Do design experiences in engineering build a “growth mindset” in students?

Research investigating characteristics that tend to indicate student success in engineering have shown that affective (noncognitive) characteristics such as motivation may have equal to better predictive capabilities than cognitive characteristics such as high school GPA. The mindset of students, whether ‘fixed’ (success is due to inherent intelligence) or ‘growth’ (success is due to effort) can indicate whether a student believes in their ability to solve problems and succeed. Research has shown students tend to move away from a growth mindset and toward a fixed mindset during their first year of study. Our research indicates that introducing open-ended design projects into the curriculum may tend to lessen or eliminate the shift toward fixed mindset. Students assigned open ended, socially relevant engineering projects were compared to students without such projects; students without the open ended experience showed a much greater propensity toward fixed mindset. We hypothesize that these findings may inform introductory engineering and technology courses, including those in high school meant to prepare students for study in STEM areas.