A Case Study Of Secondary School English Teacher-Researchers’ Growth Mindset

Growth mindset is a positive way of thinking.People with growth mindset consider intelligence and ability malleable through effort.Nowadays,growth mindset has gained much popularity among researchers in the field of education.Most relevant empirical studies have focused on the interventions of growth mindset,aiming at cultivating teachers’ growth mindset while few clearly pointed out the actualization of teachers’ mindset in their everyday pedagogical practices,and even fewer focused on teacher-researchers,which is a new role current teachers are encouraged to play.This study adopts the qualitative case study to explore how three secondary English teacher-researchers with growth mindset behave in teaching and research and the impacts of growth mindset on their professional learning.Data sources include semi-structured interviews,informal communication,and case documents.Major findings are summarized below:To begin with,all three teacher-researchers have a strong growth mindset tendency in teaching and research,as manifested in the four main categories,including supporting learning and research process,promoting mastery orientation,persistence,and fostering process-focused thinking.The manifestations are various and show a process-focused trait.In teaching,teacher-researchers’ growth mindset is obviously witnessed when interacting with underachievers,mainly by means of emphasizing their emotional development.In research,teacher-researchers’ growth mindset guides them to survive the whole process of doing research.Secondly,growth mindset has a significant influence on the three teacher-researchers’professional learning,leading to changes in beliefs,practices,and emotions,and the changes are positive and long-lasting.In this study,teachers’ growth mindset brings salient changes in practices and emotions,and it can predict teachers’ work enjoyment.Moreover,environmental and individual factors jointly contribute to the changes.In the present study,the school authorities’ attitudes toward teaching and research,and the unexpected status quo are two evident environmental factors,while teacher-researchers’ intrinsic willingness is observed in terms of individual factors.Thus,based on the above-mentioned findings,this study provides four suggestions for secondary school English teachers and school authorities.Firstly,this study encourages secondary school English teachers to learn from the specific manifestations of growth mindset in teaching and learning and adopt them in real situations.Secondly,secondary school teachers are appealed to pay more attention to underachievers,especially their emotional development,which ordinary teachers can easily ignore.Thirdly,it is suggested that secondary school teachers who are overwhelmed with negative emotions,such as burnout and boredom,cultivate growth mindset to alleviate them.Lastly,school authorities are expected to attach importance to the development of teachers’ growth mindset to improve their teaching and research awareness and abilities by regularly conducting meaningful teaching and research activities.