Your Classmates Shape How You Learn

What classmates do can quietly motivate students

Excellent Educator, 3(17), 2, 2026

🔬 Research in Brief

Researchers first explored students’ experiences through focus groups and then conducted an experiment with 605 undergraduate students. They identified seven peer behaviours that can signal a fixed or growth mindset: self-deprecation, withdrawing effort, explicit verbal messages, competitiveness, unwillingness to help, boasting about success and downplaying struggles.

Students exposed to growth-mindset peer behaviours were less likely to perceive the peer as having a fixed mindset. In turn, perceiving peers as more fixed-mindset was associated with lower belonging, stronger imposter feelings, greater evaluative concerns and more avoidance of academic challenges.

The message is important: classroom culture is not created by teachers alone. Peers can communicate powerful signals about who is “naturally good” at a subject, who is struggling, and whether taking an academic risk is safe. Earlier research cited by the authors also suggests that growth-oriented peers can strengthen motivation, belonging and challenge-seeking.

✔ Try Tomorrow

• Notice how students talk about their own ability: “I’m bad at maths” versus “I’m still figuring this out.”
• Encourage students to explain how they solved something rather than simply announcing that they got it right.
• Make helping classmates part of the classroom culture.
• When students share a difficulty, treat it as useful information rather than something embarrassing.

★ One Key Takeaway

Students learn motivational messages from classmates as well as teachers.

Keywords

Peer influence, classroom culture, mindset, belonging, academic risk-taking, imposter feelings, student motivation

📖 Original Research

Seo, E., Lee, S. Y., Muenks, K., & Yan, Y. The secret language of peers: How peer behaviours signal mindset and influence classroom experiences. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 1286–1309.