Hard work and dedication are essential to passing your exams, but a growth mindset is also crucial. Edel Walsh explains how this can enhance exam preparation.
Believing in yourself and having confidence in your capabilities can often be the tipping point between success and failure.
Many believe success comes down to your mindset in work, training, learning and life. If you think you can do something or achieve a goal, often you will be successful.
And it’s a widely held belief that the opposite is also true. If you tell yourself you can’t do something, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
When it comes to exams, having a positive mindset before you sit will help you feel at ease and able to approach the paper more effectively.
Fixed vs growth mindsets
Mindsets are powerful beliefs.
There are two types of mindsets: the fixed mindset and the growth mindset.
In her book Mindset, Carol Dweck says a fixed mindset is a belief that your intelligence, talents and other abilities are set in stone.
A person with a fixed mindset believes that they were born with a particular set of skills that cannot be changed.
On the other hand, a growth mindset is the belief that people can develop their talents and achieve their goals through hard work, effective strategies, and support from others.
To achieve a growth mindset, some think you need to put extra effort into your studies. However, while this may be the case for a few, other factors must be considered.
Developing your learning strategies
Achieving a growth mindset requires students to try new learning strategies if another strategy, such as re-reading your lecture notes, is not working for you.
A growth mindset is about recognising what does and does not work for you and making changes needed to help you succeed. If you are not progressing with your studies using one learning technique, try others to see what will work for you.
Adapting how you take in information from your lectures or how you review your notes – even if it’s not what you see your classmates doing – is part of a growth mindset.
Feedback is crucial
Receiving feedback on your progress from your lecturers is also very important to a growth mindset.
This feedback might be formal through practising exam questions and mock papers; or it could be informal feedback through meeting with the lecturer.
Feedback can give you a clear direction on how to improve your learning.
Embrace the mistakes
Mistakes are unavoidable, but they are also the most useful way to learn.
A person with a fixed mindset will often be unwilling to investigate the source of their mistakes. However, if you don’t examine your mistakes, you are bound to repeat them, only this time, you may be doing it when it counts the most – during the exam.
Feeling demotivated, stressed, and anxious is normal when you make mistakes, especially when preparing for exams. A person with a growth mindset will investigate their mistakes, adjust their thinking and move forward.
The key is to re-frame your thoughts and create positive prompts. By changing how you think and re-framing your self-talk, you can change your mindset.
Let’s have a look at some growth mindset statements you can try when you feel frustrated with your performance:
- I will try new learning strategies.
- I relish a challenge.
- My hard work will pay off.
- I am not there yet in my studies, but I am on the right path.
- I have a positive attitude towards my learning.
Goal setting
Setting realistic and achievable goals is an excellent way of using the growth mindset to overcome challenges.
There are two types of goals for academic success: performance and learning goals.
For example, aiming for 70 percent in a financial accounting exam is a performance goal. Being able to understand double entry is a learning goal.
People set both performance and learning goals. Performance goals will help you with the short-term comprehension of a topic, while learning goals will lead to greater understanding and performance.
A growth mindset leads to exam success
Adopting a growth mindset, believing in yourself, and having confidence in your abilities are excellent paths to achieving your learning goals.
Edel Walsh is an academic performance coach.
www.edelwalsh.ie.