestructible Self. Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, Inc. Nussbaum, D., & Dweck, C. (2008). Defensiveness versus remediation: Self-theories and modes of self-esteem maintenance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 599-612. Snipes, J., Fancsali, C., & Stoker, G. (2012). Student academic mindset interventions: A review of the current landscape. Report released by the Stupski Foundation. Tough, P. (2012). How Children Succeed. New York, NY: First Mariner Books. U.S. Department of Education (2013). Promoting Grit, Tenacity, and Perseverance: Critical Factors for Success in the 21st Century. Washington D.C.: Author.