Skills of growth mindset and intellectual Humility, the interaction with Leadership and Cooperation and their impact on society

Abstract

In a world that is constantly changing and evolving, it is imperative that we hark and carefully observe the changes that are occurring, and concurrently create the right conditions and build skills in our children. Transferable skills are necessary for their mental health development, but also, they positively contribute to their academic performance. The field of school psychology should include, in the field of its studies, the phenomenon of these skills and how they could be acquired within the school context. In this paper, four concepts are addressed that fall into the category of these skills: Growth Mindset (GM), Intellectual Humility (IH), Leadership and Cooperation. This study addresses three primary hypotheses: H1: Are the concepts of GM and IH competitive or complementary? H2: Is there a correlation between these two concepts and the concepts of leadership and cooperation? H3: If a correlation exists, what is the interaction effect on personal outcomes (Academic Performance) and on the wider society (Civic outcomes)? In this study, participants, boys and girls, from 14 to 19 years old, were enlisted from 200 randomly selected schools, in 9 oblasts in Eastern, Southern, Central and Western Ukraine and approximately 8600 questionnaires were analyzed. The Transferable Skills Inventory (TSI) is a new tool to assess transferable skills in adolescents and youth. It is a self-reported questionnaire that assesses life skills. CFA analyses, using correlated, unidimensional, hierarchical and bifactor models and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) models are used. Statistical analyses demonstrated that there is a highly positive correlation between the concepts of GM and IH, that enables a unified dimension of GM and IH. CFA analysis has also shown that the relationship between GM/IH and Leadership and Cooperation is positive and significant. SEM analyses showed there is a positive and significant relationship between the concepts and Academic outcomes, and a positive but not significant relationship between the three concepts and civic outcomes.