IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/entthe/v44y2020i5p878-908.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Growth Mindset Intervention: Enhancing Students’ Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy and Career Development

Author

Listed:
  • Jeni L. Burnette
  • Jeffrey M. Pollack
  • Rachel B. Forsyth
  • Crystal L. Hoyt
  • Alexandra D. Babij
  • Fanice N. Thomas
  • Anthony E. Coy

Abstract

Despite mounting interest in growth mindset interventions, this approach has yet to be applied to the domain of entrepreneurship. In the present research, we developed and tested if a growth mindset intervention could be leveraged to promote students’ entrepreneurial self-efficacy and if this, in turn, predicted career development (i.e., academic interest, career interest, task persistence, and academic performance). We report on our findings, from an Open Science Framework (OSF) preregistered study, that is a randomized controlled trial implementing a growth mindset intervention. We randomly assigned undergraduate students ( N = 238) in an introduction to entrepreneurship class to either the growth mindset intervention or to a knowledge-based attention-matched control. Students in the growth mindset intervention, relative to the control, reported greater entrepreneurial self-efficacy and task persistence on their main class project. The intervention also indirectly improved academic and career interest via entrepreneurial self-efficacy. However, the intervention failed to directly or indirectly impact performance on a classroom assignment. Additionally, and somewhat surprisingly, gender and past experience in the field failed to moderate any effects of the intervention on outcomes. Theoretical implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeni L. Burnette & Jeffrey M. Pollack & Rachel B. Forsyth & Crystal L. Hoyt & Alexandra D. Babij & Fanice N. Thomas & Anthony E. Coy, 2020. "A Growth Mindset Intervention: Enhancing Students’ Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy and Career Development," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 44(5), pages 878-908, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:entthe:v:44:y:2020:i:5:p:878-908
    DOI: 10.1177/1042258719864293
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1042258719864293
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1042258719864293?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carr, Jon C. & Sequeira, Jennifer M., 2007. "Prior family business exposure as intergenerational influence and entrepreneurial intent: A Theory of Planned Behavior approach," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 60(10), pages 1090-1098, October.
    2. KruegerJR, Norris F. & Reilly, Michael D. & Carsrud, Alan L., 2000. "Competing models of entrepreneurial intentions," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 15(5-6), pages 411-432.
    3. Alain Fayolle, 2013. "Personal views on the future of entrepreneurship education," Post-Print hal-02313062, HAL.
    4. Gary S. Becker, 1964. "Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, First Edition," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck-5, March.
    5. Mcmullan, W. Ed & Long, Wayne A., 1987. "Entrepreneurship education in the nineties," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 261-275.
    6. Gupta, Vishal K. & Goktan, A. Banu & Gunay, Gonca, 2014. "Gender differences in evaluation of new business opportunity: A stereotype threat perspective," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 273-288.
    7. Ajzen, Icek, 1991. "The theory of planned behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 179-211, December.
    8. John Antonakis & Samuel Bendahan & Philippe Jacquart & Rafael Lalive, 2010. "On making causal claims : A review and recommendations," Post-Print hal-02313119, HAL.
    9. Alain Fayolle, 2013. "Personal views on the future of entrepreneurship education," Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(7-8), pages 692-701, September.
    10. Wennberg, Karl & Anderson, Brian S. & McMullen, Jeffrey, 2019. "2 Editorial: Enhancing Quantitative Theory-Testing Entrepreneurship Research," Ratio Working Papers 323, The Ratio Institute.
    11. Francesc Miralles & Ferran Giones & Carla Riverola, 2016. "Evaluating the impact of prior experience in entrepreneurial intention," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 791-813, September.
    12. Anderson, Brian S. & Wennberg, Karl & McMullen, Jeffery S., 2019. "Editorial: Enhancing quantitative theory-testing entrepreneurship research," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1-1.
    13. A. Fayolle, 2013. "Personal views on the future of entrepreneurship education," Post-Print halshs-01057347, HAL.
    14. Sternberg, Robert J., 2004. "Successful intelligence as a basis for entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 189-201, March.
    15. Howard Van Auken & Fred L. Fry & Paul Stephens, 2006. "The Influence Of Role Models On Entrepreneurial Intentions," Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship (JDE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 11(02), pages 157-167.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Michaelis, Timothy L. & Pollack, Jeffrey M. & Hu, Xinyu (Judy) & Carr, Jon C. & McKelvie, Alexander, 2021. "Metacognition and entrepreneurial action: The mediating role of a strategic mindset on promoting effort and innovative behavior in frugal entrepreneurs," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 16(C).
    2. Feng Liu & Jun Liu & He Ding, 2023. "Employee Strengths Mindset and Voice Behavior: The Roles of General Self-Efficacy and Leader–Member Exchange," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-14, July.
    3. Haiyan Li & Salih Zeki Ozdemir & Peter A. Heslin, 2023. "Merely Folklore? The Role of a Growth Mindset in the Taking and Timing of Entrepreneurial Actions," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 47(6), pages 2077-2120, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nicolás Contreras-Barraza & Juan Felipe Espinosa-Cristia & Guido Salazar-Sepulveda & Alejandro Vega-Muñoz, 2021. "Entrepreneurial Intention: A Gender Study in Business and Economics Students from Chile," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-14, April.
    2. Montserrat Entrialgo & Víctor Iglesias, 2016. "The moderating role of entrepreneurship education on the antecedents of entrepreneurial intention," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 1209-1232, December.
    3. Laura Padilla-Angulo & René Díaz-Pichardo & Antonio Luis Leal-Rodríguez, 2023. "Are different entrepreneurship-promotion activities equally effective? an analysis by academic year and gender," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 1-25, March.
    4. Dan Wang & Lili Wang & Ling Chen, 2018. "Unlocking the influence of family business exposure on entrepreneurial intentions," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 951-974, December.
    5. Rajib Roy & Fatima Akhtar & Niladri Das, 2017. "Entrepreneurial intention among science & technology students in India: extending the theory of planned behavior," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 13(4), pages 1013-1041, December.
    6. Newbery, Robert & Lean, Jonathan & Moizer, Jonathan & Haddoud, Mohamed, 2018. "Entrepreneurial identity formation during the initial entrepreneurial experience: The influence of simulation feedback and existing identity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 51-59.
    7. Mario Rosique-Blasco & Antonia Madrid-Guijarro & Domingo García-Pérez-de-Lema, 2018. "The effects of personal abilities and self-efficacy on entrepreneurial intentions," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 1025-1052, December.
    8. Lizette Huezo-Ponce & Virginia Fernández-Pérez & Lázaro Rodríguez-Ariza, 2021. "Emotional competencies and entrepreneurship: modeling universities," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 1497-1519, September.
    9. Ozdemir, Dilek & Dabic, Marina & Daim, Tugrul, 2019. "Entrepreneurship education from a Croatian medical student's perspective," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    10. Patricia P. Iglesias-Sánchez & Carmen Jambrino-Maldonado & Carlos de las Heras-Pedrosa, 2019. "Training Entrepreneurial Competences with Open Innovation Paradigm in Higher Education," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(17), pages 1-23, August.
    11. Rajib Roy & Fatima Akhtar & Niladri Das, 0. "Entrepreneurial intention among science & technology students in India: extending the theory of planned behavior," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-29.
    12. Yushun Su & Zeren Zhu & Jingwen Chen & Yuanqing Jin & Ting Wang & Chien-Liang Lin & Danying Xu, 2021. "Factors Influencing Entrepreneurial Intention of University Students in China: Integrating the Perceived University Support and Theory of Planned Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-17, April.
    13. Ruijie Zhu & Guojing Zhao & Zehai Long & Yangjie Huang & Zhaoxin Huang, 2022. "Entrepreneurship or Employment? A Survey of College Students’ Sustainable Entrepreneurial Intentions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-15, May.
    14. H. V. Mukesh & Rajasekharan Pillai K., 2020. "Role of Institutional Ecosystem in Entrepreneurship Education: An Empirical Reiteration," Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, vol. 29(1), pages 176-205, March.
    15. Hsu, Dan K. & Burmeister-Lamp, Katrin & Simmons, Sharon A. & Foo, Maw-Der & Hong, Michelle C. & Pipes, Jesse D., 2019. "“I know I can, but I don't fit”: Perceived fit, self-efficacy, and entrepreneurial intention," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 311-326.
    16. Brizeida Raquel Hernández-Sánchez & José Carlos Sánchez-García & Alexander Ward Mayens, 2019. "Impact of Entrepreneurial Education Programs on Total Entrepreneurial Activity: The Case of Spain," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-16, March.
    17. Léo-Paul Dana & Edoardo Crocco & Francesca Culasso & Elisa Giacosa, 2023. "Business plan competitions and nascent entrepreneurs: a systematic literature review and research agenda," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 863-895, June.
    18. Takawira Munyaradzi Ndofirepi, 2022. "Entrepreneurship goal and implementation intentions formation: the role of higher education institutions and contexts," Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 1-22, December.
    19. Gayoung Kim & Dohyeon Kim & Woo Jin Lee & Sunyoung Joung, 2020. "The Effect of Youth Entrepreneurship Education Programs: Two Large-Scale Experimental Studies," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(3), pages 21582440209, September.
    20. Martina Musteen & Ross Curran & Nuno Arroteia & Maria Ripollés & Andreu Blesa, 2018. "A Community of Practice Approach to Teaching International Entrepreneurship," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-17, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:entthe:v:44:y:2020:i:5:p:878-908. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.