Failure beliefs in school and beyond: From the perspective of social and emotional learning

Abstract

Students inevitably experience failure in diverse contexts, both within and beyond the educational setting. As students have to learn how to cope with failure, cultivating resilience to failure is an important educational goal in the current society. This perspective paper undertakes a comprehensive review of studies centered around beliefs about academic failure, and highlights their importance in current educational settings, particularly in the context of social and emotional learning (SEL). After introducing the concept of failure beliefs within academic domains and providing an overview of prior research in this realm, we draw attention to the forthcoming horizons of research in failure belief studies. Future research is required (1) to position failure beliefs among various error-specific constructs in existing frameworks, (2) to understand how failure beliefs and other error-specific constructs relate to SEL, (3) to clarify the determinants of failure beliefs, (4) to examine the transfer and generalization of failure beliefs, and (5) to accumulate cross-cultural findings. Through these proposed directions, we underscore how failure beliefs stand to enrich SEL practices and policies.