Differential predictions of mindsets for task effort cost and emotional cost perceptions in introductory college chemistry.

Understanding students' cost perceptions in introductory science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses and what precedes them is critical in preventing the considerable loss of talent in STEM.In this study, we examined the extent to which students' fixed mindset at the beginning of a semester predicts their weekly task effort and emotional cost perceptions.We also examined indirect associations of a fixed mindset with weekly perceived learning, STEM career intentions at the end of the semester, and final achievement, via weekly cost perceptions.Participants were 694 college students in introductory chemistry at a large midwestern university in the United States.Using multilevel structural equation modeling, we found that students with a greater endorsement of a fixed mindset tended to perceive higher task effort cost.Furthermore, students' fixed mindset indirectly predicted lower perceived learning, STEM career intentions, and achievement via higher perceived task effort cost.Fixed mindset did not significantly predict emotional cost perceptions.This study offers both theoretical insights and practical implications by demonstrating the differential predictions of mindsets across cost dimensions and identifying mindsets as a precursor of task effort cost. Educational Impact and Implications StatementCost is a key motivational factor contributing to college student attrition from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors.This study shows that college students' beliefs in the innateness and fixedness of intelligence (i.e., fixed mindset) predicted their higher effort cost perceptions in an introductory chemistry course over a semester, which in turn was linked to lower perceived learning, STEM career intentions, and achievement.These findings underscore the potential of lowering a fixed mindset in STEM college students to enhance student learning and achievement by mitigating their perceptions of effort cost.Such efforts should also promote retention in STEM fields.