Very often we observe that children with the same ability have different academic outcomes and trajectories. Many researchers proposed theirs trying to explain this phenomenon. Decades ago, some pioneer researchers focused on how students’ motivational impact of children’s attributions, achievement goals, and their beliefs about the nature of their abilities affect their academic achievement goes beyond the cognitive ability level (see e.g., Bandura, 1977; Dweck, 1986; Deci, 1971; Lepper, et al., 1973).  Based on the social-cognitive framework of achievement, Dweck (1986) showed how children’s beliefs about their intelligence, the Implicit Theories of Intelligence (ITI) appear to orient them toward different goals, leading to different actions and attitudes to learning and in turn determine their school outcomes. The ITI differentiates between the entity theory of intelligence, which is the naïve belief about ability as fixed and unchangeable (fixed mindset), and the incremental theory of intelligence, which believes that intelligence is dependent on effort and possible to change (growth mindset; see e.g., Dweck, 2006). A myriad of studies  How mindsets (fixed vs growth) fostered goals (mastery-goal demonstrate goal), attributions, and reactions to setbacks (e.g., Burnette, et al., 2011). It is shown that children who hold a fixed mindset are more likely to develop a performance goal (i.e., goal to gain compliment to their ability) and fear of failure and avoidance of challenges, in turn, affects students’ academic achievement and development negatively. While growth mindset is associated with mastery goal (i.e., develop one’s knowledge and competence) and resilience when facing challenges, positive effects can be found for students’ achievement (e.g., Dweck, 1999, 2008; Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck, 2007; Lee & Seo, 2019; Liu, 2021). The ITI also postulates that mindsets influence other socio-cognitive factors such as self-efficacy and self-concept related to educational outcomes (Blackwell, Rodriguez & Guerra-Carrillo, 2015; Carr & Dweck, 2011).

Even though these results are well accepted, studies showed enormous variation in the size and direction of the effect of the growth mindset, from non-significant to high correlations between mindset and academic achievement (e.g., Costa and Faria, 2018; Sisk et al., 2018). The mindset intervention studies showed only limited effects for students of high academic risk and/or disadvantaged socioeconomic background (e.g., Burnette et al., 2013; Sisk et al., 2018). The inconsistency of the results may be because the mechanism between individuals’ mindsets and academic achievement is differentiated depending on age, gender, social-cultural characteristics of the sample, school system school subjects studied, and other mediators such as motivational factors and mastery goals. Moreover, most studies have used small, not nationally representative samples, with varying age groups and limited longitudinal designs, reducing the possibility to make causal inferences (Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck, 2007; Cury, Da Fonseca, Zahn & Elliot, 2008). In Sweden, studies of ITI effects on students' academic outcomes interplaying with social-cognitive factors are limited. Given that students with different SES, migration backgrounds, and different proficiency levels may have different mechanisms among these beliefs and motivational factors on their achievement. We may also assume that Nordic students and Chinese students may also act differently in view of motivation and facing setbacks. Therefore, the purpose of the current study is to examine the mechanism among mindsets, goal orientation and social-cognitive factors on reading achievement, contolling for students family background..

PISA 2018 included a mindset survey instrument for the first time and collected data on the mindset of students and a long row of motivational and attitudinal factors in a student questionnaire (Gouëdard, 2021). In addition to their knowledge proficiency test in mathematics, reading and science, it also collected rich information about student’s school characteristics and academic practices. The data from Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Hong Kong and Beijing-Shanghai-Jiangsu-Zhejiang (BSJZ) will facilitate our examination. In total, 36905 15-year-olds are included in this study. In addition to students’ reading achievement social, cultural economical background, the following indices will be used. Multiple group two-level path analysis will be applied to test the proposed hypothesis model in Mplus 8 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2019). Mastery goal orientation: My goal is to learn as much as possible. My goal is to completely master the material presented in my classes. My goal is to understand the content of my classes as thoroughly as possible. Resilience: I usually manage one way or another. I feel proud that I have accomplished things. I feel that I can handle many things at a time. My belief in myself gets me through hard times. When I’m in a difficult situation, I can usually find my way out of it. Fear of failure: When I am failing, I worry about what others think of me. When I am failing, I am afraid that I might not have enough talent. When I am failing, this makes me doubt my plans for the future. Work mastery: I find satisfaction in working as hard as I can. Once I start a task, I persist until it is finished. Part of the enjoyment I get from doing things is when I improve on my past performance. Perceived feedback: The teacher gives me feedback on my strengths in this subject. The teacher tells me in which areas I can still improve. The teacher tells me how I can improve my performance. Enjoy reading: I read only if I have to. Reading is one of my favorite hobbies. I like talking about books with other people. For me, reading is a waste of time. I read only to get information that I need. Persevered reading competence: I am a good reader. I am able to understand difficult texts. I read fluently. Student's self-concept in reading competence, and reading motivation will also be included in the analysis.

The study is on-going. Preliminary results showed that, the distribution of students with a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset is rather even among Chinese students; while majority of the Nordic-country students hold a growth mindset. Great cross-country differences have been observed in the relationship between reading achievement and the social-cogitative factors between students with different mindsets. For example, reading achievement is significantly related with fear of failure for Chinese students held fixed mindset while not significant for growth mindset students. Mastery goal orientation is much highly related to students’ reading achievement for growth mindset students in Sweden and Denmark. We expect to find the differentiated mechanisms among mindsets social-cognitive factors and reading achievement between Chinese and Nordic students. The findings from the study can offer empirically bases for interventions that may close the achievement discrepancies.

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