Daoyang Wang

Introduction: Students' mindsets about the malleability of their abilities shape their academic performance, social adaptation, and psychological well‐being, making it important to track how these beliefs change during adolescence. Although mindsets undergo substantial change in this period, most studies have used latent variable models that ignore the dynamic interactions among mindset items. Examining how specific items change over time can thus reveal how mindsets develop and whether this process differs between boys and girls. Methods: This study examined the temporal links among the 10 growth mindset items and the 10 fixed mindset items, identifying the central beliefs within each network, in 15,386 students (40% girls; = 16.73 years) from 31 secondary vocational schools in China, followed annually over 3 years. Mixed‐design ANOVA and cross‐lagged panel network (CLPN) analysis were used to compare mindset development between genders. Results: Boys consistently reported higher aggregate scores on both growth and fixed mindsets than girls, though these differences were small. The CLPN analysis showed gender‐specific trajectories: girls showed earlier and more pronounced changes in the growth mindset network, whereas boys showed slower integration of growth‐related beliefs. By contrast, the fixed mindset networks developed similarly across genders. Item‐level cross‐lagged associations were small, and network comparisons were descriptive. Conclusions: Conceptualizing mindsets as interconnected networks, this study identifies gender‐specific developmental patterns in mindset organization among Chinese vocational students, showing how mindset items co‐develop over time and suggesting candidate targets for gender‐sensitive interventions in the future.

Introduction: Adolescents' beliefs about the relationship between personal abilities and effort exhibit complex and divergent patterns, with previous studies highlighting significant gender differences in these belief systems. However, the underlying structure of control beliefs (including ability and effort beliefs) remains poorly understood, as well as how distinct belief patterns are associated with psychological adjustment. To address this gap, this study investigates the configuration of adolescents' beliefs about ability and effort and examines their associations with adaptive outcomes. Methods: In total, 10,205 Chinese adolescents (61% male; M _age = 16.56 years, SD _age = 0.84) completed the ability and effort belief subscales of the Chinese version of the Control, Agency, and Means‐ends Interview (CAMI), along with the Subjective Health Complaints questionnaire and Satisfaction with Life Scale, assessing control beliefs, subjective health, and life satisfaction, respectively. Participants were assessed longitudinally at three time points (March–April 2017, 2018, and 2019) at 1‐year intervals. Results: Latent profile analysis identified three control belief profiles among adolescents: moderate, above average, and high control. The high control group (characterized by strong ability and effort beliefs) showed optimal psychological adjustment. Longitudinal analyses revealed that baseline psychological adjustment significantly predicted upward transitions among profiles. Notably, male adolescents showed a greater representation of adaptive profiles and more upward transitions. Conclusions: These results highlight the heterogeneity of control beliefs and the nuanced association between control beliefs and psychological adjustment. Findings suggest that school interventions should target effort‐ability belief integration, particularly for female adolescents.

The main goal of music appreciation teaching is to cultivate students' correct aesthetics and teach them to acquire basic knowledge about music history and musical expression methods. However, traditional music teaching is often limited in conditions and abstract in content, making it difficult to achieve this teaching goal. For the purpose of achieving the teaching goal and effect, this paper mainly studies how to use the new teaching aids, namely virtual reality technology, to design and implement the multimedia teaching platform for the music appreciation course scenario teaching. Through the statistics of the students' music appreciation course and the feedback data collected by the questionnaire, the results show that the platform in this paper is helpful to arouse students' interest in music learning and promote their efficient and independent learning. The innovation of this article lies in the full application of virtual reality technology to music teaching appreciation classes, which enables the effective combination of virtual reality technology and music courses to play the role of virtual reality technology.

The present study examined the relationship between substance use and reasoning in adolescents, and further investigated the modulation role of growth mindset on this relationship. A total of 1759 adolescents in China with substance use experience were investigated. The results showed that substance use (smoking, drinking, and illicit drug use) was negatively correlated with reasoning (r = −0.24 ∼−0.39, p < 0.01) and growth mindset (r = −0.18 ∼−0.32, p < 0.01). Regression analysis revealed that after controlling for the background variables (i.e., age, family annual income, and parents’ educational level), only illicit drug use was the significant predictor of reasoning (β = −0.325, t = −14.28, p < 0.001). The interaction effect between growth mindset and illicit drug use was also a significant predictor of reasoning (β = −0.067, t = −2.92, p = 0.004), indicating growth mindset modulated the relationship between illicit drug use and reasoning ability. Further analysis found that the negative correlation between frequency of illicit drug use and reasoning in high growth mindset group was weaker than that of low growth mindset group (F_(3,1733) = 332.51, p < 0.001, f² = 0.22). This suggests that growth mindset plays a significant moderating role in the relationship between substance use and reasoning. Overall, substance use has adverse effect on adolescent reasoning, however, growth mindset could reduce this adverse effect.