Educationally Speaking - Nurturing confidence can be key to success

“If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can’t, you’re right.” This quote, attributed to Mary Kay Ash is significantly relevant in relation to student learning.

There is substantial research that shows that student beliefs about competence greatly influence how they approach learning and challenging situations. Student beliefs about competency will be influenced by a variety of factors including their prior successes and failures, teacher expectations, and parental expectations.

Some students believe that intelligence is a fixed attribute and that students either are intelligent or...