WISE INTERVENTIONS

Undergraduate introductory psychology students learned that students’ beliefs about poor performance can influence subsequent performance, and that they would learn how their beliefs could work for them instead of against them. They then watched an 8-minute video in which a university professor introduced two students who discussed doing poorly on a test, and how they first attributed their poor performance to inability but learned that it in fact reflected a lack of effort and poor strategies. Students then discussed the causes of academic struggles in small groups. As compared to a randomized control condition, this improved course grades who had an unstable-uncontrollable attributional style.