Anna-Carin Jonsson

Background: Mindset theory has increasingly shifted from asking whether growth mindsets predict achievement to asking how, for whom, and under what conditions beliefs about intelligence become motivationally consequential. Aims: This study contributes to that theoretical shift by examining mindset as a distal belief embedded within a broader social‐cognitive system of achievement motivation. Sample and Methods: Using PISA 2018 data on 36,905 15‐year‐old students in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Hong Kong, and Beijing‐Shanghai‐Jiangsu‐Zhejiang, China, we modeled associations among mindset, socioeconomic background, mastery goals, motivation to master school tasks, reading self‐concept, general self‐efficacy, fear of failure, and reading achievement through a multi‐group path analysis approach. Results: Model results showed that a growth mindset was positively associated with reading achievement in the Nordic countries, unrelated to achievement in Hong Kong, and negatively associated with achievement in B‐S‐J‐Z China. Indirect effects were generally small, while reading self‐concept emerged as the most consistent proximal correlate of achievement. These patterns suggest that mindset is best understood not as a universal predictor of achievement but as a context‐sensitive component within culturally situated socio‐cognitive systems. Conclusions: The study, therefore, uses cross‐national evidence to refine the theoretical placement of mindset within achievement motivation, highlighting the importance of mechanisms, proximal competence beliefs, and cultural boundary conditions.

Purpose: The Swedish Evaluation Through Follow-up study of Learning Later in Life (UGU-LIFE) was established to study the factors that shape lifelong learning and advance evidence-based means to facilitate learning in older age. Participants: UGU-LIFE builds on the Evaluation Through Follow-up ( Utvärdering Genom Uppföljning , UGU, in Swedish) study, which consists of nationally representative samples of Swedish birth cohorts. The two oldest cohorts, born 1948 ( N = 11,945) and 1953 ( N = 9,927), were assessed at age 13 years and invited for follow-up assessments as part of UGU-LIFE in 2025 (age 72/77 years; N = 5,738). Findings to date: Data collection in childhood included a survey (on school and family conditions), cognitive tests, and school administrative data. The follow-up assessment in late adulthood included a survey (on personal and contextual factors), cognitive tests, learning tasks, and saliva sampling for DNA extraction. In addition, registry data was collected from Statistics Sweden (census), the National Board of Health and Welfare (medical records), and the Swedish National Archives (military conscription). Analysis of selectivity at follow-up showed higher retention rate among individuals with higher education and better cognitive ability in childhood, which was only partially explained by selectivity in survival. Future plans: Data collected in UGU-LIFE will be used to describe the predictors of lifelong learning, the factors that influence learning gains and engagement in learning in older age, and the mechanistic pathways through which these factors affect learning in older age. Work to add birth records and geocoding to the data is ongoing. A subsample of participants will be invited to take part in an in-depth data collection of learning an ecologically relevant task over several days. The findings will be used to design and test interventions aiming to facilitate learning in older age. Strengths and limitations of this study: UGU-LIFE includes population representative samples of individuals born in 1948 and 1953 ( N = 21,872). Participants were followed over six decades to assess how factors in childhood predict learning in older age. Cognitive testing in both childhood and late adulthood offers unique insights into lifespan changes in cognitive functioning. DNA sampling allows for analysis of gene-environment interactions across the lifespan. Comprehensive registry data on health and socioeconomic conditions enable characterization of selective attrition, revealing both mortality-associated and experimental sources of selectivity at follow-up.

Lower cognitive ability measured in childhood or late adolescence has been consistently associated with higher mortality risk across adulthood. However, this evidence largely relies on single assessments, leaving it unclear to what extent mortality risk reflects cognitive differences established early in life versus developmental divergence during adolescence—a period of substantial neurocognitive plasticity. Using two nationally representative Swedish cohorts comprising 9,412 males born in 1948 and 1953, we linked cognitive ability assessed in primary school at age 13 years and military conscription at age 18 years to all-cause and cause-specific mortality recorded in nationwide registers through 2025. We decomposed late-adolescent cognitive ability into childhood cognitive level and adolescent cognitive change and evaluated their independent associations with mortality. Childhood cognitive level (HR = 0.81; 95% CI, 0.78–0.85) and adolescent cognitive change (HR = 0.84; 95% CI, 0.79–0.89) independently predicted lower mortality risk, also after adjustment for parental education. Childhood cognitive level and adolescent cognitive change showed partially distinct cause-specific patterns. Childhood cognitive level was most strongly associated with mortality from intrinsic causes, whereas adolescent cognitive change showed relatively stronger associations with external causes, particularly accidental deaths. Although adolescent cognitive change was associated with psychosocial factors including education and psychiatric diagnosis at conscription, its association with mortality persisted after adjustment for these factors. These findings suggest that cognitive development during adolescence carries independent prognostic information regarding long-term survival beyond cognitive level established by late childhood, highlighting adolescence as a consequential period for lifelong health.

Background: Higher cognitive ability in late adolescence and young adulthood associate with reduced risk of dementia, but such assessments are influenced by educational selection. Whether specific cognitive abilities earlier in childhood associate with later dementia risk, independent of known associations with cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes, remains unclear. Methods: We studied a Swedish population-representative birth cohort with cognitive testing at age 13 (n =10,539 born in 1948). Dementia and somatic morbidity were ascertained from nationwide inpatient and cause-of-death registers through November 2025 (>6 decades). Cox models estimated associations between childhood inductive reasoning, verbal and spatial ability scores and dementia, somatic morbidity, CVD and diabetes, each modelled as outcomes and as time-varying covariates in dementia models. Results: During follow-up, 287 individuals (2.7%) developed dementia. Higher childhood inductive reasoning associated with lower risk of dementia (HR per SD = 0.84, 95% CI 0.72-0.98), somatic morbidity, CVD (HR 0.88, 95% CI 0.83-0.92), and diabetes (HR 0.74, 95% CI 0.64-0.86). Verbal and spatial abilities were not independently associated with dementia. Somatic morbidity, CVD, and diabetes associated with dementia risk (HRs ~1.63-2.74), but only modestly attenuated the inductive reasoning-dementia association (HRs ~0.84-0.85). Findings replicated in an expanded cohort including individuals born in 1953 (total n = 19,919) and were robust to adjustment for parental and midlife education. Conclusions: Higher childhood inductive reasoning was associated with lower dementia risk across six decades, and this relationship was not substantially attenuated by adjustment for education or clinically manifest cardiovascular or cardiometabolic disease. These findings are consistent with a life-course perspective in which early neurodevelopmental characteristics contribute to dementia risk alongside major vascular and metabolic risk factors.

A theoretical chapter that focuses on implicit theories that explains how learning outcomes and pupils’ achievement are influenced by their beliefs about their intelligence, and most importantly, the view that effort can change the ability. The theory differentiates between the entity theory of intelligence, which is the naïve belief about ability as fixed and unchangeable, and the incremental theory of intelligence, which is the belief that intelligence is dependent on effort and possible to change. However, pupils’ beliefs in their own ability are influenced by the kind of feedback they receive where the teachers and their beliefs about ability are an important factor. If the teachers promote incremental theories in their classrooms this could stimulate the pupils’ beliefs that intelligence is dynamic and possible to change through effort.

Sammendrag This article aims to add to the body of literature on knowledge transfer in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) focusing on the core stakeholders’ experiences in Public-Private Development Partnership (PPDP) in Ethiopia and Zambia. The qualitative case study comparatively examines practices and barriers to promoting knowledge transfer in two TVET programmes in Ethiopia and Zambia— both applied a similar PPDP model. The study draws on data generated through semi-structured interviews based on narratives perspective. Key informants were purposively selected from among stakeholders who were directly involved in the two initiatives. The data analysis process follows thematic analysis. The results show that anchoring the PPDP initiatives with the nationally mandated Ministry and broadening coalition with the private sector are critical in transferring knowledge into the national TVET systems. Knowledge transfer through PPDPs is challenged by difficulties of retaining staff the initiatives have invested and partnering with a model school isolated from a TVET system that the PPDP intends to influence.  This article points to consideration of local schools’ prior experience of delivering similar programmes in order to insert new programmes into TVET systems. In Ethiopia, new TVET interventions are installed in a country and school not familiar with the knowledge field contrary to the programme in Zambia which was built on the existing programme. The successful transfer of PPDP interventions and their sustainability, it is argued, requires implementation of the initiatives with sound knowledge of the local context, and application of adaptive practices that encourage collaboration with diversified and committed local stakeholders.

Predicting the use of praise among pre-service teachers: The influence of implicit theories of intelligence, social comparison and stereotype acceptance

A sample of 226 Swedish high school teachers from various knowledge domains completed self-report measures of intelligence regarding implicit theories and scientific theories of intelligence. A mixed ANOVA showed that teachers from language, social science and practical disciplines had a significant preference for an incremental theory of intelligence compared to an entity theory of intelligence whilst the teachers in mathematics did not. One of the conclusions was that entity theories of intelligence may be more pronounced among teachers in mathematics. Second there is a significant relation between naïve beliefs in intelligence as fixed and inborn, entity theories, and the scientific g-factor theory. Last, it was the oldest and most experienced and youngest and least experienced teachers who preferred an entity theory of intelligence the most.