Power of Perception? Associations Between Perceived Caregiver Mindset Beliefs and Undergraduate Student Academic Engagement

Promoting academic engagement is vital for college student success. Researchers have explored factors like growth mindset, the belief that intelligence can improve with effort, as a driver of academic engagement. Given the important role of parental socialization on the developing student, we propose that students’ perceptions of their caregivers’ growth mindset beliefs might explain unique variance in their academic engagement, over and above students’ own mindset. This study examined how undergraduate students’ own mindsets and perceptions of their caregivers’ mindsets relate to four components of academic engagement: behavioral engagement, emotional engagement, behavioral disaffection, and emotional disaffection. Survey data from undergraduate students in the United States (N = 1,417) were analyzed using structural equation modeling. On average, students possessed a growth mindset and perceived their caregivers to also hold a growth mindset. Student growth mindset was positively associated with behavioral and emotional engagement and negatively associated with behavioral and emotional disaffection. Perceptions of caregiver growth mindset were associated with lower behavioral disaffection. Student growth mindset had a moderating effect on the association between perceived caregiver mindset and emotional engagement, such that a more student growth mindset weakened the negative association between perceived caregiver growth mindset and emotional engagement. The findings point to the important roles of parental socialization and internalization of caregiver messages and behaviors that could shape learning-related beliefs and behaviors in college.