Initial Design Ideas and Considerations

This section will explore the key considerations which needed to be incorporated into the final product. These came from our local partners and funders, and from the literature.

3.1.1. A ‘legacy’ product

This thesis was part funded by ‘Stoke Reads’, a programme developed by the City of Stoke-on-Trent Council. Stoke Reads was set up to both enhance literacy

teaching within schools and nurseries and also to create a city wide ‘buzz’ around reading. This was achieved via a network of peers who met regularly to share best practice and attend expert training. Stoke Reads was setup and initially funded for a period of three years (2015-18). This was during a time of funding

133 uncertainty for local authorities (Smith, Phillips, Simpson, Eiser, & Trickey, 2016). Because of the uncertainty about the length of the project, the Stoke Reads steering group decided that all outputs from the programme should form a

‘legacy’ of the programme. This meant that outputs should be accessible, and practitioners should be able to use them without any training. Thus, if funding were to be unexpectedly withdrawn, pupils within the City could still benefit from the programme. Therefore, a key consideration for the Stoke Reads Mindset Kit is that it must be easy for teachers to use without extensive training and resources.

3.1.2. The need to generate a classroom culture

It is important to recognise the various structural systems which influence a child’s development are nested within each other (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). And that where possible interventions should target multiple levels rather than focussing on the individual.

This is important because mindsets are sensitive; research has shown that mindsets can be changed by seemingly subtle linguistic differences (Cimpian, Arce, Markman, & Dweck, 2007). For example, “You are a good drawer” as opposed to “You did a good job drawing” can promote a fixed or growth mindset respectively. As younger children (i.e. zero to three years of age) learn through social modelling, how their parents respond to failure can also influence their mindsets (Haimovitz & Dweck, 2016). The environments which children grow up in have been shown to significantly and enduringly influence their mindsets (Haimovitz & Dweck, 2017; Gunderson, Sorhagen, Gripshover, Dweck, Goldin-

134 Meadow, & Levine, 2018). With mindsets being so sensitive, and pupils’ home environment having a substantial bearing on their mindset, it is necessary to generate a growth mindset ‘culture’ within their classroom, and ideally the whole school. Should they then receive stimuli which promotes a fixed mindset from any source, upon returning to school, the growth mindset message will be

embedded and help to counteract this. In taking a ‘cultural’ approach as opposed to developing a time-limited intervention, pupils are most likely to have a robust growth mindset throughout their education.

This contrasts with time-limited, on-line growth mindset interventions (e.g. Paunesku et al., 2015) which are delivered solely to the pupil. Such interventions generally offer short on-line sessions to pupils, e.g. ~50 minutes (Yeager et al., 2018). These studies are often randomised at the pupil level meaning that within the same school there are pupils in the control and experimental conditions. Approaches like this run the risk of competing with the school culture, for example, high-stakes testing promotes fixed mindsets as it focusses on the

product as opposed to the learning process (Shim, Cho, & Cassady, 2013). Within the school, pupils who received such an intervention and gained a growth

mindset would be subjected to structures, practices, and social environments that promote fixed mindsets. Therefore, it is critical to change the culture within a school, or at least within the classroom, to promote growth mindsets.

3.1.3. Train the trainer model

The initial strategy for the intervention was that of a train-the-trainer model. Such an approach often involves an expert providing instruction to a group, who

135 will also be simultaneously trained to train others (Pearce et al., 2012). Schools which were involved in Stoke Reads had a ‘link’ teacher who was involved in peer support and attended network meetings and already had a role in disseminating good practice from the meetings. Our initial plan was that this link person would receive the training and, in turn, provide training to colleagues within their school. It was considered that this could potentially leverage the most

engagement from teachers towards developing growth mindset cultures within their schools. This was hypothesised because teachers feel that training from peers is relevant, delivered by someone who is competent, and provides them with autonomy in its application, in that it is not too prescriptive (Aelterman, Vansteenkiste, Van Keer, & Haerens, 2016).

However, there are potential issues in relation to any train-the-trainer model within the current UK education landscape. Every trainer requires instruction to a level sufficient to understand the concepts of the intervention and feel able to train other colleagues. The first issue is that of cost. This relates to the cost for experts to deliver the initial training and the subsequent time cost required to effectively cascade this to colleagues across schools. The second issue lies in the process of cascading the intervention through schools. How well the messages of an intervention are communicated to the intended recipient is described as the fidelity of the intervention (Gearing et al., 2011). The trained teacher would have their own interpretation of the training they received. They would then go and train teachers within their schools who would also have their own interpretation. This double layer of interpretation presents a significant risk of decreasing the fidelity of the intervention. Therefore, to maintain fidelity in a train the trainer

136 model, it would be critical to adhere to activities or approaches with strict

protocols.

Indeed, Dweck has outlined how growth mindsets are much more complex than her and her colleagues’ initial understanding of them (Severs, 2019). Promoting growth mindsets has become highly popular. A simple Google Scholar search for ‘growth mindset’ returns 50,300 articles, and a wider internet search provides 5,370,000 results. It has been the subject of large randomised controlled trials in the U.S.A. (Yeager et al., 2018), developed into teacher training programmes in the U.K. (Education Endowment Foundation, 2018), and countless ‘home grown’ approaches to implementation from teachers and schools alike. Whatever form the current intervention took it was important to recognise the potential for the intervention to be misinterpreted. Whilst growth mindsets may at first appear to be very simple to implement, individual interpretations of the best way to do this may vary. Often this can result in children being directly rewarded for

demonstrating ‘growth mindset behaviours’ resulting in classrooms being

segregated not by achievement or behaviour but by mindsets. Furthermore, some interventions have been developed where key elements of mindsets are

misconstrued, for example, teachers have offered process praise as a consolation for lack of ability or offered so much praise that it became less effective (Dweck, 2015). The intervention needs to clearly explain the approach which it requires teachers to create whilst still allowing flexibility of interpretation for each individual teacher who engages with the materials.

137 Furthermore, while this research was being conducted, the UK experienced an unusually high level of turnover of labour within the education sector. This was a multi-faceted problem. Government targets for recruitment onto teacher training were not being met, and teachers were unlikely to remain in the profession post qualification (Worth, Lazzari, & Hillary – 2017; National Audit Office – 2017). Furthermore, teachers in schools serving the most economically disadvantaged areas were less likely to stay in the profession (Allen, Burgess, & Mayo, 2018; Ylimaki, Jacobson, & Drysdale, 2008). These issues were particularly pertinent in Stoke-on-Trent, as the area is economically deprived and therefore presents a challenging environment to practice education in (Gill, 2015). The somewhat transient nature of the education workforce within Stoke-on-Trent presented many potential problems in developing an intervention that required training. Whilst the initial goal was to create a sufficiently large population of teachers who were trained in the intervention, it would be impossible to guarantee that this population would remain in the profession to support teachers in future. An additional issue is that should one school experience a higher level of turnover then their link teacher would have many colleagues to train.

3.1.4. Lesson plans

The initial conception of the Mindset Kit was based around the idea of ‘mindset lessons’. Previous studies have effectively implemented classroom lessons to promote growth mindsets in pupils (e.g. Blackwell et al., 2007). However, it is potentially problematic to ask teachers to spend time on lessons that are not part of the National Curriculum as teachers report that they are struggling to cover all aspects of the National Curriculum in the time they have available (National

138 Union of Teachers, 2014). A solution would be to tie the ‘mindset lessons’ to areas of the National Curriculum so that teachers would be able to cover curriculum content in lessons that had been designed to promote growth mindsets. For example, when learning about the brain, students could learn about brain plasticity. However, this could potentially limit the life span of this element of the intervention. Following the Education Reform Act of 1988, the UK National Curriculum is set by the Department for Education (McNamara, 1993). Since its introduction the National curriculum has been modified in 1995, 1997, 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2015 (Hanson, 2018). It is likely that changes to the National Curriculum will continue as education remains a highly politicised area of policy. Changes are often made to ‘sweep away’ the ‘mistakes’ of previous Governments (Gunter, 2015). These frequent changes would most likely mean the lessons were no longer relevant to the National Curriculum and became a burdensome

element of the intervention. This would reduce the likelihood of them being utilised.

Another potential issue of developing lesson plans which are tied to the National Curriculum is the age of pupils which the current intervention is targeting. Previous interventions such as Blackwell et al. (2007) delivered lessons explicitly designed to teach pupils about growth mindsets. The content of which would be inappropriate for the young pupils the current intervention is designed to be used with. Table 21 below presents the content of the lessons Blackwell et al. (2007) provided for their experimental group:

139 Table 21.

Mindset lessons

Sessions Experimental group

1 and 2 The Brain – Structure & Function: Brain Anatomy, Localisation of Function, Neuronal Structure, Neurotransmission

3 and 4 Incremental Theory Intervention Reading (aloud in class): “You Can Grow Your Intelligence”

5 and 6 Anti-Stereotyping Lesson: Slides, activity, discussion to illustrate the pitfalls of stereotyping

7 and 8 Discussions: Learning makes you smarter; Labels (e.g., stupid, dumb) should be avoided

Note. Adapted from “Implicit theories of intelligence predict achievement across an adolescent transition: a longitudinal study and an intervention,” by Blackwell, et al., 2007, Child Development, 78, p. 255.

This level of content would be inappropriate for Year 1 children. It is also not realistic to change the content to be age appropriate. Pupils as young as four would not be able to understand that the brain is comprised of neurons, how these communicate, and that results in a ‘plastic’ brain structure. This means that fully half of the lessons in Blackwell et al. (2007) would be impossible to deliver in the current project. Furthermore, whilst it could be possible to have discussions surrounding stereotypes with young children, it would require a high level of understanding and discussion to successfully promote growth mindsets. This potentially could exclude pupils of lower abilities, those who have special educational needs, or those who speak English as an additional language. Delivering such lessons would also require a significant level of teacher skill in ensuring sessions successfully promoted growth mindsets. This would require an

140 intensive period of training to familiarise teachers with the material and the techniques required to shape discussions towards promoting growth mindsets.

3.1.5. A ‘minimal resource’ approach

The concept of a ‘minimal resource’ approach has one definition and several meanings as a design consideration within this thesis. ‘Resources’ refers to any cost to a school budget, this is taken as both directly financial (i.e. requires the purchase of materials, equipment, or training) and staff time (i.e. teachers time costs the school). This is particularly relevant as funding for UK schools grows ever tighter within current austere fiscal policy, forcing schools to make efficiency savings wherever possible (Andrews & Lawrence, 2018). To introduce an

intervention into schools which would require significant resources, or indeed any resources at all, would potentially be an unbearable cost for schools. This would render the intervention at best only useful for a small portion of schools or at worst, completely untenable for all schools. Therefore, an important design consideration was that the intervention be ‘minimal resource’ without compromising outcomes for pupils.

3.1.6. Continued engagement from teachers

As outlined above, teachers face significant pressures in their workload (National Union of Teachers, 2014). Therefore, it was important to consider how teachers would interact with the Mindset Kit. Producing a substantial intervention (e.g. a ring binder as is common for educational programmes) could appear

overwhelming, meaning teachers may not follow the suggestions fully, and as discussed above – may promote ‘false’ growth mindsets. If the messages

141 contained within the Mindset Kit could be communicated from the first reading then this would avoid such issues, teachers could then refer to the Mindset Kit as they updated their practice. It was also important to consider how to encourage teachers to continue implementing the ideas within the Mindset Kit after their initial engagement, i.e. halfway through a school year. Creating an intervention that teachers could easily reengage with would increase continued fidelity of the ideas of the intervention.