An exploration of the application and implementation of growth mindset principles within a primary school.

BACKGROUND: A growth mindset is a significant factor in the motivation and achievement of learners. Previous research has shown one-off interventions do encourage growth mindset thinking but only improvements are only short-lived. A sustainable and embedded approach may therefore be the only way to engender long-term changes to an individual's mindset. AIMS: This research explores the application and implementation of growth mindset approaches to teaching and learning within a primary school, aiming to identify the strengths of the application and implementation of the growth mindset principles as well as areas for improvement. SAMPLE: Participants were the head teacher, five teachers, and 28 pupils at a primary school in Scotland. METHOD: Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with members of staff, focus groups were undertaken with the pupils, and six observations were undertaken across three different classes. The data were thematically analysed using an inductive approach. RESULTS: The analysis of the data produced four overarching themes important to the implementation and application of growth mindset teaching and learning: embarking on the process; classroom culture and teaching; outside the classroom; and pupil approach to learning. CONCLUSIONS: Among the strengths of the implementation was the collaborative approach that had been taken in the school and the understanding that staff had of the evidence base of growth mindset teaching and learning. Areas for development included the planning of the implementation such as the lack of a readiness assessment being undertaken.

Conditioned preference to a methamphetamine-associated contextual cue in humans.

Classical conditioning is widely used to study motivational properties of addictive drugs in animals, but has rarely been used in humans. We established a procedure suitable for studying the neurobiology and individual determinants of classical conditioning in humans. Healthy volunteers were randomly assigned to four groups that received methamphetamine or placebo in the presence of distinctive environmental cues under paired or unpaired conditions. During each session, subjects performed tasks known to activate the ventral striatum. Tasks were performed in the presence of a distinctive context, consisting of a screen background image of a beach or mountains, accompanied by corresponding sounds. Separate groups of subjects carried out the tasks under high ($35-50) or low ($5-20) reward conditions. Within each of the two reward conditions, one group (paired) received methamphetamine (20 mg, oral) or placebo consistently associated with one of the contexts, while the other (unpaired) received drug or placebo unrelated to context. A fifth group (paired) performed the tasks with contextual cues but in the absence of monetary incentives. Before and after conditioning, participants carried out a series of forced choice tasks for the contextual cues, and change of preference over time was analyzed. All paired groups showed a significant increase in preference for the drug-associated context, with a linear trend for increase across the levels of reward. Preference was unrelated to subjective drug effects, and did not change in the unpaired group. These data support the translational utility of our conditioning procedure for studies of reward mechanisms in humans.