Relationship between Mindset and Student Achievement in a Virtual Independent Study Charter Middle School

The purpose of this study was to determine if relationships exist between a particular mindset and student success. The participants were middle school teachers, parents, and students from a virtual independent study charter school in California who were a part of a hybrid program of virtual and in-person instruction called Community Day. Seven teachers completed a questionnaire that asked general information about their teaching background and asked them to rate their agreeance with statements related to intelligence and various methods to teach and learn mathematics. Thirty-seven parents and 45 students responded to survey questions that asked general student information and asked them to rate their agreeance with statements related to intelligence and various methods to learn mathematics. The statements were scored using a point system for each response and analyzed to determine which mindset each participant demonstrated: fixed, growth, or cannot be categorized. The mindset of participants was then cross-referenced with students’ math grade to determine if relationships exist between mindset of the participants and student achievement. After these data were analyzed and compared, findings indicated that students with a growth mindset do demonstrate higher achievement scores in math. However, some adventitious findings revealed results that did not correlate with the reviewed literature. Overall, there is a need for more research to be done using alternative models of schools to determine if the results from this study are consistent with other independent study schools. Keywords: fixed mindset, growth mindset, math, mathematics, middle school, mindset, independent study school