Mindsets and effort beliefs of Finnish high-achieving gifted students

The aim of the present study is to examine how Finnish elementary school students’ mindsets and effort beliefs are associated with their school achievement. More specifically, we are interested in how high-achieving gifted fourth-grade students differ from their peers in their mindset and effort beliefs. For this, 199 fourth-grade students from two Finnish elementary schools filled in a questionnaire regarding their mindset and effort beliefs, and their fourth-grade mathematics and Finnish grades were obtained. Based on our results, fourth-grade students with the highest possible grades in both maths and Finnish believed more in the utility of effort in enhancing one’s ability than did their peers, while the difference in the belief about the malleability of intelligence was only marginal. This indicates that not just beliefs about the malleability of intelligence but also – and possibly more importantly – the beliefs about the importance of effort in enhancing one’s abilities might be key to students’ high achievement.