ResearchPsychological flexibility
Does a growth mindset actually work?
Last reviewed 17 August 2026
The verdict
Believing ability can grow is associated with achievement weakly, accounting for roughly one per cent of the variance across hundreds of thousands of students. Interventions produce small effects overall, and later analyses correcting for publication bias and study quality reduce them further. Where benefit appears it is concentrated in students who are academically at risk or from low socioeconomic backgrounds.
Strength of evidence
- traditional
- emerging
- informed
- established
Real signal in the research, with small studies, small effects, or few controls holding it back. How we grade
What is a growth mindset?
The belief that ability is developed through effort rather than fixed at birth, contrasted with a fixed mindset. The claim built on it is that shifting this belief improves how students respond to difficulty, and through that, how they perform.
It became one of the most widely adopted ideas in education, appearing in school programmes, workplace training and management writing across two decades.
How strong is the association?
Weak. Sisk and colleagues examined the relationship across 129 studies covering 365,915 participants and found mindset accounted for roughly one per cent of the variance in academic achievement.
One per cent is close to nothing. It means knowing a student's mindset tells you almost nothing useful about how they will do, which is a long way from how the idea is usually presented.
Their second analysis, of 43 intervention studies covering more than 57,000 participants, found weak overall effects with a specific exception worth carrying: students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and those academically at risk, showed more benefit than others.
These figures are cited in prose because the records could not be opened for checking on the review date.
What did the later work find?
Less again. Macnamara and Burgoyne re-examined the intervention literature applying stricter quality criteria and correcting for publication bias using trim-and-fill and PET-PEESE methods. Effects were substantially reduced against analyses that included every study regardless of quality.
Their conclusion is direct: apparent effects of growth mindset interventions on academic achievement are likely attributable to inadequate study design, reporting flaws and bias.
That is a strong claim and it deserves the same scrutiny it applies. It is one analysis, its authors are prominent critics of the field, and the debate is live. What is beyond dispute is that effects shrink as study quality rises, which is the pattern that recurs across this section.
Why does this keep happening?
The shape is familiar from other briefs here. Ego depletion collapsed under preregistered testing. Expressive writing vanished when restricted to randomised trials. Growth mindset shrinks under quality correction.
In each case the original finding was real in the sense that it was measured, and it was inflated by which studies got published. That is a property of how research reaches the public rather than a failing of any one researcher.
It is also why an idea being widely adopted tells you very little about whether it works.
So is any of it useful?
Probably, in a narrower form than advertised. The subgroup finding is the most durable part: struggling students and those from disadvantaged backgrounds appear to gain more, which fits a straightforward reading. If you already believe you can improve, being told so changes nothing.
The version worth keeping is practical rather than motivational. Believing effort matters is only useful alongside knowing what effort to apply, and the methods with real evidence behind them are on this site: retrieval practice, spacing, and planning for the obstacle rather than picturing the outcome.
Telling a student their brain can grow, without teaching them how to study, is where this idea has been weakest.
Questions people ask
- Is growth mindset a myth?
- The association is real and very small. The intervention effects shrink considerably under quality correction, which is different from the idea being fabricated.
- Who benefits most?
- Students who are academically at risk or from low socioeconomic backgrounds showed more benefit than others.
- Should schools drop it?
- The evidence argues against treating it as a main intervention. As one element alongside teaching actual study methods, it costs little.
- Why did it become so popular?
- It is intuitive, hopeful and cheap to deliver. Early studies were encouraging, and encouraging studies are the ones that get published and repeated.
Sources
Every linked source below was opened and checked on the review date. Where a record could not be opened, it is named in the text with no link.
Macnamara BN, Burgoyne AP (2023). Do Growth Mindset Interventions Impact Students' Academic Achievement? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis With Recommendations for Best Practices. Psychological Bulletin.
Effects substantially reduced after quality criteria and publication bias correction, with the authors attributing apparent effects largely to study design and reporting flaws.
Sisk VF, Burgoyne AP, Sun J, Butler JL, Macnamara BN (2018). To What Extent and Under Which Circumstances Are Growth Mind-Sets Important to Academic Achievement? Two Meta-Analyses. Psychological Science.
Mindset accounted for about one per cent of variance across 129 studies and 365,915 participants, with weak intervention effects concentrated in at-risk and low socioeconomic groups. Cited in prose with no link because the record could not be opened for checking.