Performance Orientated vs Learning Orientated

Children maintain either a performance orientated or a learning orientated mindset towards a subject (Dweck 1989). This is very similar to the fixed/ growth mindset profile.

• The performance orientated child:
  • Tasks are undertaken with the outcome in mind.
  • Believes being good at maths or not is a fixed quality.
  • Wants to show (themselves and others) that they are good at maths.
  • Is more concerned about avoiding mistakes than learning.
  • Is likely to disengage from tasks they find difficult
• The learning orientated child:
  • Tasks are undertaken with the expectation of learning something new.
  • Believes working at something (eg, maths) will make them better at it.
  • Wants to learn something new.
  • Being "happy to fail", the learning orientated child is more likely to experiment and trust their own ideas.
  • Is more likely to apply 'adaptive expertise'; to experiment with applying what they've learned in one topic to another (eg, "to make addition easier, I broke it down. Will that work with multiplication?")

This orientation need not be a fixed trait. Teachers and parents have some power to influence it. Unfortunately such influence is often squandered by encouraging pupils toward a performance orientated mindset by motivating children with head to head competitions, shared test results and celebrating the children who get the best scores.

At 0maths, we work to encourage children toward a learning orientated mindset.

• There is no time pressure - allowing changes of strategy.
• We allow children a safe place to make all the mistakes they want.
• Answers are never wrong but may not yet be right.
• There is no mark out of 10 - answers are eventually right.
• Children can control the difficulty level, skip back to foundational topics, or skip forward to see where a topic can be used.
• Questions are not against the clock (though timings are available to teachers and parents).
• Performance is against their own scores, not against other children (ie personal bests, completing topics, bronze silver or gold awards).