ABSTRACT
Much of America’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) work-force is foreign-born and educated at US institutions of higher education. Greater numbers of our youth must be guided toward STEM careers. Potential STEM talent within many American students remains unidentified and undeveloped because possession of a fixed-ability science/math intelligence mindset dissuades students from pursuing challenging STEM courses. The hallmark of the growth mindset is the capacity to respond to failure in a positive way, by interpreting negative feedback as information to use for improvement rather than as an evaluation of intelligence. Incorporating social-psychological interventions to encourage and develop the growth mindset in late elementary school and early middle school could help create a new generation of students motivated to learn and stimulated by challenge. However, one intervention will not be sufficient to sustain these new growth mindsets. American culture is filled with fixed mindset messages such as “work smarter, not harder.”.
