Undergraduate Lay Theories of Abilities: Mindset, universality, and brilliance beliefs uniquely predict undergraduate educational outcomes

Students’ beliefs about the nature of their abilities (collectively called “lay theories”) affect their motivations, behaviors, and academic success. Lay theories include beliefs about the potential to improve intelligence (mindset), who (i.e., everyone or only some people) has the potential to be excellent in a discipline (universality), and whether reaching excellence in a field requires raw intellectual talent (brilliance). Recent research demonstrates that each of these beliefs influences students’ educational experiences and academic outcomes. However, there remain open questions about whether they represent distinct latent constructs, or are susceptible to the “jangle fallacy” (i.e., different names given to the same underlying construct). We conducted a multi-phase, mixed-methods study to (1) evaluate whether mindset, universality, and brilliance beliefs represent conceptually and empirically discriminable concepts, and (2) evaluate whether mindset, universality, and brilliance beliefs exhibit unique explanatory value for both psychosocial (e.g., sense of belonging) and academic outcomes (e.g., course grades). To aid in addressing these questions, we developed and collected validity evidence for a new measure of undergraduate lay theories, which we have titled the Undergraduate Lay Theories of Abilities (ULTrA) survey. Factor analyses suggest that mindset, brilliance, and universality are distinct and empirically discriminable constructs. Regression analyses indicate that each of the lay theories contributes unique predictive value to relevant academic outcomes.