Browsing by Author "Seitamaa, Aino"

The purpose of this study was to pilot a mindset questionnaire designed for 1st and 2nd grade students in two socioeconomically different schools in the Helsinki area and to study what kind of conceptions these children have about intelligence and giftedness. The study was conducted to see if there were any indications of the mindsets. In addition, whether gender and school was related to the mindsets of young children was addressed. A mixed method approach was used with a qualitative content analysis and statistical analysis to answer the research questions. All together 262 children answered the questionnaire. The questionnaire was analyzed critically since it received a low reliability. Especially the intelligence domain was internally inconsistent and hence suggestions for improvement were made based on methodological analysis. Some questionnaire items were analyzed in detail. A content analysis was used to determine who had understood the concepts of intelligence and giftedness and what kind of answers children provided. Half of the children understood the concept of intelligence and 86.2% of them talked about it in neutral terms. Only 27.9% of children understood the concept of giftedness and 82.2% of them spoke by using neutral language. Hence, indications of the mindsets were not found, which may suggest that the mindsets are not yet consolidated. There were significant between school differences in understanding the conceptions of intelligence and giftedness. Gender and age affected understanding of the concept of giftedness so that girls and 2nd graders understood the concept better that boys or 1st graders. Statistical analysis revealed that only school had a significant effect on the mindset of sociomoral goodness. Future research on young children’s mindsets should take the presented methodological analysis into consideration when designing mindset measures. This study indicated that children’s mindsets have not yet developed, but more research is needed. Significant differences were found between schools, which is a worrying result. More research is needed to study school and gender related differences in mindset in the Finnish educational context.