The effects of praise for effort versus praise for intelligence on vocational education students

The present study investigates the effects of different kinds of praise on 108 students in vocational education, using a similar design as the original mindset studies. Students worked on a set of Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices and either received praise for effort, received praise for intelligence, or were in the control group. Results were not in line with mindset theory. We expected differences in goal choice and performance after experiencing setbacks between students who were praised for effort or who were praised for intelligence, but both groups reacted in the same way. Our results are in line with previous studies that also did not succeed in finding a relation between mindset and academic performance. This study shows that even when the original procedure used in Mueller and Dweck’s experiments was followed, vocational education students were not influenced by the type of praise (i.e. mindset) to which they were exposed.