[3][4] She later described becoming "increasingly afraid to risk her reputation as one of the most intelligent children in the class", by avoiding participation in a spelling bee and a French competition.

[4][6] After obtaining her PhD, Dweck joined the faculty of the University of Illinois, eventually reaching the rank of associate professor.

[10][9] Dweck's key contribution to social psychology relates to the concept of implicit theories of intelligence and personality, which she first introduced in a 1988 paper.

[11] According to Dweck, individuals can be placed on a continuum according to their implicit views of where ability comes from; those believing their success to be based on innate ability are said to have a "fixed" theory of intelligence (fixed mindset), and those believing their success is based on hard work, learning, training and doggedness are said to have a "growth" or an "incremental" theory of intelligence (growth mindset).

In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence.

"[16] Dweck warns of the dangers of praising intelligence as it puts children in a fixed mindset, and they will not want to be challenged because they will not want to look stupid or make a mistake.

[21][22] Some critics have said that Dweck's research can be difficult to replicate; for instance, a 2017 opinion piece by Toby Young, associate editor of The Spectator, states that: Timothy Bates, a psychology professor at Edinburgh University, has been trying for several years to replicate Dweck’s findings, each time without success, and his colleagues haven’t been able to either.

Dweck explains these failures by claiming the psychologists in question don’t create the right experimental environment — it’s too delicate a task for these ham-fisted troglodytes.

[24][better source needed] Other education and psychology researchers have expressed worry that "mindset" has simply become another aspect to be assessed and graded in children; Matt O'Leary, an education lecturer at Birmingham City University, tweeted that it was "farcical" that his six-year-old daughter was being graded on her attitude towards learning.

David James, professor of social sciences at Cardiff University and editor of the British Journal of Sociology of Education, says "it's great to dwell on the fact that intelligence is not fundamentally genetic and unchangeable", but he believes the limitations of mindset outweigh its uses: "It individualises the failure – 'they couldn't change the way they think, so that's why they failed'."

[clarification needed][25] In July 2019, a large randomized controlled trial of growth mindset training by the Education Endowment Foundation in England, involved 101 schools and 5018 pupils across the country.

These findings were determined by the national Key Stage 2 tests in reading, grammar, punctuation, and spelling (GPS), and mathematics.