How Mindsets, Academic Performance, and Gender Predict Finnish Students’ Educational Aspirations
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for the opportunity to review the manuscript entitled “How mindset and academic achievement predict Finnish students’ educational aspirations.” As I read, I kept in mind the aims and scope of Education Sciences, as well as the authors’ stated goals for their manuscript.
The authors explored correlations between 8th grade Finnish students’ mindsets about the nature of intelligence and giftedness and their stated career aspirations. Further, the authors explored whether the relations between the constructs of interest varied by gender, and accounted for students’ grades in math and reading. The results indicated that malleable mindsets were associated with high educational aspirations, as were high grades in math and reading. The authors also found that boys were both more likely to report holding fixed mindsets and vocational aspirations.
The article flows well and is written approachably. The authors provided useful context for the Finnish schooling system and societal responses to the distinct educational tracks available. Overall, however, I think some reorganization could strengthen the manuscript to make it more apparent how the work advances the literature on mindsets, and offers contributions to those working to support Finnish students. The authors have tucked away small clues throughout the manuscript, and I suggest that they gather these together, stated very explicitly, from the beginning of the manuscript.
I have a few thoughts for the authors that I hope move their work forward:
1. At the end of section 1, I was left wondering why this research is important. Is there something particularly concerning about the current trajectory or experiences of Finnish adolescents? Inside or outside of Finland, why is it important to determine whether educational aspirations are related to mindsets (the authors briefly allude to this in the very last sentence of the manuscript)? The authors perhaps imply a reason, but do not state a claim directly (including situating that claim within a broader body of empirical evidence). On p. 4, line 177, the authors note that only a few studies have explored the relationship between aspiration & mindsets, but they do not review what those studies found, how this study advances that line of inquiry, or why it is critical to continue exploring said relation.
2. The notion of mindsets was developed by an American psychologist and validated primarily in American schools (though certainly it has been applied in other contexts). In the section related to Finnish educational landscape/context, it might be helpful to explain why the construct is appropriate and useful for understanding Finnish students.
3. Related to #1 and #2, the authors reference additional studies related to mindsets also conducted in Finland in the discussion section (p. 9), comparing their results to this prior work. I suggest briefly reviewing these in the introduction as part of making a case that this study builds on/extends/etc., that work, even if they then come back to it later in the paper for a more nuanced discussion. “Here is what we currently know about the mindsets of Finnish adolescents…” in the introduction, with “Here is how this study extends prior work…” in the discussion.
4. Please be mindful of implying causal links in the results/discussion sections. In the methods section, or in a revised introduction section, consider justifying why you chose mindsets to predict educational aspirations, rather than the other way around. Similarly, please consider alternative explanations for your results. For instance, perhaps boys are more secure in vocational aspirations despite the fact that the larger society values higher educational tracks more. Perhaps boys receive more gendered messaging emphasizing that their talents are fixed from the larger societal context. Perhaps individuals who have growth mindsets developed these mindsets because they learned that effort leads to high grades. When presenting correlational analyses, it can be helpful to explain the relations in every possible direction, point out which are more likely given extant research and situational context, and be clear about which results interpretations actually form the basis of new empirical pursuits.
5. A small note: there were some minor proofreading errors; e.g., p. 8, line 346-347, etc.
Author Response
Dear reviewer 1,
Thank you very much for the valuable and relevant comments and questions regarding our manuscript "How mindset and academic achievement predict Finnish students' educational aspirations". We appreciate your work and investment in our manuscript. Please see the attachment for our response.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The present article aimed to examine whether students’ mindsets of intelligence and giftedness predicted educational aspirations. It also considered the extent to which academic achievement and gender predicted aspirations. The study has a few merits, such as the use of simple English, the consideration of a sample from Finland (not a commonly studied demographic), and combining data from multiple sources to answer the questions at hand. I also appreciate the details outlining the Finnish education system as it helps contextualize the study. That said, I believe this article needs to be developed further before being considered for publication. I detail my comments below.
Introduction
1. Page 1, lines 37-38: “ Whereas mindsets shape students’ identities and prospective trajectories of future development [3], as ability self-concepts they may also affect the ambitiousness of students’ aspirations about schooling”. Do you mean to say that mindset and self-concept are interchangeable? I believe these are two different constructs – mindsets in this context are about how malleable/fixed certain constructs are, while self-concepts are about how intelligent/good students think they are in a given domain/subject. Please clarify.
2. I find that there are numerous statements dotted across the paper that have not been properly justified. Citations for some statements have been included, but more needs to be said about the studies that have been cited. This will not only help provide evidence for the statements, but it will also help properly contextualize the current study within past research.
For instance, on page 2, line 45-46: “Mindset had a stronger effect on aspirations among students in selective schools than among those in non-selective schools.” Please explain why this is the case. What has past research shown in relation to this? Please detail one or two past studies to demonstrate this.
Similarly, on page 2, lines 68-69: “While a growth mindset about intelligence is shown to constitute an important protective factor for students’ academic achievement, it has been argued that a fixed mindset increases inequality and polarization.” How is growth mindset a protective factor for achievement? What has past research shown? How does fixed mindset increases inequality? Inequality in what regard?
3. Section 1.2: Some could argue that giftedness is the extreme of intelligence. That is, students who are incredibly intelligent can be considered to be gifted. In this way, are the two really distinct? Please include findings from past research with specific examples of studies that have tested the differences empirically.
4. In Section 1.4, you argue that degrees from university are regarded as being more prestigious compared to degrees from UAS. One of the reasons you provide for this is in relation to the value of education in employment. Would vocational training not provide more of a guarantee in securing a job as it provides on-the-job training? Please clarify.
5. In the same section, please provide more context in relation to the gender differences. You mention a worrisome decline in academic achievement for boys – what is the situation for girls and how do they compare?
Present Study
6. You mention that only a few studies have explored the link between mindset and educational aspirations. Please clearly state why examining this link is important. That is, why is it important to examine whether mindsets of intelligence and giftedness predict educational aspirations? In addition, please outline the theory behind why mindsets should affect aspirations.
Materials and Methods
7. You mention that 96.1% of the participants responded to the survey in Finnish. Did you still utilize the responses in Swedish and English? Though there would be very small numbers of students responding to the survey in the other languages, did you notice any differences between the samples responding to the survey using the different languages?
8. lease provide more detail about the academic achievement measure – how were these calculated? That is, how were data regarding tests, homework, classroom participation, and teachers’ evaluation combined
9.Please provide the items and the English translations of the items used for the mindset measures.
10. How many schools participated in this study? You mention that grades from two schools were either half or completely missing. Without knowing how many schools there were, it is difficult to comprehend how big an issue this missing data was.
11. Please provide more details about the treatment of data and how (and how many) imputations were created.
12. Were data standardized? And if so, how was this done?
13. You mention that you conducted invariance of the measurements. What was this invariance test across (Going by the first part of the Results section, I assume it is across intelligence and giftedness mindset)? How was this done (e.g., what constraints were included, what were the fits for each level of invariance)?
14. Please provide details about how the educational aspirations variable was divided into the three categories, with examples of each category. It is difficult to interpret findings, especially for the “unknown aspirations” category when these have not been elucidated.
Results
15. The Results section is difficult to read and interpret, as so many of the findings are presented in text rather in tables. The tables are also difficult to comprehend because of their layout (e.g., it is not clear from Table 3 how many models were tested and what variables were included in each model). I would suggest utilizing more tables, and clearly indicating the models tested.
16. Please provide zero-order correlations to better contextualize the data and results. This will also help clarify how different the mindsets of intelligence and giftedness were.
17. You mention that there is a subset of individuals who did not identify as male or female. In the interest of inclusivity, I would suggest presenting at least descriptive level analysis of how these individuals scored on the different measures included in your study.
18. Your analyses answer the question of “do students’ mindsets, achievement, and gender predict the TYPE of educational aspirations”. The analyses do not tell us to WHAT EXTENT these IVs predict each aspiration. That is, we do not know whether students with greater levels of growth mindset have higher academic aspirations, for instance. I believe answering both questions are valuable and can be answered with the data you have. In addition, the introduction seems to be geared towards the second question, though you only answer the first. If you choose to answer only the first question, please clarify this in the Introduction and differentiate this approach to what has been done in the past.
Discussion
19. Similar to my second comment in relation to the Introduction, more details are needed in the discussion in relation to the past research you mention. For instance, lines 406-407: “One possible explanation for this trend is that Finnish boys are suffering from a lack of interest in reading, which is necessary for academic studies.”
20. A big limitation of the mindset literature is regarding the items used to measure mindset. At least in English, the items only explicitly assess fixed mindset (hence why I requested the presentation of the items used in the present study). For instance, the item “You can learn new things, but you can’t really change your basic intelligence.” is about fixed mindset. Can we correctly, and with confidence, conclude that a “strongly disagree” response to the above item automatically means that the responder has a growth mindset (as opposed to having low levels of a fixed mindset). That is, growth mindset is measured as the lack or absence of fixed mindset. Would responses be different if growth mindset was explicitly measured? In addition, are growth and fixed mindset two ends of the same continuum or two different constructs? Please mention this issue of measurement in your limitations and discuss how this issue affects the interpretation of the results.
Author Response
Dear reviewer 2,
Thank you very much for the valuable and relevant comments and questions regarding our manuscript "How mindset and academic achievement predict Finnish students' educational aspirations". We appreciate your work and investment in our manuscript. Please see the attachment for our response.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have responded to each comment/suggestion in a sufficient manner, and I have no new or outstanding concerns about moving the paper forward through the editorial process.
Author Response
Dear reviewer nro. 1.
I sincerely thank you for the accurate comments and revisions that greatly improved our manuscript. I wish you all the best.
Reviewer 2 Report
I commend the effort the authors have put in for this revision. While the paper is improved from the last round, I have concerns about the treatment of data and the type of analysis chosen. Further, I do not believe that some of the inferences made by the authors in the discussion section follow on from their results. I outline my feedback below:
Introduction
1. In line with my previous comment about specifying the "so what" of this study, the authors talk about previous research on mindset and aspirations here and the differences in results of past studies - but this does not answer why looking at the two constructs is important in the first place. Put simply, why should we care whether growth mindsets predict aspirations or not? How does this further our understanding of aspiration or help students have higher aspirations?
2. In Section 1.1 "Mindsets in education", I am not clear what the results of the meta-analysis mentioned in the first paragraph were. Did the meta-analysis show this mediation? Or are the authors extrapolating that if A leads to B, and B leads to C, then A should lead to C? Please clarify.
3. In the same section, the authors mention "A fixed intelligence mindset is shown to be more common in students belonging to stereotyped groups, such as people of color and those from families with low socioeconomic status". The authors need to contextualize this statement - why are minority groups more likely to hold these views? Demographics don't in and of themselves lead to differences - it's how these demographic groups are situated within society and how people belonging to these groups are treated by others that leads to these differences.
4. Similarly, please change the wording of the statement "Thus, a fixed mindset can maintain inequality in education and, consequently, in life more broadly". This statement currently reads as though minority groups are at fault for inequality because of the type of mindset they hold. Please also remove the word "however" from the sentence after this, because it makes it sound like people from minority groups are not competent.
5. Section 1.2 - Mindsets about intelligence and giftedness: How does the first paragraph relate to the rest of the section? The first is about domain-specificity and the rest of the section is suddenly about the difference between intelligence and giftedness.
6. Line 115-116: "The concept of giftedness is used more broadly, capturing all the other areas of giftedness as well". Should this be "..of intelligence as well"? Please also include a definition of giftedness here.
7. Line 123-124: Please provide page numbers in the citation for the quote.
8. Section 1.3 - Educational Aspirations: Please include a concluding sentence at the end of this section to tie it together. Currently very abrupt and does not transition well into the next section.
9. Section 1.4 - The Finnish context: lines 214-224. Please clarify whether boys have gotten worse over time or have girls gotten better? Please also talk about the trend of girls performance over time to help contextualize your statement about boys.
10. Lines 225 - 228: Why are the authors talking about well-being here? This seems irrelevant to the study.
11. Section 2 - The Present Study. "More, there is a replicable and generalizable association between mindsets and achievement [7,10,23,77]; thus, predicting educational aspirations with mindsets is plausible." Please clarify how this is plausible. Make this link explicit.
12. Section 3.1. The authors mention that data is taken from 30 schools. Thus, the data has a nested structure (students with schools), but the analyses, as far as I can tell, does not account for this nested structure. Ignoring this structure can lead to wrong inferences. That is, without accounting for this structure, the assumption that observations are independent are not met. In this case, the standard errors will be underestimated, which can lead to an overstatement of statistical significance.
13. In the interest of inclusivity, I would suggest providing basic descriptive statistics on main study variables, for the group of students who identify as non-binary. This can be added to supplementary materials.
14. Section 3.3 - Data Preparation: I would still recommend standardizing all variables, so that they are in the same metric. Given this data have a nested structure, I would recommend standardizing at level 1 (i.e., at the student level).
15. The multiple imputation procedure has been used incorrectly. The most appropriate way to use multiple imputation is through analyzing data separately for each imputation and combining the results (rather than combining the dataset before analysis) using Rubin's (1987) rules.
16. Section 3.5 - Data Analysis Strategy: I suggest the authors also test a one-factor CFA and compare the results of that model to the two-factor model CFA. To know whether the two constructs are truly different, it is important to also test whether the fit of the two-factor CFA is better than the fit of a one-factor model.
17. Section 4.1 - Zero-order correlations of main variables. What benchmarks are the authors using for the magnitude of the correlations. I recommend using Funder and Ozer (2019).
18. Table 1 - Educational aspirations has three categories. To examine correlations please use dummy-variables as this is not an ordinal or continuous variable.
19. Section 4.2: Please try adding intelligence and giftedness in separate models first (before including them as independent variables in the same model), as it is likely that these two constructs are highly similar and could have some issues with multi-collinearity.
20. Lines 424-426: Why are pseudo R squared statistics relevant here. The authors mention that this statistic cannot be interpreted without context and must be compared with another pseudo R squared statistic of the same type. However, I only see one such statistic reported in this paper? Where is the context?
21. Section 5 - Discussion: Lines 483-486. The authors mention that students with higher levels of giftedness had higher aspirations. This effect was not significant in the regression analysis, so this conclusion does not follow from the results. Please delete this from this line and also from all other instances in the discussion.
22. Lines 508-509. The authors mention "More specifically, performance in mathematics and reading was associated with girls' educational aspirations, but only performance in mathematics was linked to boys' aspirations." I did not see a test for this in the results section. Please check whether this is indeed tested in the current study and amend accordingly.
23. Similarly, lines 521-522: "Altogether, our results show that boys have more fixed mindsets about intelligence and giftedness than girls have." Where was this tested? As far as I can tell, the authors did not look at gender differences in mindsets - rather they look at gender differences in aspirations.
References
Funder DC, Ozer DJ. Evaluating Effect Size in Psychological Research: Sense and Nonsense. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science. 2019;2(2):156-168. doi:10.1177/2515245919847202 Rubin D.B. ( 1987). Multiple imputation for nonresponse in surveys. J. Wiley & Sons
Author Response
Dear reviewer number 2,
I sincerely thank you for the comments and suggestions to improve our manuscript. We have made the changes that were requested and offer now a revised version of the manuscript for You.
Author Response File: Author Responses.pdf
