Medical Teaching and Learning: Growth Versus Fixed Mindset in Medical Education

Individuals develop beliefs and mindsets as a meaning system to create structures for their world, which in turn plays a key role in their motivations and behaviors, particularly in the teaching and learning contexts. Mindset could be examined within the frameworks of growth and fixed attitude. Dweck [1] has defined mindset as the perspective of individuals toward their innate attributes (e.g., abilities and personality traits) as fixed, uncontrollable characteristics (fixed mindset) that cannot change through effort or malleable, controllable qualities that could be promoted through effort and investment (growth mindset). In this regard, Dweck [2] argues that the fixed mindset creates an urgency to prove oneself, and the failures faced by the individual may be perceived as a direct measure of their competence and self-worth.