This study examined the relationship between 148 fifth-grade students' essentialist beliefs about intelligence and their academic achievement. Essentialist beliefs were measured using a 5-item scale assessing whether intelligence is innate, brain-based, stable, or influenced by environment. Students also reported beliefs about intelligence being fixed or malleable. Results showed that beliefs in intelligence being stable were correlated with lower reading fluency and math calculation scores, explaining 10-16% of variance. Beliefs were interrelated but not a unified construct. The study provides initial evidence that children's essentialist beliefs are related to their academic performance.

1. Lay Theories and Academic Achievement
Children’s Academic Achievement and its Relation to Essentialist and Implicit Theories of Intelligence
Jazmine Russell
Department of Applied Psychology, New York University
 148 fifth grade students from a
public school in New York City and
a charter school in California.
 The mean age was 10.58 years.
 50% were female.
 39% were multilingual.
 The procedure was adapted from the Socio-Ecological and Social-Cognitive
Underpinnings of Math Difficulties in Diverse Learners project (PIs Rose Vukovic, &
Saskias Casanova)
 Participating students were visited in their classrooms and asked to complete a
self-report survey on their essentialist beliefs about intelligence.
 A subsample of students (n = 109) also completed a series of additional self-report
surveys and academic assessments.
Variable Scale Construct α
Implicit Theories of
Intelligence
Implicit Theories of Intelligence Scale
(Dweck, Chiu, & Hong; 1995)
3 items on a 6-point Likert scale which measured
children’s agreement with entity (fixed) beliefs of
intelligence
.94
Calculation
Subscale of the Woodcock Johnson III
standardized achievement tests (WJ-III;
Schrank, 2006; Schrank, McGrew, &
Woodcock, 2001 )
45 mathematical calculation problems which increase
in difficulty assessed children’s math achievement
.80-.87
Math Fluency
Subscale of the Woodcock Johnson III
standardized achievement tests (WJ-III;
Schrank, 2006; Schrank, McGrew, &
Woodcock, 2001 )
160 timed addition, subtraction, and multiplication
problems which measured children’s arithmetic skills
and math achievement
.90-.93
Reading Fluency
Subscale of the Woodcock Johnson III
standardized achievement tests (WJ-III;
Schrank, 2006; Schrank, McGrew, &
Woodcock, 2001 )
A timed series of 98 statements which students
assessed as either true or false was used to measure
reading speed and comprehension
.86-.93
Discussion
Participants
Method
Procedure
I would like to thank Dr. Rose Vukovic and Dr. Saskias Casanova for their support and encouragement throughout the
development of the project, Dr. Gigliana Melzi and Dr. Adina Schick for their additional guidance, Ashley Jordan,
Emily Stutts, and Mark Sologuren for their generous assistance, as well as Dr. Suzanne Carothers, Jenifer Wilhelm,
and the teachers who so kindly welcomed me into their classrooms.
Acknowledgements
*p < .05, **p < .01
Note. Correlations for variables 6-9 are based on the subsample of the participants (n=109) who completed those measures.
Results: Academic Outcomes
 Children who held the essentialist beliefs that intelligence is stable (r = -.36,
p < .01), inborn (r = -.19, p < .05 ) and not environmentally influenced (r = -.20,
p < .05) had lower reading fluency scores.
 Children who held the essentialist belief that intelligence is stable also had lower
calculation scores (r = -.21, p< .05).
 Regression analyses showed that only beliefs about stability significantly
explained students’ outcomes. Although the full model explained 16% of the
variance in reading fluency, post-hoc analyses show the unique variance
explained by children’s beliefs about stability is 10%
 Regression analysis also showed that beliefs about stability also accounted for 5%
of the variance in calculation.
 Results of the current study suggest that essentialist beliefs might not be a unified
construct for 5th grade students. Nevertheless, findings do support the notion that
essentialist beliefs are interrelated.
 Children’s implicit theories regarding the malleability of intelligence were related to
several essentialist beliefs, suggesting that children’s views about the malleability of
intelligence could be considered just one part of a network of interrelated beliefs.
 Findings suggest that stability and malleability might be different constructs and that
children’s beliefs about the stability of intelligence might be a more important factor
in influencing children’s academic achievement.
Measures
17%
14%
6%
4%14%
34%
11%
Caucasian
Hispanic
African American
Middle Eastern
Asian
Mixed
Don't Know/Blank
Essentialist Belief Items (adapted from Gelman, Heyman & Legare, 2007)
1. People are born with a set amount of intelligence.
2. There are differences in people’s brains based on how intelligent they are.
3. People can always change how intelligent they are if they really try.
4. If someone isn’t intelligent when they’re young, they won’t be intelligent
when they grow up.
5. Teachers, parents, and friends don’t really affect how intelligent someone is.
 Items were rated on a 6-
point Likert scale.
Results: The Essentialist Beliefs Scale
Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1. Essentialism 1 (Inborn) —
2. Essentialism 2 (Brain-based) .22* —
3. Essentialism 3 (Malleability) .14 -.03 —
4. Essentialism 4 (Stability) .14 .16 .04 —
5. Essentialism 5 (Environmental) .31** .03 .22* .21* —
6. Implicit Theories of Intelligence .40** .18 .42** .31** .40** —
7. Calculation -.14 .08 .04 -.21* -.05 -.09 —
8. Math Fluency -.06 .14 -.06 -.17 -.01 -.11 .61** —
9. Reading Fluency -.19* -.01 -.07 -. 36** -.20* -.33** .46** .59** —
 Essentialist beliefs were not found to be a unified construct in this sample (α = .46). Therefore, analyses
were run with individual items of the scale.
 However, essentialist beliefs were interrelated, such that: (1) Children who believed that intelligence is
inborn were more likely to believe it is brain-based and not environmentally influenced, and (2) children
who believed that intelligence is not environmentally influenced were more likely to believe it is also
inborn, stable over time, and not malleable.
 Based on responses to the implicit theory scale, children who believed that intelligence is fixed were more
likely to adhere to essentialist beliefs about intelligence as inborn, stable, and not environmentally
influenced.
Reading Fluency
β
Calculation
β
Essentialism 1 (Inborn) -.11
Essentialism 4 (Stability) -.32** -.21*
Essentialism 5 (Environment) -.10
R2 .16** .05*
*p < .05, **p < .01
Research Questions
 Children’s lay beliefs about intelligence are implicit assumptions or attitudes that
are shaped by teacher and parent discourse.
 Implicit Theories about intelligence predict academic success.
 Children who believe intelligence is malleable put more effort into challenging
tasks, are more motivated to succeed, have higher self-efficacy, and maintain
higher achievement scores than those who believe it is a fixed trait
 However, additional beliefs about intelligence might influence children’s
reasoning about whether or not intelligence is malleable, thereby contributing
to academic outcomes, as well.
 Essentialism provides a broader meaning system for lay beliefs.
 Essentialism refers to a set of interrelated beliefs regarding the extent to which
traits are seen as natural and innate, including beliefs about how a trait is
formed, whether it can change, and how stable it is across the lifespan.
 Essentialist beliefs are evident by the 1st grade, but become more unified with
age.
 The essentialist framework can help provide a more nuanced understanding of
the implicit beliefs about intelligence that play a role in students’ academic
achievement.
 The purpose of the study was to explore the relation between essentialist beliefs
and academic achievement among 5th grade students. Three questions were
addressed:
1. Is essentialism a unified construct that can be captured through quantitative
methodologies?
2. To what extent are children’s essentialist beliefs and implicit theories of
intelligence related?
3. How do essentialist beliefs uniquely relate to children’s academic achievement?
Researcher Developed Measure
Standardized Measures
 The current study relied on a nested sample of participants. Future research should
focus on a more diverse population that includes additional age groups, and should
explore children’s beliefs over time.
 The essentialism measure devised for the present study included only one item for
each essentialist domain, severely limiting its reliability and construct validity.
Adding more items per domain would have allowed for a more robust exploration of
children’s beliefs about intelligence.
 Future research is needed to identify and understand the distinction between
stability and malleability, as well as to investigate further how beliefs about stability
and malleability might differentially relate to academic achievement.
Limitations and Future Directions