Intelligence and Motivation
Many students are not doing as well in school as they or their parents would like. Others have to work unreasonable hours to get good results. In both these situations, many teens form negative opinions about themselves: “I’m not good at this subject.” “I can’t do it.” “I am a procrastinator.” They think that there’s something wrong with their intelligence and motivation, which in turn, causes further poor performance and discouragement. Instead, we have found that student performance depends mostly on doing enough of the right kind of practice, rather than on intelligence and motivation. Obviously there are differences between