Matteo Campagna
ITEN
Menu
Menu

One study found that, in beginners, learning a growth mindset does not go hand in hand with better scores

1 study · 50 archers measured

ForContextAgainst201820202022202420262018, for, n = 502018, context, n = 502018, against, n = 50
Each circle is a study: its position gives the year, its row whether it is for, against or context, its size how many participants it measured. Light circles are studies on other populations or without archers.

There is a single study on the question, a 2018 doctoral thesis on fifty beginner sixth-grade pupils who, after ten days of archery lessons at school, follow a fifteen-lesson growth mindset programme, partly online. The score at 10 metres rises from 69 to 92, but there is no comparison group and the pupils also had five days of shooting during those weeks, so much of the gain may be what any beginner makes. The part that answers the question points the other way: those who moved furthest towards a growth mindset did not improve more than the others, with correlations close to zero (-0.18 for the mindset about intelligence, 0.08 for the mindset about archery). The shift itself is clearer for intelligence in general than for archery, and five of the eight pupils interviewed saw no connection at all between the programme and what they were doing on the shooting line. The same study, however, contains a result in the opposite direction, a comparison the author made after looking at the numbers: the twenty-eight pupils who ended the course with a growth mindset had improved by 36 points, the twenty-two with a fixed mindset by 6.5. It is a description with no statistical test, and it may simply mean that those who improve also end up thinking that way.

Also phrased as: "growth mindset in archery"; "believing you can improve"; "talent versus effort"; "fixed mindset"; "mindset training for beginners"

In practice

It is often said that those who believe they can improve through work, rather than thinking they either have talent or not, learn faster, and in youth courses the idea is often taught alongside technique.

Evidence

  • 2018
    For Archers Published later

    50 beginner sixth-grade pupils, a fifteen-lesson growth mindset programme during the archery unit of a school course: the change in mindset is unrelated to the change in score, r(48) = -0.18 (p = 0.215) for the mindset about intelligence and r(48) = 0.08 (p = 0.569) for the mindset about archery. Those whose thinking changed most did not improve most.

    The Impact Of Teaching Growth Mindset On Archery Skill Achievement: An Action Research Study · Phillip Thomas

  • 2018
    Context Archers Published later

    During the programme the shooting test at 10 metres rises from 69 (SD 31.5) to 92 (SD 27.8), t(49) = -4.89, p < 0.001, but with no control group and with five days of shooting in the same weeks. The mindset shifts more for intelligence (from 29 to 33, p < 0.001) than for archery (from 31 to 33, p = 0.020), and in the focus group 5 pupils out of 8 saw no connection between the programme and their shooting.

    The Impact Of Teaching Growth Mindset On Archery Skill Achievement: An Action Research Study · Phillip Thomas

  • 2018
    Against Archers Published later

    Having found the correlations to be null, the author splits the pupils by their end-of-course mindset: the 28 with a growth mindset improved by 36 points on average, the 22 with a fixed mindset by 6.5. It is a purely descriptive comparison, with no test at all, and it does not say whether the mindset brings the points or the points bring the mindset.

    The Impact Of Teaching Growth Mindset On Archery Skill Achievement: An Action Research Study · Phillip Thomas

Status history

  1. 2018 Contested The first and so far only study: fifty sixth-grade beginners, a fifteen-lesson growth mindset programme and no control group. Scores rise from 69 to 92 and mindset shifts towards growth, more for intelligence than for shooting, but in the tests the two changes do not go together: the correlations are -0.18 and 0.08, and five of the eight pupils interviewed saw no link between the programme and their shooting. In the same work, however, a comparison made after the fact points the other way: those who ended the course with a growth mindset had improved by 36 points, the others by 6.5, though with no test at all. The same study says one thing with the statistics and the opposite with the description: contested.

Related

Related articles

Research lines

Cite
APA

Campagna, M. (2026). One study found that, in beginners, learning a growth mindset does not go hand in hand with better scores (Version 2). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/growth-mindset-beginners-score

BibTeX
@misc{campagna2026_mentalitacrescitapunteggio,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {One study found that, in beginners, learning a growth mindset does not go hand in hand with better scores},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/growth-mindset-beginners-score},
  note = {Version 2; accessed 2026-10-16}
}

Other claims in this domain

See all claims on mind and attention