How gender stereotypes of students and significant others are related to motivational and affective outcomes in mathematics at the end of secondary school

We examined associations between the explicit mathematics-related gender stereotypes of students, parents, teachers, and classmates and students’ motivational-affective outcomes in mathematics (self-concept, interest, anxiety) at the end of Grade 9. Based on representative data from the German Trends in Student Achievement 2018 study (N = 30,019), results of latent multilevel mixture models show that boys’ and girls’ explicit beliefs in the stereotype favoring their own gender in-group (i.e., boys’/girls’ belief that boys/girls do better at mathematics) were related to higher levels of self-concept and interest and to lower anxiety. Parents’ gender stereotypes showed an incremental association with all three outcomes for girls but only with mathematics self-concept for boys. Gender stereotypes of teachers were not related to students’ outcomes. However, classmates’ stereotypes favoring girls or boys in mathematics were negatively associated with outcomes of the positively stereotyped group. Thus, a male student in a classroom with classmates who share the traditional stereotype that boys do better at mathematics than girls would hold a lower self-concept and interest and higher anxiety level after controlling for the beneficial individual association of himself having the same belief and his motivational and affective outcomes. Similarly, a girl’s motivational-affective outcomes would be more favorable in the same environment characterized by the shared traditional stereotype of mathematics as a male domain after controlling for the negative individual association. Shared stereotypes in the classroom could thus trigger social comparison processes to which students are more susceptible than to stereotypes of their teachers.     

Social Participation of Students with Special Needs in Regular Primary Education in the Netherlands

This study addresses the social participation of young students (Grades One to Three) with special needs in regular Dutch primary schools. More specifically, the focus lies on four key themes related to social participation: friendships/relationships, contacts/interactions, students’ social self‐perception, and acceptance by classmates. The outcomes of the study revealed that the majority of students with special needs have a satisfactory degree of social participation. However, compared with students without special needs, a relatively large portion of the students with special needs experience difficulties in their social participation. In general, students with special needs have a significantly lower number of friends and are members of a cohesive subgroup less often than their typical peers. In addition, students with special needs have fewer interactions with classmates, have more interactions with the teacher, and are less accepted than students without special needs. The social self‐perception of both groups of students does not differ. A comparison between students with different categories of disability regarding the four themes of social participation revealed no significant differences.     

Alleviating or exacerbating disadvantage: does school attended mediate the association between family background and educational attainment?

ABSTRACT

Opportunities for social mobility are generated by education systems designed to alleviate the effects of social origin by providing equality of opportunities and resources. The persistence of the strong association between socioeconomic status (SES) and child’s educational achievement and attainment suggests that social origin continues to play an integral role in the educational outcomes of successive generations of Australians. Sociologists draw on a range of theoretical perspectives to explain this association including Bourdieu’s cultural and social capital theories. Using data collected by the Longitudinal Survey of Australian Youth 2009 (LSAY09) project, I examine the associations between student SES, school SES and two outcome variables: Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) score and university enrolment. The results indicate that low SES students attending high SES schools perform better on PISA tests than low SES students attending low SES schools. After controlling for PISA score, low SES students were less likely than their high SES peers to enrol at university. Furthermore, students attending low SES schools were less likely than their peers attending high SES schools to enrol at university, net of their individual SES and their PISA scores.     

Variations of perspectives of junior high school students who have participated in Smartphone Summit for appropriate usage of the Internet and smartphones

This study investigated the variations of perspectives of junior high school students who had participated in Smartphone Summit for appropriate usage of the Internet and smartphones. Smartphone Summit is an educational project designed to empower junior high school students to advocate appropriate usage of the Internet and smartphones among older, same-age, and younger peers, within school communities and society as a whole. The participants were 26 students (7th and 8th grade) from 18 junior high schools in Okayama, a western Japanese city. In the project, the participants discussed pros and cons of the Internet and smartphones, and presented their ideas concerning possible activities to encourage their classmates to use the Internet and smartphones in appropriate ways with the help of various adult experts. A questionnaire was administered to measure the participants’ evaluation of their own and their classmates’ present smartphone usage as well as anticipated future smartphone usage. Results showed that the participants evaluated their own usage as more appropriate than that of their classmates and expected that future usage would be better for both themselves and their classmates than at present. Furthermore, the participants expected their classmates’ usage will change more significantly than their own because their classmates’ current usage seems relatively inappropriate and there would be larger room for improvement. From the analysis of patterns of participants’ impact expectation toward their peers, it was found that there were three types of perspectives: moderate, relatively lower, and relatively higher evaluation. Future research should focus on the factors influencing the participants’ perspectives.     

Students’ achievement goals,emotion perception ability and affect and performance in the classroom: a multilevel examination

Performance at school is affected not only by students’ achievement goals but also by emotional exchanges among classmates and their teacher. In this study, we investigated relationships between students’ achievement goals and emotion perception ability and class affect and performance. Participants were 949 Greek adolescent students in 49 classes and their Greek language and mathematics teachers. Results from multilevel analyses indicated that students’ mastery-approach and performance-approach goals were positively related to positive affect whereas performance-avoidance goals were negatively related to positive affect. At class-level, relationships between achievement goals and affect were moderated by students’ emotion perception ability. These findings highlight the importance of emotion abilities and their role in motivational processes for class-level outcomes.     

Der Wert der Mathematik im Klassenzimmer – Die Bedeutung relevanzbezogener Unterrichtsmerkmale für die Wertüberzeugungen der Schülerinnen und Schüler

The lack of secondary school students’ motivation in mathematics lessons poses a great challenge. According to the Expectancy-Value Model (Eccles et al., Achievement and achievement motives: psychological and sociological approaches, New York, Freeman, S. 75–146, 1983), teacher and classmates influence students’ value beliefs. Using data of 1868 ninth grade students and their 72 math teachers, this study was designed to assess the association of several indicators of relevance-oriented teaching strategies and of perceived classmates’ math valuing with students’ value beliefs in mathematics. Two-level linear regression analyses provided evidence that the student-rated practical focus of math lessons predicted students’ intrinsic, attainment, utility, and cost value mainly at the individual level; student-rated classmates’ math valuing was associated with students’ value perceptions more strongly at the class level. Over the course of six months, these effects increased at the individual but not at the class level. Teacher-reported effort to establish connections between math and other domains was positively associated with students’ attainment and cost value. Teacher-rated use of daily life examples led to a decrease in students’ cost value over the course of six months.     

Preferences of students with general learning difficulties for different service delivery modes

This study was designed to elicit the views and preferences of primary education students’ with general learning difficulties concerning different service delivery modes. The main areas to be investigated were: (a) their current educational provision, (b) alternative modes of provision and (c) the most appropriate provider (mainstream or special needs teacher) of educational support. The sample consisted of 95 students in grades 2–6 who voluntarily participated in the study. Interviews, including seven questions concerning students’ views on and preferences for different educational settings (regular classroom without additional support, resource room, in‐class support), were employed for gathering data. The findings clearly confirmed our hypotheses that: (a) students do hold preferences about where and by whom they should be taught, and (b) they do not unanimously prefer one service delivery mode over another. While the majority of the students preferred the resource room over the regular class, it is significant, at the same time, that almost one‐third of the participants preferred the regular classroom. Students’ preference for educational setting (regular classroom or resource room) was significantly influenced by their view of which setting provides more academic benefits. Regarding their preference for the most appropriate provider of support, the great majority preferred receiving help from the special education teacher. Given that in‐class support is not practised in Greek schools and none of the participants had any experience of systematic in‐class support provided by a special teacher, it was surprising to establish that almost one‐half of the students preferred to receive the additional support within the regular class. Students’ preference for a service delivery mode (pull‐out or in‐class support) was significantly influenced by: (a) their preference of educational setting (regular classroom or resource room), and (b) their views of which setting provided greater academic benefit.     

An attributional analysis of students' interactions: The social consequences of perceived responsibility

Recent research on why some children are disliked by their classmates, why students do or do not help one another, and how children manage to get along with teachers and classmates is reviewed in this article. A motivational approach focusing on attribution theory is used to examine these questions. Inferences of responsibility and feelings of anger and sympathy are documented to impact students' negative social responses (rejection and neglect) as well as their willingness to help their classmates. Students' understanding of the responsibility-emotion-behavior links is proposed to influence their self-presentation strategies, such as excuse giving and seeking social approval.     

Does it pay to be one of the oldest in class? Relative age effects on academic self-concept,peer relations,and teacher judgments in German primary schools

Several studies have revealed that older students in a year group reach higher achievement scores than younger students in that group. But less is known about how students' relative age in class relates to their self-perception of academic achievement, their social acceptance in class and to how teachers judge their abilities. Therefore, we examined relative age effects within class on students' academic self-concept, peer relations, grades, and teachers’ secondary school recommendation. Analyses were based on a sample of N = 18,956 German fourth graders, who had never been retained or accelerated. We applied multilevel regression to control for covariates at the individual and classroom level. There were no substantial relative age effects within class across any of the outcomes, except for a small advantage for the youngest in their reading self-concept. Our findings therefore contradict the common assumption that younger students in class are disadvantaged compared to their older classmates.     

Some Bases Used by Students in Choosing Partners in the Chemistry Laboratory

Abstract

The effects of mobility upon performance on standardized group tests of mental ability of disadvantaged children in 18 elementary schools in New York City were assessed.

Among nontransient pupils there was no significant difference between the mean Otis Alpha test score at the third grade and the mean Otis Beta score which was taken three years later at the sixth grade. However, the Otis Alpha scores of these nontransients were significantly higher than that of their third-grade transient classmates. Also, the Otis Beta scores of these same non transients were significantly better than that of their sixth-grade classmates.

This study emphasized differences in the test performance of transient and nontransient pupils in a school population of disadvantaged children and pointed up the need for separate longitudinal analyses of these two groups.     

Restructuring of mainstream sociometry with learning disabled and nonhandicapped students

Sociometric ratings assigned by and to 50 elementary school students with learning disabilities and 50 nonhandicapped elementary school students (in matched pairs) were compared in this study. In addition, traditional sociometric status applied to social impact and social preference was also examined. Results showed that the matched pairs did not differ significantly in assigned status to their peers, but differed significantly in acceptance and rejection received from their shared classmates. Students with learning disabilities and nonhandicapped students differed significantly in social preference, but not in social impact.     

Surveying inclusion in Greece: empirical research in 2683 primary school students

Students’ point of view for inclusion and for their classmates with disability is essential for its successful implementation. The objectives of this work are to examine the primary school students’ attitudes towards students with disabilities. The findings of the research indicate that the majority of typically developing students has a positive attitude towards their classmates with disabilities. However, they are not so much in favour of inclusion. According to the research data, a number of factors including the age of the students, their gender, their previous experience with people with disabilities, the information they have received from their parents regarding disabilities, intervene and determine the success of inclusion of students with disability but also influence the students’ attitudes towards their classmates with disability.     

Bridging assessment and achievement: Repeated practice of self-assessment in college english classes in Taiwan

Abstract

Grounded on the notion of observational learning in social cognitive learning theory, this study evaluated the effectiveness of repeated self-assessment on English-as-a-foreign-language learners’ oral performance and the perceptions of the students and the instructor of this practice. Ninety-seven students from three classes in a Taiwanese college participated in this study. The classes experienced five trials of self-assessment in which they used cell phones to record their oral responses. Instead of simply rating their own recordings, the students were provided questions to guide their examination of key components of their own talk. The results show that the students’ oral performance and evaluation abilities both improved over time, and they highly valued opportunities to detect their errors and observe their real learning outcomes. The findings suggest that self-assessment bridged the gap between repeated practice and English learning by allowing the students to reflect upon their performance, find their weaknesses, adjust their following talk, and recognize their learning outcomes.     

Incidental Learning in Foreign Language Learning

Abstract

Students in a college course were given written criteria, divided into teams, and asked to score their own essay examination. Their pooled ratings correlated .922 with the instructor's ratings. Agreement between the ratings of students and instructor was not related to grade point or total test score. However, grade point and test scores were related negatively to the ambiguity of the students’ answers on the examination. The results support the generalization that subjective scoring standards are readily communicable. Theoretical and practical implications are examined.     

Beware of Stereotypes: Are Classmates’ Stereotypes Associated With Students’ Reading Outcomes?

This study examined the associations between classmates’ reading-related gender stereotypes and students’ reading self-efficacy, self-concept, motivation, and achievement. Our sample consisted of 1,508 fifth-grade students (49% girls; age: 10.89 years); data were collected at two time points. Multilevel analyses yielded two main results: First, there was a relation between students’ individual reading-related gender stereotypes and their reading self-concept, self-efficacy, and motivation with boys experiencing negative and girls experiencing positive effects. Second, a contextual effect was found: after controlling for students’ individual reading-related gender stereotypes, classmates’ gender stereotypes were negatively related to all of the boys’ reading outcomes. The results provide evidence for the assumption that classmates are important communicators of gender stereotypes and that they reinforce conforming behaviors.     

Achievement-oriented beliefs and their relation to academic expectations and school achievement among Qatari students

This study investigated the relation between motivational goals and university intentions, school valuing and school achievement. The premise of this study is that motivational goals play a key role in academic values and achievement. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to establish the construct validity of the motivational measures drawn from the Inventory of School Motivation (ISM): mastery (effort and task), performance (competition and social power), social solidarity (social concern and affiliation), extrinsic (praise and token). A set of eight regression analyses was conducted to examine the relations among these eight motivational measures, future goals to attend college, the value of school and six school subjects. Eight regression equations revealed that effort and task were the most significant predictors of the dependent variables of university intention, valuing school and school achievement scores. Students in Qatar exhibited ‘effort and task’ in goal motivation in relation to students’ beliefs regarding future academic goals and achievement scores in school subjects. As Qatar is a highly gender-segregated society, analyses were also conducted by gender.     

Simplicity-Complexity in Thinking as Related to Preference for Dependence-Independence in Students

Abstract

What kind of teacher personality is most conducive to the development of independence in pupils as one aspect of the pupil’s psychosocial maturity? The Thinking Introversion, Theoretical Orientation, and Complexity scales of the Omnibus Personality Inventory were given to 254 home economics education faculty, supervising teachers, and student teachers at two Midwestern universities measuring simplicity-complexity in thinking. An adaptation of the Flanders’ Scale of Dependence Proneness measured preference for dependence-independence in students. Statistically significant results were obtained using a one-way analysis of variance test. Mean scores showed that those persons characterized by complexity in thinking preferred independence in students, while those characterized by simplicity in thinking preferred dependence in students.     

Social processes and outcomes of in-school contact between deaf and hearing peers

Studies of social processes and outcomes of the placement of deaf students with hearing peers cannot be easily summarized, but can be grouped into a least four major categories of focus: social skills, interaction and participation, sociometric status and acceptance, and affective functioning. We review 33 studies available since 1980 in which a mainstreamed or included deaf sample was compared to another group. Studies indicated (1) that hearing students were more socially mature than deaf students in public schools, (2) that deaf students interacted with deaf classmates more than hearing ones, (3) that deaf students were somewhat accepted by their hearing classmates, and (4) that self-esteem was not related to extent of mainstreaming. There was a tendency for studies to use observational methods with very young children, teacher evaluations with middle school children, and questionnaires with older children. Three major areas of methodology limit general conclusions: samples, measurements of variables, and experimental manipulations. The reviewed studies provide a basis for understanding the social processes and outcomes in these placement situations; however, it is not possible to make broad generalizations about effects of placement.     

Using school scholarships to estimate the effect of private education on the academic achievement of low-income students in Chile

This paper estimates the impact of private education on the academic achievement of low-income students in Chile. To deal with selection bias, we use propensity score matching to compare the test scores of reduced-fee paying, low-income students in fee-charging private voucher schools to those of similar students in public schools and free private voucher schools. Our results reveal that students in fee-charging private voucher schools score slightly higher than students in public schools. The difference in standardized test scores is approximately 10 points, a test score gain of 0.2 standard deviations. We find no difference in the academic achievement of students in the fee-charging private voucher treatment group relative to their counterparts in free private voucher schools.     

E Pluribus Unum: Mohawk Indian Students’ Views Regarding the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance

This study examined 191 high school students’ willingness to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, their reasons for participating or not participating in saying the Pledge, and their thoughts about the Pledge during this daily school ritual. The study was conducted in a rural town next to the Akwesasne Mohawk reservation. The majority of the students chose not to recite the Pledge, and Mohawk students were less likely to recite the Pledge than their classmates.