Kyla Haimovitz | University of Pennsylvania (original) (raw)
Papers by Kyla Haimovitz
There is great interest in leveraging video games to improve student engagement and motivation. H... more There is great interest in leveraging video games to improve student engagement and motivation. However, educational games are not uniformly effective, and little is known about how in-game rewards affect children’s learning-related be-havior. In this work, we argue that educational games can be improved by fundamentally changing their incentive struc-tures to promote the growth mindset, or the belief that in-telligence is malleable. We present “brain points, ” a system that encourages the development of growth mindset behav-iors by directly incentivizing effort, use of strategy, and in-cremental progress. Through a study of 15,000 children, we show that the “brain points ” system encourages more low-performing students to persist in the educational game Re-fraction when compared to a control, and increases overall time played, strategy use, and perseverance after challenge. We believe that this growth mindset incentive structure has great potential in many educational environments....
A person-centered, mixed-methods approach (self-report surveys, semistructured interviews, school... more A person-centered, mixed-methods approach (self-report surveys, semistructured interviews, school records) was used to characterize and evaluate profiles of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations among 243 third- through eighth-grade students. Cluster analysis suggested four distinct profiles: high quantity (high intrinsic, high extrinsic), primarily intrinsic (high intrinsic, low extrinsic), primarily extrinsic (low intrinsic, high extrinsic), and low quantity (low intrinsic, low extrinsic) motivation. The primarily intrinsic profile showed the most adaptive pattern of responses; the primarily extrinsic and low quantity profiles, conversely, displayed similarly maladaptive patterns. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses suggested that particular combinations of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations may explain students’ academic and emotional functioning in school better than levels of each variable in isolation.
Mindfulness, 2016
Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) can reduce teachers' stress. The purpose of this mixed-met... more Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) can reduce teachers' stress. The purpose of this mixed-method study, conducted within the context of a randomized-control trial of an MBI for teachers, was to examine four potential ways by which the MBI reduced teacher stress, including by (1) increasing their efficacy for regulating emotion on the job; (2) improving their ways of coping with stress at work; (3) increasing their efficacy for forgiving colleagues and students at work following conflict, as well as the tendency to do so; and (4) increasing teachers' tendency to feel compassion for people generally, and for challenging students in particular. Public school teachers (n=59) were ran-domized to an MBI or a waitlist control condition. They completed surveys at pre/post/follow-up and interviews at post-program designed to assess their coping with work stressors and their appraisals of their most challenging students. Survey data showed that efficacy beliefs and the tendency to forgive changed from pre/ post for teachers in the MBI, and partially mediated reductions in stress from baseline to 4-month follow-up. Interview results showed a trend for teachers in the MBI to report more adaptive strategies for coping with job stress, and a tendency to evaluate challenging students in a more positive affective light. Implications for MBIs in teacher professional development are discussed.
Children's mindsets about intelligence (as a quality they can grow vs. a trait they cannot change... more Children's mindsets about intelligence (as a quality they can grow vs. a trait they cannot change) robustly influence their motivation and achievement. How do adults foster " growth mindsets " in children? One might assume that adults act in ways that communicate their own mindsets to children. However, new research shows that many parents and teachers with growth mindsets are not passing them on. This article presents a new perspective on why this is the case, and reviews research on adult practices that do instill growth mind-sets, concluding that a sustained focus on the process of learning is critical. After discussing key implications and promising future directions, we consider the topic in the context of important societal issues, like high-stakes testing.
Children’s intelligence mindsets (i.e., their beliefs about whether intelligence is fixed or mall... more Children’s intelligence mindsets (i.e., their beliefs about whether intelligence is fixed or malleable) robustly influence
their motivation and learning. Yet, surprisingly, research has not linked parents’ intelligence mindsets to their children’s.
We tested the hypothesis that a different belief of parents—their failure mindsets—may be more visible to children
and therefore more prominent in shaping their beliefs. In Study 1, we found that parents can view failure as debilitating
or enhancing, and that these failure mindsets predict parenting practices and, in turn, children’s intelligence mindsets.
Study 2 probed more deeply into how parents display failure mindsets. In Study 3a, we found that children can indeed
accurately perceive their parents’ failure mindsets but not their parents’ intelligence mindsets. Study 3b showed that
children’s perceptions of their parents’ failure mindsets also predicted their own intelligence mindsets. Finally, Study
4 showed a causal effect of parents’ failure mindsets on their responses to their children’s hypothetical failure. Overall,
parents who see failure as debilitating focus on their children’s performance and ability rather than on their children’s
learning, and their children, in turn, tend to believe that intelligence is fixed rather than malleable.
There is great interest in leveraging video games to improve student engagement and motivation. H... more There is great interest in leveraging video games to improve student engagement and motivation. However, educational games are not uniformly effective, and little is known about how in-game rewards affect children’s learning-related be-havior. In this work, we argue that educational games can be improved by fundamentally changing their incentive struc-tures to promote the growth mindset, or the belief that in-telligence is malleable. We present “brain points, ” a system that encourages the development of growth mindset behav-iors by directly incentivizing effort, use of strategy, and in-cremental progress. Through a study of 15,000 children, we show that the “brain points ” system encourages more low-performing students to persist in the educational game Re-fraction when compared to a control, and increases overall time played, strategy use, and perseverance after challenge. We believe that this growth mindset incentive structure has great potential in many educational environments....
A person-centered, mixed-methods approach (self-report surveys, semistructured interviews, school... more A person-centered, mixed-methods approach (self-report surveys, semistructured interviews, school records) was used to characterize and evaluate profiles of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations among 243 third- through eighth-grade students. Cluster analysis suggested four distinct profiles: high quantity (high intrinsic, high extrinsic), primarily intrinsic (high intrinsic, low extrinsic), primarily extrinsic (low intrinsic, high extrinsic), and low quantity (low intrinsic, low extrinsic) motivation. The primarily intrinsic profile showed the most adaptive pattern of responses; the primarily extrinsic and low quantity profiles, conversely, displayed similarly maladaptive patterns. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses suggested that particular combinations of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations may explain students’ academic and emotional functioning in school better than levels of each variable in isolation.
Mindfulness, 2016
Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) can reduce teachers' stress. The purpose of this mixed-met... more Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) can reduce teachers' stress. The purpose of this mixed-method study, conducted within the context of a randomized-control trial of an MBI for teachers, was to examine four potential ways by which the MBI reduced teacher stress, including by (1) increasing their efficacy for regulating emotion on the job; (2) improving their ways of coping with stress at work; (3) increasing their efficacy for forgiving colleagues and students at work following conflict, as well as the tendency to do so; and (4) increasing teachers' tendency to feel compassion for people generally, and for challenging students in particular. Public school teachers (n=59) were ran-domized to an MBI or a waitlist control condition. They completed surveys at pre/post/follow-up and interviews at post-program designed to assess their coping with work stressors and their appraisals of their most challenging students. Survey data showed that efficacy beliefs and the tendency to forgive changed from pre/ post for teachers in the MBI, and partially mediated reductions in stress from baseline to 4-month follow-up. Interview results showed a trend for teachers in the MBI to report more adaptive strategies for coping with job stress, and a tendency to evaluate challenging students in a more positive affective light. Implications for MBIs in teacher professional development are discussed.
Children's mindsets about intelligence (as a quality they can grow vs. a trait they cannot change... more Children's mindsets about intelligence (as a quality they can grow vs. a trait they cannot change) robustly influence their motivation and achievement. How do adults foster " growth mindsets " in children? One might assume that adults act in ways that communicate their own mindsets to children. However, new research shows that many parents and teachers with growth mindsets are not passing them on. This article presents a new perspective on why this is the case, and reviews research on adult practices that do instill growth mind-sets, concluding that a sustained focus on the process of learning is critical. After discussing key implications and promising future directions, we consider the topic in the context of important societal issues, like high-stakes testing.
Children’s intelligence mindsets (i.e., their beliefs about whether intelligence is fixed or mall... more Children’s intelligence mindsets (i.e., their beliefs about whether intelligence is fixed or malleable) robustly influence
their motivation and learning. Yet, surprisingly, research has not linked parents’ intelligence mindsets to their children’s.
We tested the hypothesis that a different belief of parents—their failure mindsets—may be more visible to children
and therefore more prominent in shaping their beliefs. In Study 1, we found that parents can view failure as debilitating
or enhancing, and that these failure mindsets predict parenting practices and, in turn, children’s intelligence mindsets.
Study 2 probed more deeply into how parents display failure mindsets. In Study 3a, we found that children can indeed
accurately perceive their parents’ failure mindsets but not their parents’ intelligence mindsets. Study 3b showed that
children’s perceptions of their parents’ failure mindsets also predicted their own intelligence mindsets. Finally, Study
4 showed a causal effect of parents’ failure mindsets on their responses to their children’s hypothetical failure. Overall,
parents who see failure as debilitating focus on their children’s performance and ability rather than on their children’s
learning, and their children, in turn, tend to believe that intelligence is fixed rather than malleable.