Professor Carol S. Dweck
Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology, Stanford University
Yidan Prize for Education Research
2017
Educational psychology, Education policy, Inclusion and equality in education, Culture-sensitive education, Classroom cultures, Adolescent development, STEM education
North America
The pioneer of mindset learning
The Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford, Professor Carol S. Dweck is one of the world’s leading researchers in the field of motivation.
Her research has identified various mindsets that students can hold about their talents and abilities.
Some students have a fixed mindset in which they see their talents and abilities as unalterable.
Others hold a growth mindset in which they are seen as qualities that can be developed.
Professor Dweck’s research demonstrates the importance of these mindsets for students’ motivation, resilience, and achievement. Her work demonstrates how these mindsets can be changed and the impact of that change, particularly in contexts where educators are supportive and collaborative.
Professor Dweck has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences of the United States.
She has won more than 10 lifetime achievement awards for her research.
In addition to her scientific writing, she has written widely for educators and for the public. Her book Mindset (Random House) has been translated into over 25 languages.
Enhancing educational experiences
Continuing the development of culturally inclusive growth mindset classrooms
Between 2016 and 2019, Professor Carol S. Dweck’s team, in a project led by Professors Stephanie Fryberg and Mary Murphy, conducted nine teacher training institutes in which they taught educators how to create culturally inclusive growth mindset classrooms. They then followed these teachers and tested the effects of the institutes on students’ academic and socio-emotional outcomes. This knowledge will form the basis of future online modules, which will be rigorously tested in the future.
The two core beliefs of these classrooms are that students from all backgrounds can and will make important contributions, and that all students can grow their abilities through effective effort, good strategies, and sensitive support from teachers and peers.
Understanding the long-term impact of mindsets on educational futures
The initiative guides the development of a stronger theory about mindsets while giving insights on how to better target mindset interventions.
“Professor Dweck has shown humanity our shared potential and a proven methodology for growing intellectually and adapting to a future that we have yet to envisage.”
By Professor Paul Chu Ching-wu
Former Panel Head, Judging Panel for Education Research, Yidan Prize
Professor Carol S. Dweck is a distinguished psychologist whose stellar academic success in her decades of research on the nature of intelligence is surpassed only by the original and scalable interventions she developed with remarkable improvements in learning outcomes.
The discovery of how underlying beliefs about intelligence affect learning motivation has transformed the way we understand students’ abilities and the continuous developmental potential of our brains. By distinguishing what have now become widely known as the two mindsets that shape our lives – the “fixed mindset” and the “growth mindset” – Professor Dweck demonstrated that our belief in the malleability of intelligence can dramatically improve students’ performance. We now know that a student’s implicit beliefs about their potential have profound implications for how hard they work, especially in the face of challenge, and that a focus on effort and process cultivates a love for learning that is essential for great accomplishments.
What is remarkable about Professor Dweck’s work is the scientifically demonstrable ability to explain and predict behavior, and the consistently validated results of pragmatic mindset interventions in different school and work settings.
Her commitment to scientific rigor and quality for over 35 years is impressive and humbling. With the award of the Yidan Prize, we hope to contribute to raising awareness and implementation of the “growth mindset” intervention across the world, expanding its application and implementation in schools across demographic strata, and enabling educators everywhere to adopt methods that nurture growth, confidence and resilience in our younger generations.
The judging panel sees the generative potential of Professor Dweck’s work extending far beyond students in formal schooling. As the definition of education morphs along with the fast-changing socio-economic paradigm, the “growth-mindset” offers an achievable aspiration for all of us to develop new skillsets that are fundamental to thriving in the digitalized, automated world. Professor Dweck has shown humanity our shared potential and a proven methodology for growing intellectually and adapting to a future that we have yet to envisage.
