Relations among parental causal attributions and children’s math performance and task persistence

The present longitudinal study examined the cross-lagged relations between parental causal attributions of children’s math success to children’s ability, parental help, children’s math performance and task persistence. A total of 735 children, their mothers, fathers and teachers were assessed twice – at the end of the second and the third grades. Children were tested in math and parents filled out questionnaires measuring causal attributions. Children’s task persistence was reported both by parents and by class teachers. The results of path analyses indicated mutual negative effects between mothers’ and fathers’ help attributions and children’s math performance, and a positive effect of mothers’ ability attributions on children’s math performance. Cross-lagged relations were also found for children’s math performance and task persistence. However, relations between parental attributions and children’s task persistence were evident only for fathers’ ability attributions. The findings emphasise the importance of examining both mothers and fathers, home and school context.     

The effects of effort feedback and performance patterns on children's attributions and task persistence

This study examines the effects of performance patterns (ascending versus random) and attributional information regarding the causes of that performance (effort feedback versus no feedback) on attributions and task persistence. Subjects were 40 fourth and fifth graders with dispositional tendencies not to perceive effort as a cause of their school-related performance. Results indicated that performance patterns did not systematically influence either children's attributions or persistence. As predicted, children given effort feedback exhibited greater levels of task persistence than those given no feedback; unexpectedly, however, this effect was not mediated by children's attributions.     

Cross‐lagged associations between kindergarten teachers' causal attributions and children's task motivation and performance in reading

The present study investigated whether kindergarten teachers' causal attributions would predict children's reading‐related task motivation and performance, or whether it is rather children's motivation and performance that contribute to teachers' causal attributions. To investigate this, 69 children (five to six years old at baseline) and their teachers were examined twice during the kindergarten year. Teachers filled in a questionnaire measuring their causal attributions twice during the kindergarten year. Information about the children's reading‐related task motivation and performance was gathered at the beginning of and at the end of the kindergarten year. The results showed that the higher the task motivation and performance in reading the children showed, the more the teachers attributed their success to ability and effort, and the less they attributed it to teachers' help. Teachers' ability and effort attributions for success, in turn, predicted a high level of children's subsequent task motivation in reading. Moreover, teachers seldom attributed high‐achieving children's failure to lack of ability or effort.     

Changing academic task persistence through a self-instructional attribution training program

The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether a self-instructional method of attribution training could effectively alter both academic task persistence and effort attributions for success and failure. Ninety children with low-effort attributions were identified and randomly assigned to three groups. The two experimental groups (experiential and formal presentation) were given training with two slightly different self-instructional procedure and compared to a control group receiving no such training. The results revealed that both experimental groups receiving the self-instructional attribution training evidenced significant differences from the control group in both academic task persistence and effort attribution.     

Parents' Attributions for Their Children's Behavior

Parents' attributions for children's behavior are of interest both as a form of adult social cognition and as possible contributors to children's development. This article reviews work on the determinants and the effects of parents' attributions. Included in the discussion of possible determinants are characteristics of the target (e.g., age and sex), characteristics of the judge (e.g., mothers vs. fathers), and characteristics of the behavior to be explained (e.g., positive or negative). Included in the discussion of possible effects are effects on parents' affect and behavior and on children's development. The evidence suggests that parents do form attributions for their children's behavior and that these attributions vary in predictable (although not perfectly consistent) ways across judges, targets, and outcomes. The evidence also suggests, although less certainly, that attributions affect both parents' behavior and children's development. The review concludes with suggestions for future research.     

Causal Attribution Profiles as a Function of Reading Skills,Hyperactivity, and Inattention

ABSTRACT

The causes that individuals attribute to reading outcomes shape future behaviors, including engagement or persistence with learning tasks. Although previous reading motivation research has examined differences between typical and struggling readers, there may be unique dynamics related to varying levels of reading and attention skills. Using latent profile analysis, we found 4 groups informed by internal attributions to ability and effort. Reading skills, inattention, and hyperactivity/impulsivity were investigated as functional correlates of attribution profiles. Participants were 1,312 youth (8–15 years of age) of predominantly African American and Hispanic racial/ethnic heritage. More adaptive attribution profiles had greater reading performance and lower inattention. The reverse was found for the least adaptive profile with associations to greater reading and attention difficulties. Distinct attribution profiles also existed across similar-achieving groups. Understanding reading-related attributions may inform instructional efforts in reading. Promoting adaptive attributions may foster engagement with texts despite learning difficulties and, in turn, support reading achievement.     

STUDENTS’ ATTRIBUTIONS OF ACADEMIC SUCCESS

This study investigates higher education students’ own attributions of success using free responses, exploring in particular the relative importance of ability and effort‐related attributions on the one hand and luck‐related attributions on the other. A sample of 150 first year polytechnic degree course students from both Arts and Science faculties was investigated. A rank order of 12 categories was established: study habits, lecture‐content, lecturer, social, interest, motivation, ability, domestic security, peers, luck, financial security, health. Among study habits a rank order of 7 categories was also established: reading skills, examination technique, time, note‐taking skills, organisation of work, revision, place. Knowledge of, and practice in, study habits, is clearly important, and other implications are the need for further awareness of the lecturer‐student relationship and more research into the consistency of student attributions across faculties beyond the first year.     

Interest,inferences, and learning from texts

Topic interest and learning from texts have been found to be positively associated with each other. However, the reason for this positive association is not well understood. The purpose of this study is to examine a cognitive process, inference generation, that could explain the positive association between interest and learning from texts. In Study 1, sixty undergraduate students participated by reading two science texts, which differed in coherence levels, silently. The results replicated previous findings that topic interest is positively associated with recall and accurate answers to comprehension questions for both texts. In Study 2, sixty-nine undergraduate students participated by reading the same two science texts while thinking aloud. The results indicated that topic interest was positively associated with inference generation while reading for the more coherently-written text. Subsequent analyses indicated inference generation partly explained the positive association between topic interest and accurate answers to comprehension questions for the more coherently-written text. The findings from Study 2 were independent of the effects of reading comprehension skill. Theoretical implications of the findings, in regard to standards of coherence and depth of processing while reading, are discussed.     

Interest in an expository text: How does it flow from reading to writing?

This study investigated the flow of interest in a reading-to-write activity. It was hypothesized that (a) different contents in a text would stimulate different types of interest and (b) different writing tasks would impact differently students’ use of interesting text segments. Participants were 247 11th- and 12th-grade students, who were divided into 6 groups according to a 2 (interesting vs. uninteresting topic) × 3 (type of writing task) design. While reading, students rated novelty, curiosity, impressiveness, importance, and willingness to reflect on each text segment. Participants were then assigned to one of three writing tasks, namely argumentation, text designing, and composition. Results showed that concepts were regarded as important, events/activities as impressive, and evaluations as most worthy of reflection. Topic interest was explicitly expressed mainly in the argumentation condition, where increased topic interest scores after reading and writing were also found.     

Negative parental attributions mediate associations between risk factors and dysfunctional parenting: A replication and extension

The primary goal of the current study was to replicate our previous study in which was found that negative maternal attributions mediate the association between parenting stress and harsh and abusive discipline. In addition, we investigated this association in fathers, and added observational parenting data. During two home visits mothers and fathers were observed with their children (age 1.5–6.0 years), filled in questionnaires, and completed the Parental Attributions of Child behavior Task (PACT; a computerized attribution task). Similar to our previous study, negative parental attributions mediated the relation between parenting stress and self-reported harsh and abusive parenting for both mothers and fathers. For mothers, this mediation effect was also found in the relation between parenting stress and lower levels of observed supportive parenting in a challenging disciplinary task. In addition, the relation of partner-related stress and abuse risk with harsh, abusive, and (low) supportive parenting were also mediated by maternal negative attributions. When parenting stress, partner-related stress, and abuse risk were studied in one model, only parenting stress remained significant. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of targeting parental attributions for prevention and intervention purposes in families experiencing stress.     

Causal Attributions and Reading Achievement: Individual Differences in Low-Income Families

In this study the development of causal attributions about reading within low-income families was examined. Specifically, relations between children's reading achievement and their causal attributions were investigated as well as relations between the children's attributions about themselves and their parents’ attributions about them. A total 513 students from Grades 3, 6, and 9, and one parent of each student, all from low-income families, participated. Students and parents independently rated the importance of seven causal variables (effort, intellectual ability, liking for reading, the teacher, help at home, difficulty of reading material, and luck) for the students’ good and poor reading outcomes. The major findings were that (a) at each grade, students’ attributions were reliably related to their reading achievement on the Gates–MacGinitie reading comprehension test, with attributions to ability, liking for reading, and help at home especially critical; (b) at each grade, parent attributions were reliably associated with student attributions; and (c) as students’ grade in school increased, they focused more on themselves and less on others as causal determinants of their reading performance. The implications of these findings for research and education are discussed.     

Identifying fake news through trustworthiness judgements of documents / La identificación de noticias falsas mediante juicios de fiabilidad de los documentos

Abstract

In the twenty-first century, people have access to a great wealth of knowledge to solve information-based problems. However, sources might include misinformation, a phenomenon also called ‘fake news’. In this study, the contribution of students’ affective engagement and behaviour disposition on Italian university students’ multiple-document comprehension will be investigated. In specific, the focus was put on trustworthiness judgements and use of justification criteria when reading documents on the controversial topic of vaccination. Participants were 289 university students. The procedure included four steps. Firstly, students were administered the tests measuring prior beliefs, topic interest and prior knowledge. Secondly, students read six documents varying by position towards vaccination and reliability. Thirdly, students were asked to report their use of processing strategies. Finally, students were asked to judge the trustworthiness of the six documents and report to what extent they had relied on specific trustworthiness criteria. Overall results confirmed the existence of four default stances adopted to complete the reading task, which are significantly associated with trustworthiness judgements. Students’ affective engagement should be targeted by enhancing their topic interest, and intervention should promote cross-document strategic processing.     

Conceptions of ability as stable and self-evaluative processes: a longitudinal examination

It has generally been taken for granted that conceiving of ability as stable leads to negative self-evaluative processes, particularly in the face of failure. Yet, a close examination of the empirical findings suggests that the picture may be more complex. In this research, a three-wave longitudinal design spanning 12 months was employed. Older elementary school children (N = 932) indicated their conceptions of academic and social ability as stable to external forces and to internal forces. They also provided information about the importance they place on academic and social competence, their knowledge about academic and social performance, their preference for academic challenge, their perceptions of academic and social competence, and their attributions for academic and social performance. Children's grades in school and their acceptance by peers were obtained as indicators of performance. Over time, conceiving of ability as stable to external forces, particularly in the academic domain, appeared to heighten the importance placed on competence, performance knowledge, preference for challenge, perceptions of competence, and self-enhancing attributions. In contrast, conceptions of ability as stable to internal forces, particularly in the academic domain, appeared to be fostered by placing little importance on competence, a lack of performance knowledge, avoidance of challenge, negative perceptions of competence, self-deprecating attributions, and poor performance.     

RESOLV: Readers' Representation of Reading Contexts and Tasks

We introduce RESOLV, a theoretical model to account for readers' construction and management of goals during text comprehension and use. RESOLV focuses on readers' experience of their physical, social, and communicative context prior to actually engaging with texts. RESOLV assumes that readers construct two types of mental models prior to reading: The context model is a representation of the physical and social reading context, whereas the task model is a set of goals and plans that drives readers' decisions and actions in reading. We first present the RESOLV model, and we articulate two core hypotheses. We then present and discuss evidence supporting these hypotheses, from past and more recent research conducted in our labs, as well as in others'. The data support the view that reading decisions and processes are guided by readers' perceptions and attributions regarding the task statement but also more implicit cues from the reading context.     

Prediction of learning and comprehension when adolescents read multiple texts: the roles of word-level processing, strategic approach, and reading motivation

Sixty-five Norwegian 10th graders used the software Read&Answer 2.0 (Vidal-Abarca et al., 2011) to read five different texts presenting conflicting views on the controversial scientific issue of sun exposure and health. Participants were administered a multiple-choice topic-knowledge measure before and after reading, a word recognition task, and a reading motivation inventory that included two dimensions: Science reading self-efficacy, focusing on readers’ beliefs about their capabilities to comprehend what they read in science, and science reading task value, focusing on readers’ beliefs about how important, useful, and interesting it is to comprehend science texts. In addition, strategic reading pattern was assessed in terms of the degree of non-linear reading behavior. Multiple regression analysis showed that word recognition skills strongly predicted learning from the texts, as assessed by participants’ increase in topic knowledge. However, when multiple-text comprehension indicated by performance on open-ended short-essay questions was the dependent variable, not only word recognition but also strategic reading pattern and science reading self-efficacy emerged as unique predictors when topic knowledge was controlled for. Science reading task value was not related to performance. This study provides new evidence that new literacy competencies needed in a knowledge society, such as synthesizing or integrating across multiple conflicting sources of information, still largely involve word-level, strategic, and motivational processes that may profitably be targeted through systematic instruction.     

Motivation for reading comprehension

In a sample of 104 Norwegian ninth-grade students, we examined whether perceived reading efficacy and reading task value uniquely predicted the comprehension of a social studies text after variance associated with gender, achievement in the domain, topic knowledge, deeper strategies, and surface strategies had been removed through forced-order hierarchical multiple regression analysis. Results showed that even after removing variance from these variables, the motivation constructs accounted for additional variance. However, only reading task value was a statistically significant positive predictor of reading comprehension, whereas the relationship between reading efficacy and reading comprehension did not reach statistical significance. Thus, reading task value seems particularly important because it can override the contributions of other important constructs. In terms of education, the findings suggest that an emphasis on cognitive constructs such as prior knowledge and strategic text-processing should not make us overlook the specific importance of promoting motivation for reading comprehension.     

积“跬步”以至“千里”——初中语文网络阅读教学模式浅探

目前,初中学生阅读兴趣不浓、阅读数量不足、阅读品质不佳的现象日趋严重,特别是在越来越重的课业负担下,他们中有较多部分人难有精力和兴致来以传统的方式选择纸质文本进行阅读。为了改变这种不良现象,依托网络信息化优势,按照一定的程序模式,以网络阅读教学指导的形式来激发学生阅读兴趣、重塑学生阅读习惯,成为了初中语文教师当前的一项迫切任务。     

Gender differences in reading: Examining text-based interest in relation to text characteristics and reading comprehension

Reading is a key competence for knowledge acquisition and learning processes. One important source of reading motivation is interest. Even though students' text-based interest often differs by gender, it remains unclear which text factors underlie these differences and whether text-based interest relates to reading comprehension among boys and girls. In a sample of 514 elementary students (47.2% girls), this study examined whether text topic, protagonists' gender, and text difficulty affect boys' and girls' text-based interest and whether interest and reading comprehension are intertwined. Based on a repeated within-subject design using fourteen narrative texts, the results indicated that boys' interest was higher in texts with male-attributed topics, male protagonists, and in more difficult texts. In contrast, girls’ interest was only affected by text difficulty. Text-based interest and reading comprehension were significantly related, albeit stronger for boys than for girls. The findings are discussed regarding future implications for research and educational practice.     

Prediction of students' argumentation skills about controversial topics by epistemological understanding

This study focuses on the contribution of overall epistemological understanding to argumentation skills, after controlling for topic knowledge and interest, in eighth graders. Students were introduced to two controversial topics, global warming and genetically modified food, through the reading of a two-sided text on each topic. After reading, students were asked to generate an argument, a counterargument, and a rebuttal for each topic. Findings from hierarchical regression analyses show that epistemological understanding was a significant predictor of all three components of argumentation skills for both controversies. In addition, participants at the evaluativist level of overall epistemological understanding generated arguments, counterarguments, and rebuttals of a higher quality than participants at the multiplist level. Findings were substantially replicated by a domain-specific analysis of epistemological understanding. Topic knowledge moderately, but significantly, contributed to the production of rebuttals about transgenic food only, while topic interest did not play a significant role.     

Longitudinal associations among interest,persistence, supportive parenting,and achievement in early childhood

This study investigates two facets of children's school readiness: interest in new cognitive tasks (interest) and persistence in task completion (persistence). Little attention has been paid to the early development of these learning behaviors, although they might prove susceptible to intervention even before school entry. Using data from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project, a sample of low-income children (N = 1771) was followed to model bidirectional associations among interest and persistence and maternal supportive parenting between ages 1 and 3, and estimate associations between children's interest and persistence at age 3 and their academic skills at age 5. Results indicate that maternal supportive parenting influences children's interest and persistence more strongly and consistently than interest or persistence influences parenting, and that interest but not persistence transacts with parenting over time. Interest and persistence were equally predictive of children's early academic skills. Findings affirm that both interest and persistence during toddlerhood predict children's academic standing at school entry.