Student perspectives on chemistry intelligence and their implications for measuring chemistry-specific mindset

Students’ beliefs about their ability to improve their intelligence (known as mindset) likely have more impact on their academic outcomes when engaging in challenging learning environments, such as introductory undergraduate chemistry courses. To date, little research has been conducted on the chemistry-specific aspects of intelligence which result in domain-specific mindset beliefs. Additionally, the existing mindset instrument, and its variations, have not been demonstrated as valid for a higher-education chemistry student population. In this work, we evaluate mindset trait terminology (“intelligence,” “chemistry intelligence,” and “chemistry ability”) interpretations across a large, diverse sample to identify key cognitive aspects students consider important within chemistry-specific contexts and qualitatively distinguish perspectives of students who describe growth mindset beliefs from those holding fixed mindset beliefs. It was determined that all three mindset trait terms yield broad ranges of interpretations, and that those specific to chemistry elicit meanings more relevant to the chemistry classroom context. Three distinct mindset perspectives were identified qualitatively