Great question! And as with most things in life, it's more complicated than we'd like it to be.
First, there IS a 'test'. It's called the ITIS (Implicit Theories of Intelligence Scale), and it's designed by researchers to identify whether someone leans towards a fixed or growth mindset. You can find loads of versions of this online. Here's a simple PDF version that most closely resembles the one researchers use:
What's the basic idea?
If you've looked at the above questionnaire, or have ever seen or done mindset tests before, you'll know the basic concept they're asking "Do you believe that people can get smarter, or do we all have a certain amount of intelligence and it can't really be changed".
The idea behind this question is simple, and here's how it relates to the two mindsets:
Growth: Someone who has a growth mindset instinctively believes that you can always grow and get smarter, and so of course 'smartness' isn't limited. Whatever challenge you're facing right now, you can overcome by learning more, getting help etc.
Fixed: Someone who has a fixed mindset instinctively believes that smartness is 'limited'. Once you've reached a level that matches your level of smartness, you can't really go further (eg: You're not 'smart' enough to pass the last year of your degree). If you reach your maximum level, if the challenge you're facing is beyond your limit of smartness, then there's not much you can do about it. Naturally, this means that the fixeder is more likely to back off, quit, or disengage, since what's the point of trying anymore if you KNOW you're not smart enough to do it.
The questions in the mindset quizzes are trying to identify whether you feel you can always get smarter, or whether challenges will stop you at some point because you feel you can't go further, due to an intelligence limitation.
BUT...
It's not that simple, and these quizzes can be misleading, so let's take a look at why, and how else we can evaluate our mindset. So, here are a five things to help you identify this for yourself or someone close to you
1. Different areas = Different mindsets
It's important to realise that you can have different mindsets for different parts of your life. Someone who has a fixed mindset in their studies may be a growther when it comes to sports. Our beliefs about different areas of our lives are caused and developed by different things, so you can't really make a 'sweeping' evaluation of your mindset based on one area of your life.
If you want to evaluate your mindset in your studies, you need to think of your studies and answer the mindset questions, don't think about your hobbies, sports, interests outside of your studying. They may be very different.
2. If you haven't hit a wall yet... you can't predict your reaction
Our beliefs about learning and smartness are very different when things are going well. When we hit a wall that feels impossible to get past, THAT'S when our core beliefs pop out.
Let's use a completely different example to illustrate this:
Eg: If you ask someone whether they're patient in traffic, and they've never been in a traffic jam before, their response won't necessarily be reliable. They will base their answer on how they feel when they're in situations that they ARE patient in, and try project that to the traffic jam they can't really visualise. They'll think of it logically, and there may also be an unconscious element of "I would like to THINK I'd be patient". So, they may say they're patient in traffic. BUT... put them in a few traffic jams, and you'll quickly find out whether that's true.
Notes about this example:
The person hasn't 'lied' about their belief about their patience... they just haven't really been in the situation where the impatience and related emotions would be expected to pop out, so they have to 'think' logically about it all
The traffic jam doesn't have a 'logical' impact on us. When we've been in a few of them, we realise there are a bunch of intangible things that fuel impatience. You may be late for something. You're feeling tired and desperate to get home where it's quiet and peaceful. Perhaps you're desperate for the bathroom, or starving or uncomfortably cold or hot. The traffic jam is caused by someone driving badly, and their stupidity has caused everyone to be stuck in traffic. The people in the cars around you are trying to sneak into your lane and drive up the emergency lane because they feel they're more important than everyone else. It is often these 'other' things that increase the stress and make you lose your patience. If you've never been in a bad traffic jam, or only once, you may never have experienced these, so it would never even occur to you that this may happen and you certainly wouldn't be able to predict how this would impact you at the time.
How does this example relate to mindset evaluations?
We try to be 'honest' when it comes to quizzes like this, but unless we've been IN all types of situations, bad and good... we can't predict our instincts. We're basing it on logic. Logic often disappears in the face of bad situations. Especially if there are emotions, desires or important goals at stake.
Like the traffic jam, there are related emotions, situations, and experiences that pop up when things start going wrong. When our studying is going well, there are things that don't occur to us to think of. When things start going wrong, a whole bunch of things arise that we never thought of. (I call these moments the 'failure trigger'. It's not necessarily a failure, but it's the moment where things start going wrong) These 'unexpected' things can often be the thing that causes our instinct to really kick in. The failure triggers push a whole bunch of buttons we may not have known we have.
My experience:
For some practical context. I was a high achiever at school. I studied my degree part time, and while I didn't get great results, because I was studying on my own and squeezing it in around work, I never failed anything. If you had given me the mindset quiz at that point, I'd have absolutely identified as a growther. No question. Sure, I was learning, I was getting smarter all the time, next year I'd be smarter than this, and who KNOWS how much smarter I was going to be in the next few years. Most definitely would've gotten the 'growth mindset' stamp.
AND THEN... (cue Jaws music)... I failed my first tests for my postgrad year. I had studied, done everything 'right', and I failed. I'd never failed before. I was gutted (Major understatement!). I was paralysed and struggled to study at all. For two months, I didn't study properly because I was so freaked out. I hadn't heard of mindset stuff and all I had was the instincts, feelings and beliefs in my head. And those were now SCREAMING at me. I had tried, and failed. What did this mean? Would I ever be able to pass? If I couldn't do this now, what did that mean? What were people thinking of me? I'd always heard how smart I was because of my great marks, and now everyone would realise I wasn't smart enough for this. Should I quit? I clearly wasn't smart enough to pass. If I'd tried, and failed... surely it was because I wasn't smart enough? I never expected any of these feelings, and there is no way I would've predicted any of them. If you'd asked me before I failed something "What would you do if you fail?" I'd probably have given you some motivational poster answer based on what I was doing at the time. But failing? CHANGED EVERYTHING. Well... not changed really... just brought the true colours and beliefs to the surface.
When you're thinking of whether you're a fixeder or a growther. Don't use the times when things are going well to make that assessment. And if you've never been in 'struggling' positions, you might not be able to reliably make that assessment.
For parents... (I get a lot of parents looking for help for their kids as they move into higher levels of their studies) If your child hasn't failed anything, be very aware of the first failure. That's the failure trigger that may give you the best indication of whether they're a growther or fixeder. Be careful about your narratives and attempts at support. If they're a growther, the usual encouragements of "You'll do better next time, just keep trying" will help them. If they're fixeders, this is useless and may make things worse. They may be facing a wall that they don't think they can get past. So the 'better next time' is terrifying, impossible, and may make them withdraw.
3. IN THE MOMENT...?
When you answer mindset quiz questions, keep a failure trigger moment in your head. Once we 'logic' it all out, we can change our minds, but our instinctive responses in the moment gives us the most reliable indication of our underlying beliefs.
Once we've had a few days to process it all, we may actively decide that we WILL be ok with it all. We WILL pretend it never happened. We'll forget it in the hopes that it doesn't happen again. We CAN'T let this get us down. But those are actions and logical responses. These may be great, but if we're looking for our core beliefs and mindset... go to the failure trigger moment and consider how you felt and what you were thinking in that moment.
4. Is there a trend?
If we've never failed anything academically, we may not know whether we're growthers or not... so how can we know? Are there any other signposts we can look for and consider?
One of the 'symptoms' of a fixed mindset is the feeling that if you're smart and talented, things should be easy to get right. This can play out pretty clearly in a child who starts a sport or hobby, does well for the first few practices, and then suddenly decides they don't want to pursue it anymore. They move to another sport and the same thing happens. There's a possibility that they were happy and engaged when it seemed like they were talented and could play easily. At some point in a sport, talent isn't enough, and even the MOST talented players need to work at something. For a fixeder, this shift is interpreted as "Oh, I guess I'm not actually talented at this. If I was, it would still be easy for me". Because they don't like the feeling of not being able to do things well, they prefer to leave. If you have a trend of incomplete hobbies, projects, sports etc that you moved away from because it got tough... it may be an indication of a fixed mindset leaning.
For parents... scratch at WHY they don't want to play anymore. It's seriously unlikely that they will admit that they can't do it and it's too hard for them and it makes them feel bad. They're far more likely to claim that it's boring, they don't like it anymore, someone else was mean to them... all sorts of reasons to justify why they're not going back. Of course, all these may be true... but often, these can be a cover for "It's getting difficult and I don't like the feeling". BEST thing you can do for them is to 'force' them through the difficulty and help them with the understanding of why it isn't a bad thing that it's difficult. The earlier they learn that 'tough doesn't equal bad', the better.
5. Self-doubt?
A very common narrative of fixeders is the "What if I'm not smart enough for this?". "I thought I could do it, but now I don't know". Self-doubt when things go wrong is a possible indicator of a fixed mindset. A growther is more likely to interpret struggles as "I need to do something else, get some help, step back and figure this out".
It's not that growthers LIKE the feeling of failure, but their response isn't 'personalised' as an indictment on their intelligence, it's interpreted as something that needs adjusting, changing or shifting.
Again, this is not to say that growthers will NEVER experience self-doubt. You may be a growther and have self-doubts. But watch the trends of your narratives when you start struggling with things.
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