Learning how we learn: And what we can do to change it

Have you ever wondered about how we learn? Have you ever thought about what we tell ourselves about how we learn? Before I attempt to answer these seemingly basic questions, I want to share something with you, my fellow-learners:

The scene is an auditorium packed with several hundred high school students of a city who have come together to participate in and witness an inter-school debate competition. The first participant’s name is called out, and a rather nervous student steps up to the mike. With a shaky voice, she introduces herself and begins to state her argument for the topic being debated. Midway, she happens to glance at the several hundred-strong audience, and her mind draws a blank. She forgets what she has to say and rapidly advances to a state of panic. Stammering through the rest of her speech, she quickly exits the stage, distraught at her dismal performance, vowing to herself never to take stage again.

Sounds familiar? Has this ever happened to you? Perhaps with a slight variation to the story, have you ever found yourself in similar situations? I would like to welcome you to my world, to our world, the world of implicit beliefs. Implicit beliefs? What are they, I hear you ask. Implicit beliefs are ideas we have about ourselves as people: as students, as employees or members of family or society (Dweck, 2006).

I would like to focus on our role as students, since that is the first stage of our formal education. We are “students” until the time we finish our education, at least formally so. During and after our formal student lives, our implicit beliefs about ourselves dictate whether we see ourselves as learners, as we enter the world of work, or as smart, talented individuals who have learnt all they have to, and are ready to conquer the world. You might ask: what has this to do with implicit beliefs? Allow me to explain.

Psychologists have been interested for several decades about how learning takes place among individuals, and what can be done to improve not only how much can be taught and learnt, but also how attitudes towards learning can be changed to maximize learning. In her work over several decades with students over diverse age groups, psychologist and researcher Carol Dweck (2006) discovered that two implicit beliefs held by individuals influenced the way students learnt in school. In her research, Dweck has also highlighted the prevalence and influence of these beliefs in other forms of adult relationships; however, the basic implicit beliefs remain the same. These beliefs have been called the fixed mindset and the growth mindset respectively.

Please recall the story I mentioned at the beginning of the article. Most of us would have had such experiences in life that have caused us to question ourselves and our abilities. What do we tell ourselves when faced with such situations? Well, for one thing, a lot of us (and that includes me!) would say to ourselves, “I’m so dumb. I’m never going to be good at public speaking anyway..why try? I should give this up and focus on something else I’m good at. What was I thinking?!”

That in essence, my friends, is the fixed mindset in action. People with fixed mindsets would be scared to venture out to try anything new, since one would be afraid of failure, afraid of being questioned, or of being rejected by one’s peers or teachers. The fixed mindset also generalizes to other challenging situations. For example, one might be afraid of raising one’s hand in class to answer a question, or to ask a doubt, for fear of being criticized by one’s peers and teachers. “Don’t you even know this?” is a very common statement that we all fear we might hear. As a student, I have often come across situations where I am confronted with this fear. And, this fear has prevented me from taking the first step towards a potentially new and exciting learning experience.

Let us consider another situation: it is the end of term and the results have just been announced. You have four A’s and one B on your report card. When you take the report card home to your family, what are your family members most likely to say? Honestly. Are they going to say, “Congrats on the four A’s! Good work!’ Or more commonly, ’Why did you get a B on that course, is the course too tough, is the teacher strict, are you being bullied in class, do you not understand what the teacher is saying?’ Which of these two statements are we more likely to hear?

I have spoken to several classmates, as well as teachers, and over the years, even in my own experience, I find that most people are likely to focus on one’s failures rather than successes. One takes one’s success for granted, while we focus on the need to improve on one’s flaws. While continuous improvement is an honorable ideal, it is also important that we take stock of our strengths and reward ourselves for it. In the process however, one must remind oneself that success and failure are never final. There is always room for improvement. Even when we succeed, there are ways in which we can improve.

Dweck in her research on implicit beliefs warns against the use of positive and negative labels. When we succeed, we are likely to think, ”Wow! I did that? I must be very smart, wise and talented!’ Thus, we attribute our success to inherent qualities, and we often overlook the effort that we have put into it. This is a very dangerous thing to tell oneself. Why? Because it is precisely this belief that backfires when things go wrong, when we fail or do not get the results we expect. When we fail to get good grades for example, and if we hold fixed beliefs about ourselves, what are we likely to say to ourselves? We are likely to think, “I am never going to get this right! I must be really stupid to get such bad grades in this subject. I don’t think I’m ever going to be good at this subject.” Thus, instead of focusing on what we should do to improve on the subject, we see our bad grade as an indication of our personal flaws.

As I write this, I am working on changing the fixed mindset in myself. I am trying to adopt the growth belief. In the growth mindset, learning is an ongoing process, which can be improved with structured, systematic disciplined effort, and concentration. Even the most challenging tasks can be broken down into manageable components and can thus be worked upon to achieve desirable results.

One can apply the growth mindset to learning just about anything, whether it is academics or extra curricular hobbies or pursuits, such as learning a new language, sports, or music. The growth mindset allows the individual to explore new territory, to experiment, make mistakes, and learn as part of the process of acquiring a new skill, without the fear of criticism or punishment. In the growth mindset, criticism when offered is in its most constructive form, in terms of what one needs to do to achieve the learning objective. Similarly, upon achieving success, praise in the growth mindset is for the effort, never for the innate talent, since believing that talent results in success, traps the individual into believing that one does not have the talent or gift to pursue a goal, and hence one should give up, when faced with failure.

I am discovering for myself that the process of learning within a growth mindset, itself is a source of joy. As I set realistic and achievable learning goals for myself, and am able to attain them, it gives me motivation to persist in attaining the goal. There are times when I do not achieve the goal as I had intended to. In that case, I go back, rethink and re-evaluate my behavior and focus on what I should do to improve in future. This ongoing process of learning within the growth mindset, places the control of the learning process completely within the hands of the learner himself or herself. Attaining goals therefore becomes a matter of personal choice and control. This results in higher self-confidence and motivation to continue to persist in the face of setbacks. It allows us to realize that setbacks are temporary and can be worked on so that in due course of time, the effort we put into changing our learning strategy results in better learning outcomes.

I would like to share with you what I think is a very striking and useful learning strategy used by individuals in the growth mindset. I have experimented with it, and have found that it is helpful even in the short-term. With continued discipline, I hope to sustain the use of this strategy in the long term. For many of us, when faced with learning something, say a topic in a subject, typically, we often read about it or are taught about it in a linear fashion. Starting with the basics, we are taught what the concepts are, followed by how to think about the basic concepts in a more complex manner, as we get familiar with the subject and understand how these concepts might be related to each other. Thus, the process of learning is often linear in nature. A useful strategy would be to understand the concept, and then to identify underlying themes or principles that influence the relationships between the concepts. Understanding the underlying principle would enable us to apply the same concept to related or even new areas of learning. For example, learning a bicycle helps us learn how to ride a motorbike, since we have mastered the principle of balance. Similarly, learning basic mathematical concepts equips the student with analytical skills that can be applied to non-mathematical problems. These skills can be identified by actively reading the learning material, instead of passively memorizing it. By ‘active reading’, I mean reading and understanding the learning material, in a critical fashion, and thinking about ways in which the concept can be further developed. One might also test one’s assumptions about the concept by discussing with one’s peers and/or teachers. Passive learning would be learning by rote memory, which is learnt quickly, but forgotten even quicker.

In conclusion, I would like to summarize of what I have just explained:

1. Learning is an ongoing process, marked by incremental improvement based on effort

2. One can learn just about anything one is interested in

3. Implicit beliefs about learning influence the way we think and behave

4. Our beliefs are of two kinds-fixed versus growth beliefs (Dweck, 2006)

5. These beliefs are universal and influence important aspects of our life

6. These (fixed) beliefs can be changed by systematic and disciplined efforts

7. Success serves as motivation and reward to persist or increase one’s efforts towards our learning goals

8. Failure is a signal to improve or change one’s learning strategy, and is not a comment on one’s personal qualities.

9. A change to the growth mindset therefore can bring about striking changes to one’s attitudes towards learning, and improvement in self-confidence.

Note: This article has been inspired by my exploration of the theory of mindsets and their influence on learning strategy offered by Dweck. Readers are suggested to refer to her work to get a better idea of her theory of mindsets. This article is a brief introduction to anyone who might be interested in exploring new ways to learn, and is not a quick remedy offering short-term solutions to more in depth problems associated with learning or other interpersonal issues. Thus, it is important to keep in mind that sustained effort and discipline are required to adopt more effective ways of learning.

Suggested reading

Carol Dweck (2006) Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Random House, New York.

(Article contribution by me to Technikon, a magazine brought out by IIT students. This article was inspired by the need among students for ways to improve their learning and performance)