Are growth mindset, mastery orientation, and grit promising for promoting achievement in the Global South? Psychometric evaluations among Indonesian adolescents
We examined the measurement characteristics and cross-cultural measurement invariance of growth mindset, mastery orientation, and grit among Indonesian (N=55,964) and US (N =440) adolescents. We found support for strong invariance across males and females for all factors in both contexts. Indonesian females reported higher growth mindset and mastery orientation latent means than Indonesian males. We found mixed evidence for cross-cultural measurement invariance using two approaches. A Bayesian approach supported measurement invariance for mastery orientation and grit, whereas each factor achieved only configural or weak invariance using subsampling approach based in frequentist estimation. Notably, higher levels of each construct were associated with higher grades in Indonesia and in the US. We conclude that while some measurement issues warrant future investigation, growth mindset, mastery orientation, and grit conceptually translate to the Indonesian context and are promising targets for academic achievement interventions for Indonesian youth and perhaps youth in the broader Global South.