For example, if the disposition to accept peers of diverse backgrounds is to be strengthened, then opportunities to engage in that behavior must be available. Fifth, on the basis of the evidence accumulated from research on mastery versus performance motivation, it seems reasonable to suggest that there is an optimum amount of positive feedback for young children above which children may become preoccupied with their performance and the judgments of others rather than involved in the task, and hence their achievement would be acquired at the expense of their disposition to learn. Sixth, dispositions are less likely to be acquired through didactic processes than to be modeled by young children as they are around people who exhibit them. If teachers want their young pupils to have robust dispositions to investigate, hypothesize, experiment, and so forth, they might consider making their own such intellectual dispositions more visible to the children. The list of potential ways that teachers could exhibit the intellectual dispositions to be strengthened and supported is very long and deserves serious attention in the course of curriculum planning and teacher education.
Much research is needed to determine which dispositions merit attention.
It seems timely to include dispositions among important outcomes of education at every level. By doing so we are likely to pay more deliberate attention to ways in which desirable ones can be strengthened, and undesirable ones can be weakened. For the moment, one of the most important dispositions to be listed in educational goals is the disposition to go on learning. Any educational approach that undermines that disposition is miseducation. Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development.