The effects of POWERSOURCE© assessments on middle-school students’ math performance

This paper describes results from field testing of middle-school math formative assessments alongside professional development and instructional resources. We employed a randomised, controlled design to address the question: Does using our formative assessment strategies improve student performance on assessments of key mathematical ideas relative to a comparison group? This study also provided data on the instructional sensitivity of the assessments, which is part of the validation needed for formative assessments. Teachers were recruited from two districts and seven middle schools. Nineteen treatment and 17 comparison group teachers and their students were included in study analyses. Scores on extended response and short-answer questions indicated that students in the treatment group performed better than students in the comparison group who received the formative assessments alone. These findings demonstrate both the feasibility and value of including performance task-types in a brief assessment context.     

Effects of the differences between native and non-native English-speaking teachers on students’ attitudes and motivation toward learning English

This study presents findings on three research agendas: (1) the difference between native English-speaking teachers (NESTs) and non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) in students’ attitudes toward and motivation for learning English, (2) the moderating effect of the type of class (i.e., English Conversation vs. Practical English) on the difference in students’ perceived attitudes and motivation, and (3) the difference between NESTs and NNESTs in their self-perception of their teaching practices and the effect of the type of class on this difference. The results indicate significant differences between NESTs and NNESTs in terms of their students’ perceived attitudes and motivation with respect to English learning. However, these differences varied depending upon the type of class. These results provide empirical support for the role of the type of class as a variable moderating the effect of the difference between NESTs and NNESTs on students’ attitudes and motivation. In addition, the type of class moderated teachers’ self-perception of their own teaching practices, providing support for the moderating effect of the type of class on various measures and samples. Theoretical as well as pedagogical implications are discussed.     

In the eyes of the beholder: students’ and teachers’ judgments of students’ motivation

This study was designed to examine the nature and accuracy of teachers’ judgments about students’ motivation related to mathematics. Seventeen fourth- through sixth-grade teachers and 100 of their students participated in this study. Teachers were asked to rate six target students’ motivation four times during the school year. At each of these times students also rated their own motivation. Teachers’ ratings were more stable over time and across mathematics topics and were less differentiated across motivation dimensions than were students’ ratings. The findings suggest that teachers need to pay careful attention to evidence related to children's motivation that might contradict their perceptions and therefore support more effective interventions.     

Effects of biology teachers’ professional knowledge and cognitive activation on students’ achievement

This study examined the effects of teachers’ biology-specific dimensions of professional knowledge – pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and content knowledge (CK) – and cognitively activating biology instruction, as a feature of instructional quality, on students’ learning. The sample comprised 39 German secondary school teachers whose lessons on the topic neurobiology were videotaped twice. Teachers’ instruction was coded with regard to cognitive activation using a rating manual. Multilevel path analysis results showed a positive significant effect of cognitive activation on students’ learning and an indirect effect of teachers’ PCK on students’ learning mediated through cognitive activation. These findings highlight the importance of PCK in preservice biology teachers’ education. Items of the rating manual may be used to provide exemplars of concrete teaching situations during university seminars for preservice teacher education or professional development initiatives for in-service teachers.     

Teachers’ engaging messages and the relationship with students’ performance and teachers’ enthusiasm

The current study examined the relation of students’ performance and teachers’ enthusiasm with teachers’ use of engaging messages in class. These messages can focus on the benefits or disadvantages of engaging in a school task, and appeal to controlled (i.e., extrinsic, or introjected) or autonomous (i.e., identified, or intrinsic) incentives to engage students. Engaging messages were gathered through audio-recorded lessons of 39 teachers in 59 student groups during the second term of the academic year. Results showed that both students’ performance and teachers’ enthusiasm are related to teacher’s use of engaging messages. The better the students’ performance, and the higher the teachers’ enthusiasm, the larger the number of messages used. Moreover, the better the students’ performance, the greater the likelihood of using messages that appeal to extrinsic incentives. By assessing engaging messages through objective observations, we discovered relationships that can help us better understand teachers’ use of engaging message.     

An integrative study on learning and testing with multimedia: Effects on students’ performance and metacognition

Previous research has found that adding pictures to either text-based learning- or testing-materials has beneficial effects (i.e., multimedia effects in learning and testing). However, a potential interaction of multimedia effects in learning and in testing has scarcely been the focus of research so far. Accordingly, in the present experiment, N = 129 university students received text-based material that was either complemented by pictures both in learning and testing (P-P), only in learning and not in testing (P-T), in testing but not in learning (T-P), or not at all (T-T). Students performed better in the P-P condition than in the other three conditions (P-T, T-P, T-T). Differences between the latter three conditions were not significant. Thus, pictures needed to be present in both learning and testing to foster students' performance. Nonetheless, pictures boosted students’ confidence even if performance was not actually improved, thereby underlining the risk of picture-induced metacognitive bias.     

Relations of autonomous and controlled motivation with performance in secondary school students’ favoured and disfavoured subjects

Students in secondary education inevitably favour some subjects more than other subjects. This appraisal may affect how motivation relates to performance in these subjects. Whereas autonomous motivation is generally linked to positive school outcomes, the effect of controlled motivation is less clear. This study specifically focused on the associations of controlled motivation with performance in the context of favoured and disfavoured subjects. In the present study, secondary school students (N?=?918) identified 2 favoured and 2 disfavoured subjects. Hierarchical linear modelling was performed to investigate the relationship of autonomous and controlled motivation with performance in these subjects. Results showed that autonomous motivation positively related to performance in both types of subjects. The association of controlled motivation with performance was negative in both contexts, and more negative in disfavoured subjects. For teaching practice, this means that teachers should always stimulate autonomous motivation, even for negatively appraised subjects.     

Beneficial effects of self-affirmation on motivation and performance reduced in students hungry for others’ approval

Researchers have suggested that the self-affirmation intervention may motivate students to approach a challenging task and improve their performance. However, we posited that self-affirmation may not be beneficial for students whose self-esteem is based more on others’ approval (i.e., having high others’ approval contingencies of self-worth; OACSW). This is because the main motive for undertaking a challenging task among high OACSW students may be to obtain others’ approval and increase self-esteem. Being self-affirmed may increase high OACSW students’ sense of self-integrity, satisfying this motive, and thus cause them to perceive a lower value in undertaking the task. Consequently, high OACSW students would be less inclined to undertake the task and would not perform more favorably on it after being self-affirmed. In support of this hypothesis, the results of Experiment 1 (value affirmation) and Experiment 2 (attribute affirmation) showed that for high school students who did not receive self-affirmation, OACSW tended to be positively associated with their tendencies to confront a challenging task and their performance. However, for self-affirmed participants, the positive relationships between OACSW and both their tendencies to confront the task and performance flattened, and even went negative, mainly through a reduction of perceived value in confronting the task. Potential underlying mechanisms and implications are discussed.     

The effect of flipped learning on EFL students’ writing performance,autonomy, and motivation

Education and Information Technologies - Though flipped learning has positively impacted teaching English writing, its usefulness in developing students’ English writing performance,...     

Temporal stability of teachers’ judgment accuracy of students’ motivation,emotion, and achievement

European Journal of Psychology of Education - Numerous studies have focused on the significance and consequences of teacher judgment; the development of teachers’ judgment accuracy over time,...     

The influence of motivation and adaptation on students’ subjective well-being,meaning in life and academic performance

High rates of mental illness among students and discontinuation with university studies are regularly reported. The current study sought to explore relationships between motivation, university adaptation and indicators of mental health and well-being and academic performance of 184 first-year university students (73% female, mean age?=?19.3 years). As expected, intrinsic motivation was associated with greater subjective well-being, meaning in life and academic performance. Extrinsic motivations showed few relationships to outcome variables, while amotivation was consistently associated with poor outcomes. Hierarchical regression revealed that after accounting for adjustment, motivational orientations provided a small, though significant, contribution to the prediction of outcomes. These results are discussed in relation to Self-Determination Theory, the eudaimonic/hedonic dichotomy and implications for career counselling and teaching.     

Humanizing and conducive to learning: an adolescent students’ perspective on the central attributes of positive relationships with teachers

The aim of this qualitative study was to identify central attributes of positive relationships with teachers from the adolescent students’ perspectives that could help delineate the meaning of student–teacher connectedness while exploring to what extent its main attributes were similar or different in England and Spain. As part of the EU-funded project “Well-being among European youth: The contribution of student-teacher relationships in the secondary-school population”, we conducted focus groups in England and Spain with 42 students aged 11 to 18 years. Using a bottom-up approach for thematic analysis, we identified two main attributes that were linked to positive relationships with teachers as seen by our participating students from England and Spain: humanizing relationships, in which the students are acknowledged and respected as individuals and feel understood and supported by their teachers; and relationships conducive to learning, encompassing aspects such as a perception of a genuine commitment with their learning on the part of the teachers, a positive classroom management, and teachers motivating students. This study contributes to the conceptualization of student–teacher connectedness and provides useful insights for teachers and educational professionals. In addition, the study findings pointed to the importance of power and authority dynamics in student–teacher relationships that foster or undermine connectedness, and they revealed some cross-cultural differences in the role of emotions in the class, two important aspects which deserve further attention in future research.

     

Teachers’ estimates of their students’ motivation and engagement: being in synch with students

Being aware of, monitoring and responding constructively to students’ signals of motivation and to students’ signals of engagement represent two important teaching skills. We hypothesised, however, that teachers would better estimate their students’ engagement than they would estimate their students’ motivation. To test this hypothesis, Korean high-school teachers rated three aspects of motivation and four aspects of engagement for each student in their class, while students completed questionnaires to provide referent self-reports of these same aspects of their motivation and engagement. Multi-level analyses showed that, after statistically controlling for the potentially confounding information of student achievement, teachers’ engagement estimates corresponded significantly to their students’ self-reports while their motivation estimate did not. These findings validate teachers’ skill in inferring their students’ classroom engagement and lead to the recommendation that teachers monitor classroom engagement to be in synch with their students during instruction.     

Longitudinal reciprocal effects between teachers’ judgments of students’ aptitude,students’ motivation,and grades in math

We investigated whether teachers’ judgments of students’ aptitude had reciprocal effects on students’ motivation and math grades. We expected that teachers’ judgments of students’ aptitude would predict students’ grades and motivation, and that teachers’ judgments would also be predicted by these two aspects. A sample of N = 519 elementary school students was investigated at four measurement occasions from the end of third until the end of fourth grade. Students reported their self-concepts and intrinsic task values in math. Teachers (N = 27) judged students’ aptitude in math and provided students’ math grades. Cross-lagged panel analyses revealed that students’ prior grades and prior self-concepts (but not intrinsic task values) had positive effects on teachers’ subsequent judgments of student aptitude. Also, teachers’ prior judgments of student aptitude predicted students’ subsequent grades but not motivation. The findings underscore the importance of teachers’ judgments for students’ achievement development and give insights into which students’ motivational variables influence teachers’ perceptions of students’ aptitude.     

The effects of middle-school career intervention on students’ career readiness

International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance - The study examines the effectiveness of a career intervention in middle schools. The intervention was organized in eight...     

Hispanic college students’ views of effective middle-school teachers: A multi-stage mixed analysis

In this multi-stage mixed-analysis study, the views of 437 Hispanic college students enrolled at two Hispanic-Serving Institutions in the Southwest of the USA were obtained concerning characteristics of effective middle-school teachers. Through the method of constant comparison (qualitative phase), 38 themes were determined to be present in respondents’ characteristics of effective middle-school teachers. Then, these themes (quantitative phase), quantified into an inter-respondent matrix that consisted of a series of 1s and 0s, were analysed to determine whether participants differed in their themes as a function of gender, college status and first-generation/non-first-generation status. Statistically significant differences were present between males and females, between undergraduate and graduate students, and between first-generation and non-first-generation college students in their emphases on effective middle-school teachers. Implications are discussed.     

Effects of short-term video-based interventions and instructions on teachers’ feedback skills to support students’ self-regulated learning

European Journal of Psychology of Education - It was investigated whether teachers’ feedback skills to support students’ self-regulated learning (SRL) can be improved by short-term...     

Congruence between students’ and teachers’ goals: implications for social and academic motivation

This study examined student–teacher goal congruence and its relation to social and academic motivation. Based on a sample of 97 ninth-graders, high levels of goal congruence for each of the four goals measured (prosocial, responsibility, learning, performance) was positively related to student interest in class and perceived social support from teachers. In addition, learning goal congruence was related to adaptive control beliefs (i.e., higher levels of internal control beliefs and lower levels of powerful others control beliefs). The implications of goal congruence for understanding student social and academic motivation are discussed.     

Students’ and teachers’ monitoring and regulation of students’ text comprehension: Effects of comprehension cue availability

For regulation of text learning to be effective, students need to accurately monitor their text comprehension. Similarly, to provide adaptive instruction, teachers need to accurately monitor and regulate students’ text comprehension. Performing generative activities prior to monitoring has been suggested to provide students with diagnostic cues, improving monitoring accuracy; an open question is whether this would also help teachers. We investigated whether two generative activities, diagram completion and diagram drawing, improved secondary education students’ (n = 248) monitoring and regulation accuracy of text comprehension (Experiment 1) and whether viewing students’ diagrams improved teachers’ (N = 18) monitoring and regulation of students’ text comprehension (Experiment 2). Students’ monitoring and teachers’ regulation accuracy was higher in the diagramming conditions than in the no-diagramming condition. Students and teachers used diagnostic cues when judging students’ text comprehension: Improving students’ monitoring and teachers’ regulation of students’ text comprehension relies on improving accessibility of diagnostic cues.