A key component for youth on their thriving pathway is cultivating a growth mindset. Youth with a strong growth mindset view challenges as opportunities to learn and grow. When young people possess a growth mindset, they are more resilient, and better able to adapt to challenging situations. Through practice and effort both youth and adults increase their potential to learn and develop across the lifespan. Watch the video on growth mindset at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73KbVR6l6bU

A key method to help young people cultivate a growth mindset is to provide constructive feedback on their completed work. In California 4-H, youth members often showcase a variety of “things made, raised, grown, or improved” at county fairs, presentation events, and other exhibit venues. At these events, youth exhibit and may receive feedback from experts. Providing venues for youth to exhibit the product of their work and receive feedback can support youth in assessing their learning and set future goals and direction. Exhibition may help support a growth mindset; a belief that intelligence, abilities and personality can grow with effort and persistence. An emphasis on growth mindset is one reason many 4-H events use a criterion-based system, aka the Danish system,  where youth are evaluated against a set standard rather than against one another.

Sometimes, the balance tilts, and youth (and parents) focus on the competitive aspects of events. In this, youth are seeking an extrinsic reward – 1st place – and trying to “win at all costs.” This emphasis serves counterproductive purposes: promoting performance goals (over learning goals), often reducing self-esteem, and potentially limiting the development of healthy relationships. Competition may reinforce a fixed mindset, a belief that talents and skills are mainly inherited, static, and cannot change much. 

The research literature is clear: in comparing learning outcomes between cooperative, competitive, and individualist work, those engaged in cooperative tasks often experience higher intrinsic motivation, use more creative thinking, have more positive attitudes towards the task, promote greater social capital, and increase general psychological health when compared with competitive or individually oriented tasks (Johnson & Johnson, 2009). [NWC1] 

 As your 4-H youth begin to show and exhibit, please remember to help them (and their parents) focus on learning and growing from their exhibition, with competition as one method to assess one's skills. Help youth use evaluators/judge's feedback to learn, improve, and grow. Praise youth when they show effort, try alternate strategies, or seek help.

References

Dweck, C.S. (2006) Mindset: The new psychology of success. Ballantine Books.

Johnson, D. & Johnson, R. (2009). An educational psychology success story: Social interdependence theory and cooperative learning. Educational Researcher, 38(5), 365-379. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X09339057

 [NWC1]Should we include the full reference alongside Dweck?