The roles of generic and domain-specific mindsets in learning graphic design principles

It is possible that individuals do not endorse a general mindset or theory of intelligence and that their mindset is specific to particular domains. There is currently a dearth of evidence to support this possibility. It is also not known how these two types of mindset influence learning behaviors and outcomes. This study investigates the roles of generic mindsets (i.e. beliefs about general ability) and domain-specific mindsets (i.e. beliefs about domain-specific abilities) in students’ learning of graphic design principles. Pre-service teachers (n = 107) played an online assessment game in which they designed three posters. For each poster, they had three chances to seek critical (i.e. constructive) feedback and one chance to revise their posters. Students’ poster performance was measured by the game, whereas their learning of graphic design principles was measured by a post-test. Results show that critical feedback-seeking moderated the relation between generic and domain-specific growth mindsets. Critical feedback-seeking improved learning outcomes only when students endorsed a weak fixed generic mindset. Theoretical implications suggest that generic and domain-specific mindsets are distinct psychological constructs, and that generic mindsets seem to be more important than domain-specific mindsets in predicting learning of graphic design principles.