Growth mindset beliefs and practices among students and academic advisors: a conceptual replication of Muenks et al. (2024)

Growth mindset beliefs and behaviors have been well documented among students and instructors. Such beliefs and behaviors—along with students’ perceptions of their instructors—comprise a growth mindset culture that reflects a broader meaning system that shapes academic pursuits. Yet virtually no empirical work in educational psychology has considered these beliefs and behaviors in the academic advising context. To address this critical research gap, the goal of the present study was to conduct a conceptual replication of Muenks et al. (2024), which examined associations between instructor growth mindset beliefs and behaviors and how students perceive their instructors’ beliefs and behaviors. Extending this work in a new context, the present study examined these associations in a separate sample of undergraduate students (N = 434, 74% female, M_age = 18.93, SD = 2.06) and professional academic advisors (N = 13, 67% female, M_age = 38.27, SD = 8.67) at a large public research university in the southeast United States. Using survey measures, students rated their own mindset, their advisors’ mindset, and their advisors’ advising style; advisors rated their own mindset and advising style. Results closely mirrored those of the original findings in both magnitude and pattern of significance, except that the present study found a small negative association between advisors’ self-reported growth mindset beliefs and student perceptions of their advisor’s growth mindset beliefs. The present findings raise important questions regarding the similarities and differences in instructional and advising contexts and point to exciting new directions in mindset research that consider the important roles of both instructors and professional academic advisors in shaping student success.