[Pulcinella]

This is anecdotal, but I have also noticed the related inverse problem as well. Students who think they are "one of the dumb kids" do much worse than similar students who do not think that. These students will randomly guess the answer to a multiple choice[1] question if they don't instantly know the answer, even if the answer to the question was basically given in another question on the test.

Part of helping this kind of student is also praising them for effort rather than "smartness" and teaching them how to be good test takers (e.g. How to use the test against itself, how to "guess" wisely, etc).

[1] Debate on the pedagogical value of multiple choice tests is left as an exercise to the reader.

[throwawayjava]

This is absolutely my experience -- even a few positive reinforcements ("Wow, that was a super clever idea! I wouldn't have thought of solving the problem that way!") can change students' mindset, at least in a particular class/subject.

It's amazing how few students are actually as bad as they appear to be on first pass. I basically go into every student/teacher interaction assuming the kid is above average, and I'm very rarely disappointed. That's because "average" is often pulled way down by issues surrounding self-image and study behavior, both of which have no bearing on raw ability.

Basically, "confidence + hard work" is usually enough to take a kid from below average to slightly above average.

[richmarr]

> This is anecdotal, but I have also noticed the related inverse problem as well.

Carol Dweck argues in her book (and the research behind it) that you're describing different symptoms of the same problem, rather than an inverse.

The problem being; a mindset that believes a normal person's ability at a task (at least at a high school level) is governed by fixed traits rather than something that can be changed.

- People who consider themselves inherently unskilled at a task are more likely to not bother.

- People who consider themselves inherently skilled at a task are likely to fear failure because it damages their self worth.

- People who focus on growth/learning/effort are less afraid of failure, attempt harder problems and are more resilient to setbacks

These ideas may seem trite these days but the book was published in 2006 so maybe less so then.

[agumonkey]

It's been showed for girls and also other classes too. Too much bias is bad, positive or negative. It shifts your focus from reading and thinking to an imaginary expectation about things.

Reminds me something else: in college I failed hard, some times I tried to really learn but would drown at the second question. Surprisingly the topic I didn't even bother to learn, I had better grades. Because all I had was 2 hours, the subject and my brain. I didn't feel demotivated by not being able to answer question 2 since I was unable to answer any of these right off the bat. But after thinking, I could grab a few point here and there, and try every problems. It even became absurd when at a discrete math exam (that nobody loves) every body left after the first page thinking page 2 would be even harder. Turns out the remaining exercices were trivial, even for my tourist self. So I ended in the first pack.

[pfarnsworth]

A lot of this is due to self-esteem. Once they've internalized that they are "dumb", they don't even bother trying because they don't think trying will affect the outcome. It's really sad to see. They need to learn to derive some sort of self-esteem from studying, regardless of the outcome, so that's why praising effort and getting these students to acquire self-esteem from effort instead of results is so very important for success. Once they get the self-esteem from trying, then the results will naturally follow and it turns into a virtuous circle.