Does a Growth Mindset Improve Grades? Studies and Doubts

Mindset theory says that believing ability can grow leads to higher achievement, but the evidence that teaching the belief raises grades is weak and disputed. Large reviews find tiny average effects, while one large national experiment found gains in a specific group. Researchers disagree about how to read the whole body of work.

1. What mindset means

Mindsets, also called implicit theories, are beliefs about the nature of human attributes such as intelligence. A growth mindset is the belief that an attribute can be developed with effort. The theory holds that people with growth mindsets enjoy positive outcomes, including higher academic achievement, and that interventions which build the belief should therefore raise achievement. Such interventions have been used in schools around the world.

2. The 2018 meta-analyses

Sisk and colleagues ran two meta-analyses, published in Psychological Science. The first (273 studies, 365,915 students) tested how strongly mindset relates to academic achievement. The second (43 studies, 57,155 students) tested whether mindset interventions raise achievement. They report that overall effects were weak in both. Some results did support specific parts of the theory: students with low socioeconomic status, or who are academically at risk, might benefit from interventions.

3. The 2019 national experiment

Yeager and colleagues ran an intervention of less than one hour, delivered online, that teaches that intellectual abilities can be developed. It was tested in a nationally representative sample of secondary students in the United States, and the results appeared in Nature.

• It improved grades among lower-achieving students.
• It increased overall enrollment in advanced mathematics courses.
• Effects depended on school context: grades changed when peer norms aligned with the messages of the intervention.

The authors cite pre-registration of analyses, independent data collection and processing, and a blinded Bayesian analysis as reasons for confidence. They also disclose that several authors have disseminated growth mindset research publicly, and that one is a co-founder of an institute that offers free growth mindset interventions, with no financial relationship to any entity selling such products.

4. The 2023 systematic review

Macnamara and Burgoyne reviewed 63 studies (N = 97,672) in Psychological Bulletin and found major shortcomings in study design, analysis, and reporting, plus suggestions of researcher and publication bias. Authors with a financial incentive to report positive findings published significantly larger effects than authors without one. Their numbers:

They concluded that apparent effects on academic achievement are likely attributable to inadequate study design, reporting flaws, and bias. An effect of 0.05 is close to nothing: it would move an average student only a small fraction of a standard deviation.

5. Replication status

As of October 2026, this is contested. The pre-registered national experiment supports a narrow benefit for lower-achieving students in supportive school climates. The 2018 and 2023 syntheses find small or null average effects and question the quality of many original studies. These sources do not settle whether the 2019 pattern holds elsewhere. They also do not claim mindset beliefs are meaningless; the first 2018 analysis examined mindset's relationship with achievement, and the weakness was in the overall size.

6. What this means for a student

1. Do not expect a mindset lesson to raise your grades by itself. The best-quality studies here found nothing, on average.
2. The studies above do not show that a mindset lesson replaces study methods with stronger evidence.
3. Pair any motivational idea with a concrete method, such as testing yourself from memory.
4. Be skeptical of programs that promise large gains; authors with a financial incentive to report positive findings published significantly larger effects.

7. Key takeaways

• A growth mindset is the belief that attributes like intelligence can be developed through effort.
• A 2018 meta-analysis of 43 intervention studies found weak overall effects, with possible benefits for low-income or at-risk students.
• A 2019 pre-registered national experiment found grade gains for lower-achieving students, and only where peer norms matched the message.
• A 2023 review of 63 studies found d = 0.05 overall, nonsignificant after bias correction, and 0.02 in the six best studies.
• The field is disputed, so treat mindset as a possible small help, not a grade booster.