Not all research is supportive of ability feedback. Mueller and Dweck (1998) conducted a
series of studies with nine to 11 year old students and found that students provided with ability
feedback and then a subsequent failure experience did not perform well after the failure, while
those who received effort feedback did perform well following a failure experience. Those
students who received only ability feedback and then failed attributed their failure to not being
smart; had a decline in performance after the failure and lied about their results after the failure.
The results of the six studies reported by Mueller and Dweck (1998) suggested that only
providing ability feedback has negative consequences particularly when followed by failure
experience.