The Relationship between Mindset and Developmental Math at a Community Colllege

Community colleges are tasked with the challenge of educating students of all academic levels. This quantitative research study investigated the use of a growth mindset intervention as a mechanism to improve success in developmental math at a large, midwestern community college. The research design included a pre-test, growth mindset intervention, and post-test administered to the experimental group and a pre-test and post-test to the control group. Statistical analysis was applied to determine if a statistically significant relationship exists between the growth mindset intervention administered to the experimental group and a change in mindset, successful completion of a developmental math course, and progression into the next level of math. The findings from this study were not statistically significant, largely due to sample size. Recommendations for future research include expanding the volume and demographics of the sample size to determine if a growth mindset intervention has the potential to be a cost-effective curriculum infusion that improves success rates in developmental math.