Beliefs About the Nature of Ability and Effort: Their Role in Learning, Parenting, and Teaching

The McMaster Conference on Education & Cognition in partnership with the McMaster Alumni Association is pleased to welcome to Hamilton Dr. David Miele from Boston College to give a FREE public lecture on:

Beliefs About the Nature of Ability and Effort: Their Role in Learning, Parenting, and Teaching 

Research on students’ growth mindsets (i.e., their beliefs about whether intelligence is malleable) has grown quite popular in recent years. However, these mindsets are just one understanding in a complex constellation of beliefs that students hold about the nature of intellectual ability and effort, many of which may have important implications for students’ motivation and learning. In the first half of this talk, Dr. Miele will explore this complexity, with a particular focus on students’ effort source beliefs (i.e., their beliefs about whether intellectual effort originates from internal or external sources).

Importantly, students’ motivation and learning are not solely influenced by their own beliefs about ability and effort. What parents and teachers believe about the nature of ability may influence the ways in which they support children’s learning. In the second half of the talk, Dr. Miele will discuss research suggesting that parents and teachers with strong growth mindsets are more likely than those with weak growth mindsets to engage in autonomy-supportive instructional practices (practices which may promote self-regulated learning) and less likely to engage in controlling practices, particularly when working with a student who is perceived to have low levels of ability in a particular domain.

David Miele is the principal investigator of the Motivation, Metacognition, and Learning (MML) Laboratory at Boston College. He investigates students’ beliefs about their ability, learning, and motivation, and examines how these beliefs influence their engagement in academic tasks. At the broadest level, he is interested in what it takes for students to become effective, independent learners. Though much of his research has examined the motivation of college students, he is also interested in the developmental period of late elementary school (third to fifth grade). In addition, he has conducted research with parents and teachers in order to better understand how their beliefs influence the ways in which they support the learning of elementary school students.

When and where

Thursday, July 18, 2019
6:00 pm – doors open & light refreshments
6:30 pm – lecture
7:30 pm – reception
McMaster University
Michael DeGroote Centre for Learning and Discovery(MDCL)
Room 1105
Hamilton, ON

Cost: FREE

For more information on the McMaster Conference on Education & Cognitionand to register for their workshops and the presentations please click here and register through their online system.