Evolution of Academic Mindset During Economics Courses

Research shows that female students and students from underrepresented minority and ethnic groups often enter their economics courses with lower scores on academic mindset measures (Marshall et al., 2025). This paper explores whether students’ mindsets change and, if so, which demographic, institution, and instructor characteristics predict these changes using a survey administered at the beginning and end of the academic term. Our sample consists of over 2,200 observations from 24 institutions across the US. Results show that non-male students are more likely to report a worsening of their academic mindset and this result is robust to alternative definitions of a changing mind-set. Students from underrepresented minority and ethnic groups, on average, are also more likely than non-URM students to experience a worsening mind-set, though these results are slightly less robust. Finally, results suggest that higher amounts of active learning may potentially mitigate worsening mind-sets. These results serve as an important baseline for exploring interventions to improve the academic mindset of students.