ECR Projects

Explore past and current fundamental STEM education research projects across the three research areas that NSF's EDU Core Research (ECR) program funds, as well as across ECR funding types. Other search filters draw from both NSF's data and the ECR Hub's hand coding of award abstracts.

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Helping Parents to See Mathematics Ability as Malleable: Implications for Children's Mathematics Learning

Effective Years: 2016-2022

Many people believe that mathematics ability is a fixed trait. However, research indicates instead that mathematics ability is malleable, that it can be improved with effort and persistence, a belief system known as "growth mindset". There has been much attention to enhancing children's mathematics learning in the classroom. Although this is critical, it does not take into account that children spend a large proportion of their time outside of school, frequently with at least one of their parents. Consequently, parents are an important but underutilized resource in the effort to improve children's mathematics learning. It is clear that parents' practices play a role in the development of children's mathematics skills, but little is known about how to optimize parenting practices. This research project will study how growth mindsets about mathematics ability can lead to parenting practices that enhance children's mathematics learning. A central endeavor of the project will be to test the efficacy of helping parents to hold a growth mindset. Along with the research findings, the project will also translate to a cost- and time-efficient intervention that can be implement in a variety of settings.

The project will investigate the impact of the intervention on parents' mindsets, their ensuing parenting practices related to mathematics learning, and the impact of those practices on children's motivation and achievement in mathematics. The project will employ an experimental intervention in which parents and children are followed over time using a variety of assessments (e.g., observations, daily reports, and standardized tests). The research will test the extent to which exposing parents to information that mathematics ability is malleable leads to a growth mindset, thereby optimizing parenting practices around mathematics with enduring benefits for children's mathematics learning. Given demographic disparities in children's mathematics achievement, a socioeconomically diverse group of European American and African American families will be recruited. This design will permit study of the extent to which the growth mindset induction along with the scaffolding activities can reduce socioeconomic and ethnic disparities. A major innovation of the project is that it will examine whether scaffolding activities (e.g., mathematics games and books) support parents in implementing their growth mindsets in a variety of situations in which they interact with children around mathematics on a daily basis.