From “If Not Us, Then Who?” to a Movement
What if motivation science could change lives—not just fill journals?
That question became our calling. Research across psychology demonstrates that individuals’ mindsets—their attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions—play a key role in their ability to fulfill their potential. But psychological theory alone isn’t enough. Those insights were staying locked in academic journals, never reaching the students who needed them most.
There were almost no models for bridging this gap. How to translate motivation science into improved living conditions for everyone, especially students from traditionally marginalized groups. How to work in the messy real world of schools and communities while maintaining scientific rigor.
If Not Us, Then Who?
In 2017, fresh off our first NSF intervention grant, our founding team faced a choice. Senior academics warned: “Focus on publications. Stop doing partnership work until you have tenure.”
But we asked different questions: If not us, then who? If not now, then when?
We chose to build something different: a lab where translation mattered more than publication counts. Where partnership work wasn’t a distraction from “real research”—it was the research. Where scientific rigor could meet the complexity of real classrooms.
Building a Different Process
As John Dewey wrote: “No conclusion of scientific research can be converted into an immediate rule of educational art.” Research findings need to be customized for specific individuals and varied contexts.
So we developed a process that combines psychological theory with best practices in improvement science, design thinking, and experimental methods. Not theory or practice—theory and practice, working together.
Our Four-Phase Research Process
Prototype & Test
Customize interventions and strategies informed by data, feedback, and theory
Empathize & Learn
In the empathize & learn phase we work to understand the problem by listening to our stakeholders.
We do this by collecting rich qualitative and quantitative indicators of learning mindsets and student success, ensuring that all future efforts will be based on robust, context-specific evidence.
Synthesize & Plan
In the synthesize & plan phase we leverage learnings to identify areas to test interventions.
- Pinpoint evidence-based research practices that address key challenges across the network.
Highlight existing institutional and statewide practices that target key issues in schools.
Co-create customized practices, tailored to the educational contexts in which they will be tested.
Prototype & Test
In the prototype and test phase, we test strategies in the field to gather evidence on their effectiveness and scalability.
- Practice active inquiry to continuously assess, track, and capture evidence from testing.
- Engage in systematic reflection to document lessons learned from ongoing testing and identify opportunities for increased fidelity, impact, and cost-efficiency.
- Curate a list of recommendations for learning mindset interventions that can be scaled, building from Motivate Lab’s preexisting list of evidence-based strategies.
- Establish the efficacy of learning mindset interventions through a combination of improvement testing (e.g., plan-do-study-act cycles) and randomized control trials (i.e., RCTs).
Adopt & Infuse
In the adopt and infuse phase, we disseminate findings to accelerate learning across a system:
- Create routines and procedures for customizing interventions and activities to new settings, including best practices for adapting to new contexts and student populations.
- Compile a list of resources to empower practitioners to make informed changes at their institutions.
- Establish the efficacy of learning mindset interventions at scale through replication.
- Host annual convenings around learning mindsets to facilitate interinstitutional discussions, share cutting-edge research on learning mindsets, and accelerate network-wide learnings.
- Norm evidence-demonstrated policies and procedures through institutional and statewide support.
This iterative process—empathize, test, synthesize, infuse—became our blueprint for translating research into scalable change.
We’re still empathizing.
Still testing.
Still synthesizing.
Still infusing.
The work continues.