Anna-Carin Jonsson

Teachers’ implicit theories of intelligence: influences from different disciplines and scientific theories

A sample of 226 Swedish high school teachers from various knowledge domains completed self-report measures of intelligence regarding implicit theories and scientific theories of intelligence. A mixed ANOVA showed that teachers from language, social science and practical disciplines had a significant preference for an incremental theory of intelligence compared to an entity theory of intelligence whilst the teachers in mathematics did not. One of the conclusions was that entity theories of intelligence may be more pronounced among teachers in mathematics. Second there is a significant relation between naïve beliefs in intelligence as fixed and inborn, entity theories, and the scientific g-factor theory. Last, it was the oldest and most experienced and youngest and least experienced teachers who preferred an entity theory of intelligence the most.

Predicting the use of praise among pre-service teachers: The influence of implicit theories of intelligence, social comparison and stereotype acceptance

This investigation concerns feedback praise (person and process praise) and how it relates to implicit theories of intelligence (entity and incremental theories) among pre-service teachers. In the first study 176 pre-service teachers participated, while in the second study 151 of such teachers participated. Two new measures, one of feedback praise and the other of social comparison, were found to be reliable and valid. In the first study, process praise was predicted by the variable incremental theories of intelligence and person praise was predicted by the acceptance of stereotypes. However, these results suffered in the reliability analyses and, even if the models are significant, they should be rejected. The results of the second study are more reliable, with regression analyses showing that person praise can be predicted from the two predictor variables of entity theories of intelligence, and social comparison. Some positive effects of teacher education were found in the second part; for example, the preference for person praise was significantly lower in the last semester than in the first.