The effect of class composition by gender and ability on secondary school students’ school well-being and academic self-concept: A literature review

In the field of educational effectiveness research, the influence of a class’ student body on students’ individual achievement scores has been a popular research interest for many years. Yet, few studies have focussed on the effects of class composition on students’ non-achievement outcomes, and up to now, hardly any attempts have been made to summarize the findings of previous studies on this topic by conducting a literature review. The current study tries to fill in this gap and focuses on the effects of class composition in secondary education in terms of ability and gender on students’ school well-being and academic self-concept. The results of this literature review indicate that ability grouping is beneficial for strong students’ school well-being, but rather detrimental for the school well-being of weak students. The reverse holds for students’ academic self-concept. Furthermore, our results show that single-sex classes are advantageous for girls’ school well-being and academic self-concept. As for boys, the results are inconclusive.     

How students socially evaluate interest: Peer responsiveness influences evaluation and maintenance of interest

Social influences (e.g., by teachers, parents and peers) on students’ experience of interest are typically described in terms of affecting students’ initial choice of and/or completion of specific educational activities. When considered within the framework of the Self-Regulation of Motivation (SRM) model, however, other people may influence the interest experience even after activity completion, by influencing how a person evaluates that past experience. Previous experimental research showed that when students talked about a game upon completion, listeners’ responsiveness influenced their evaluation of interest. The present research examined whether peer responsiveness when undergraduates talked about topics covered in actual classes predicted students’ evaluation of class interest. In Study 1, we examined responsiveness in the context of conversations that took place as a structured part of an online psychology class (i.e., discussion board), and found that the frequency of replies from classmates to students’ posts (but not the reverse) predicted students’ interest in the class measured at the end of the semester. In Study 2, we examined responsiveness in the context of students’ reported everyday conversations about two completed interesting class topics or two completed class exams in an introductory physics course. Perceived listener responsiveness in conversations about class topics (but not about exams) predicted students’ concurrent evaluation of class interest, even when controlling for anticipated interest at the beginning of the semester. Moreover, listeners indirectly affected interest measured at the end of the semester via their influence on interest during the semester.     

The Influence of Perceived Disgust on Students’ Motivation and Achievement

There are a wide range of student emotions in academic settings, but apart from emotions such as interest and well-being, disgust is a negative emotion which might be relevant in biology education, for instance, during dissection or when encountering living animals. This paper addresses the issue of situational disgust during a course at the university using living animals and prepared mounts. The course covers a wide range of organisms from protists (e.g. Paramecium) through invertebrates to vertebrates and uses many methods (e.g. microscopy, dissection, and behavioral observations) and specific content (anatomy, structure, and behavior). The dissection of the trout was rated as most disgusting, followed by working with living woodlice, living earthworms, and living snails. The least disgusting lessons were those dealing with microscopy, mammalian skulls, honeybee dance, and bird flight. Based on animals, macro-invertebrates were rated as most disgusting and mammals as least disgusting. Concerning methods, observing through a microscope was perceived as being least disgusting, followed by experiments without animals, then followed by experiments with living animals and, most disgusting, dissection. Disgust was correlated negatively with interest, well-being, and competence but positively with pressure and boredom. Thus, low disgust is related to high interest, well-being, and competence, while higher disgust is related to higher pressure and boredom. The results show a need for measuring situational disgust in addition to survey studies. They also suggest that perceived disgust negatively affects intrinsic motivation. This has implications for biology teaching, because carrying out dissections or experiencing living animals in the classroom may have a detrimental effect on motivation.     

Help-seeking tendencies during early adolescence: An examination of motivational correlates and consequences for achievement

The present study examined the motivational correlates and achievement consequences of students’ help-seeking tendencies during sixth grade (N = 217). Students’ grades were collected from school records at the beginning and end of the school year. Midway through the year students reported on their academic self-efficacy and social demonstration goals; teachers reported on students’ help-seeking tendencies. First quarter grades and academic self-efficacy were positively related to adaptive help seeking and negatively related to avoidant help seeking. In addition, a social demonstration-approach goal was negatively related to adaptive help seeking. Help-seeking tendencies predicted 3rd quarter grades, controlling for 1st quarter grades.     

Predicting intraindividual changes in teacher burnout: The role of perceived school environment and motivational factors

Based on self-determination theory, this study proposes and tests a motivational model of intraindividual changes in teacher burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment). Participants were 806 French-Canadian teachers in public elementary and high schools. Results show that changes in teachers’ perceptions of classroom overload and students’ disruptive behavior are negatively related to changes in autonomous motivation, which in turn negatively predict changes in emotional exhaustion. Results also indicate that changes in teachers’ perceptions of students’ disruptive behaviors and school principal’s leadership behaviors are related to changes in self-efficacy, which in turn negatively predict changes in three burnout components.     

Students’ emotions during homework in mathematics: Testing a theoretical model of antecedents and achievement outcomes

The experience of pleasant and unpleasant emotions in academic situations is known to affect students’ learning. The aim of the present study was to extend previous research by examining the antecedents and consequences of student emotions in the homework context. Multilevel analyses of a longitudinal dataset containing 3483 grade 9 and grade 10 students in 155 classes showed that the perceived quality of the homework tasks assigned by the teacher affected students’ experience of unpleasant homework-related emotions. Moreover, the experience of unpleasant emotions during homework sessions was negatively related to homework effort and negatively predicted later achievement in mathematics.     

The relationship between disgust,state-anxiety and motivation during a dissection task

Emotions influence motivation, but emotions, such as disgust, have attracted less attention in learning research. We assessed the influence of disgust measured as trait and specific state component, state anxiety and self-efficacy on intrinsic motivation during the dissection of a fish using a pre-/post-design in science teacher students. Anxiety and disgust had a negative influence on motivation. Students with more experience in dissections reported lower pressure. Anxiety after the lesson was influenced by prior anxiety and by animal reminder disgust. Specific state disgust after the dissection was predicted by prior specific state disgust, core disgust and state anxiety. State anxiety and specific state disgust decreased during the dissection. The future commitment to use dissection at school was solely predicted by interest; competence and pressure failed the significance level marginally.     

Domain knowledge and individual interest: The effects of academic level and specialization in statistics and psychology

Numerous research studies have highlighted the significant impact of domain knowledge and individual interest on learning. However, much of this prior research has neglected several important issues regarding the dynamic interplay of domain knowledge and individual interest both within and between domains as well as across developmental stages of learners. Situated within the Model of Domain Learning, this investigation seeks to respond to those issues. We studied the scores of 267 undergraduate and graduate students representing a variety of majors and programs. Results indicate that domain knowledge and individual interest are related differently for the domains of statistics and psychology. Further, findings indicate that when examining multiple domains of learning (e.g., statistics and psychology), the relationship between domain knowledge and interest changes as an artifact of both students’ academic level of preparation in undergraduate and graduate programs and their academic specialization. Based on these results, we offer implications for future research.     

Hands-on Activities and Their Influence on Students’ Interest

This study investigates the influence of hands-on activities on students’ interest. We researched whether students with experience in specific hands-on activities show higher interest in these activities than students without experience. Furthermore, the relationship between the quality of the hands-on experience and interest in the respective activity was examined. In total, 28 typical hands-on activities of biology education were considered. The activities were divided into the categories experimentation, dissection, work with microscopes, and classification. A total of 141 students from the 11th grade completed questionnaires on interest in the hands-on activities, their experience with each activity, and the quality of the respective experience. Students’ interest in experimenting, working with microscopes, dissecting and classifying tends to benefit from performing hands-on activities. However, findings indicated that the performance of various hands-on activities can influence students’ interest differently. For seven hands-on activities, we identified a positive effect of hands-on experience on interest, while in one case, practical work appeared to have influenced students’ interest negatively. However, for most hands-on activities, no effect of experience on interest was found. The quality of hands-on experiences showed positive correlations with interest in the respective hands-on activities. Therefore, this paper argues in favour of designing biology lessons that allow for experiences with hands-on activities that also interest students. Our findings underline the necessity of investigating the effects of various hands-on activities in a differentiated manner.     

Social supports from teachers and peers as predictors of academic and social motivation

Young adolescents’ perceptions of teachers’ and peers’ multiple classroom supports were examined in relation to motivational outcomes (interest and social goal pursuit). Responses from sixth (n = 120), seventh (n = 115), and eighth (n = 123) grade students concerning four dimensions of support (expectations for specific behavioral and academic outcomes, provisions of help, safety, and emotional nurturing) indicated that social supports differ as a function of students’ sex, grade level, teacher, and classroom, and in their relations to interest and social goal pursuit. Relations of students’ perceptions to motivational outcomes differed as a function of source of support. In addition, students’ perceptions of teacher and peer supports differed as a function of teacher and classroom. In general, findings confirm the utility of a multi-dimensional approach to social support that acknowledges the independent as well as interactive contributions of teachers and peers to student motivation.     

Student victimization by peers in elementary schools: individual, teacher-class, and school-level predictors

Objectives

This study examined individual and contextual factors that explain students’ victimization by peers among 4th- through 6th-grade Jewish and Arab students.

Method

A total of 120 homeroom teachers and 3,375 students from 47 schools participated. The study explored how students’ reports of violence are influenced by individual factors (gender, age, perception of school climate, victimization by teachers, and fear) teacher-class factors (school climate, homeroom teachers’ characteristics such as self-efficacy, and education) and cultural affiliation as a school level factor.

Results

The results showed that levels of victimization vary significantly between classes and between schools. However, the vast majority of variation in students’ victimization lay at the individual level. Factors such as fear, physical and emotional victimization by teachers, and gender affected levels of students’ victimization by peers.

Conclusions

Students victimized by peers are more likely to be victimized by their teachers and to miss school because of their fear of violence. Further research should be conducted to investigate additional teacher, class and school factors that can predict levels of students’ victimization.

Practice implication

Based on the study's results, efforts to deal with school violence should be targeted to students and school staff. It is essential to design and implement a “whole school” approach that includes participation of the entire school community. Furthermore, intensive individual treatment should be given to victimized students to improve their sense of safety and protection on school property. In addition, the findings emphasized the need to design and implement school intervention programs in a sensitive way that takes into consideration children's developmental stages and other factors that affect their levels of victimization. The results showed that younger children do not take advantage of the many positive effects that can be achieved from positive school policy and good relationships with staff. It might be that more efforts should be made to raise victimized students’ awareness by emphasizing that schools have rules that are there to protect them.     

Student engagement with science in early adolescence: The contribution of enjoyment to students’ continuing interest in learning about science

Recent research has expanded understanding of the contribution of emotions to student engagement and achievement. Achievement emotions can be conceptualized as general ways of responding to achievement settings or specific emotional states aroused during a specific learning activity. Emotion processes can be distinguished as positive or negative, activating or deactivating. Using data from an international survey of science achievement (PISA 2006; N > 400,000 15-year-old students from 57 countries), relations between the positive, activating achievement emotion of enjoyment and a number of variables that combine with enjoyment to define students’ engagement with learning science are examined. Previously, we reported that enjoyment is central to relations between interest in science, value and knowledge, and students’ reported current and future engagement. The embedded attitudinal items from PISA 2006 allow testing of how enjoyment contributes to a more direct measure of engagement with science by assessing students’ interest in finding out more about the specific topics used to measure their science achievement. In this investigation, structural equation modeling is used to test predictions based on Hidi and Renninger’s (2006) four-phase model of interest development, and Pekrun’s (2006) control-value theory of achievement emotions.     

Scientific epistemic beliefs, conceptions of learning science and self-efficacy of learning science among high school students

This study examined the relationships among Taiwanese high school students’ scientific epistemic beliefs, conceptions of learning science, and self-efficacy of learning science. The questionnaire responses gathered from 377 high school students in Taiwan were utilized to elicit such relationships. The analysis of the structural equation model revealed that students’ absolutist scientific epistemic beliefs led to lower-level conceptions of learning science (i.e. learning science as memorizing, preparing for tests, calculating, and practicing) while sophisticated scientific epistemic beliefs might trigger higher-level conceptions of learning science (i.e. learning science as increase of knowledge, applying, and attaining understanding). The students’ lower-level conceptions of learning science were also found to negatively associate with their self-efficacy of learning science, while the higher-level conceptions of learning science fostered students’ self-efficacy. However, this study found that students who viewed scientific knowledge as uncertain (advanced epistemic belief) tended to possess lower self-efficacy toward learning science.     

Complementary roles of care and behavioral control in classroom management: The self-determination theory perspective

This study examined how classroom management practices—care and behavioral control—were differentially associated with students’ engagement, misbehavior, and satisfaction with school, using a large representative sample of 3196 Grade 9 students from 117 classes in Singapore. Results of hierarchical linear modeling showed differential relations. After controlling for students’ gender and socioeconomic status, both care and behavioral control were positively related to student engagement. Moreover, behavioral control was a significant negative predictor of classroom misbehavior and care was a significant positive predictor of satisfaction with school. Our findings underscore the importance of blending care and behavioral control to achieve multiple goals of classroom management.     

Excluding students from classroom: Teacher techniques that promote student responsibility

Students who continuously misbehave are frequently excluded from class, allowing them time to reflect on their inappropriate behavior. This paper examines students’ perceptions of the teacher’s behavior toward them prior to, during, and after the exclusion, focusing on teachers’ explanations, punishments, and follow-up conversations. The results indicate that students who do not accept responsibility for being excluded think that their teachers’ are to blame. To convince students to accept responsibility for their acts, teachers must explain why the exclusion is necessary, warn and punish before excluding a student, and hold a follow-up conversation, highlighting the impact of the misbehavior on classmates.     

Antecedents of academic emotions: Testing the internal/external frame of reference model for academic enjoyment

The present study focused on students’ academic enjoyment as predicted by achievement in multiple academic domains. Assumptions were based on Marsh’s internal/external (I/E) frame of reference model and Pekrun’s control-value theory of achievement emotions, and were tested in a sample of 1380 German students from grades 5 to 10. Students’ academic enjoyment, self-concept, and achievement were assessed in relation to mathematics and verbal language classes. In line with assumptions of the I/E model, mathematics performance assessed in the previous academic year positively predicted enjoyment in mathematics classes, and negatively predicted enjoyment in language classes. Language class performance positively predicted enjoyment in language classes, and negatively predicted enjoyment in mathematics classes. Corroborating assumptions derived from Pekrun’s control-value theory, achievement/enjoyment relations were mediated by academic self-concepts. Despite stereotypic gender differences in mean values, linkages between constructs were invariant across genders.     

Comparing Students’ and Experts’ Understanding of the Content of a Lecture

In spite of advances in physics pedagogy, the lecture is by far the most widely used format of instruction. We investigated students’ understanding and perceptions of the content delivered during a physics lecture. A group of experts (physics instructors) also participated in the study as a reference for the comparison. During the study, all participants responded to a written conceptual survey on sound propagation. Next, they looked for answers to the survey questions in a videotaped lecture by a nationally known teacher. As they viewed the lecture, they indicated instances, if any, in which the survey questions were answered during the lecture. They also wrote down (and if needed, later explained) the answer, which they perceived was given by the instructor in the video lecture. Students who participated in the study were enrolled in a conceptual physics course and had already covered the topic in class before the study. We discuss and compare students’ and experts’ responses to the survey questions before and after the lecture.     

Characteristics of teaching and students’ emotions in the classroom: Investigating differences across domains

This study investigated the relations between eight characteristics of teaching and students’ academic emotions (enjoyment, pride, anxiety, anger, helplessness and boredom) across four academic domains (mathematics, physics, German, and English). 121 students (50% female; 8th and 11th graders) were asked about their perceptions of teaching characteristics and their academic emotions using the experience sampling method (real-time approach) for a period of 10 school days, with intraindividual analyses conducted using a multilevel approach. Multilevel exploratory factor analysis revealed that the eight teaching characteristics (understandability, illustration, enthusiasm, fostering attention, lack of clarity, difficulty, pace, level of expectation) represented two factors, labeled supportive presentation style (e.g., comprising understandability) and excessive lesson demands (e.g., comprising difficulty). In line with our hypothesis, we found clear relations on the intraindividual level between the two factors of teaching characteristics and students’ academic emotions in the classroom (e.g., supportive presentation style positively related to students’ enjoyment and negatively related to their boredom). Further, and supporting the universality assumption of teaching characteristics/academic emotions relations, the strength of relations between the two factors of teaching characteristics and academic emotions was very similar across the four academic domains. Implications for future research and educational practice are discussed.     

Effects of Expressive Writing Effects on Disgust and Anxiety in a Subsequent Dissection

Emotions influence motivation and achievement, but negative emotions have rarely been assessed in science education. In this study, we assessed the influence of two different expressive writing assignments on disgust and anxiety in university students prior to the dissection of a trout. We randomly assigned students to one of two expressive writing tasks and measured specific state disgust and state anxiety after writing and after the dissection. Specific state disgust was measured a third time after 3 weeks. One writing task was concerned with the dissection, and the other was related to behavioral experiments with mice. We used two general linear models with repeated measures. In the first model, specific state disgust (pre, post, and follow-up) was used as the dependent repeated measure and experimental group as the independent variable. In the second model, state anxiety was used as the dependent repeated measure (pre, post) with experimental group as the independent variable. The repeated testing showed a highly significant effect of experimental group on the repeated measures of disgust. Writing about worries and emotions concerning the dissection leads to higher disgust scores compared to writing about mice. These higher scores persisted even 3 weeks later in the follow-up test. Concerning anxiety, there was a clear influence of the repeated measure of state anxiety, but anxiety was not influenced by the experimental group. We suggest that positive writing should be used in educational contexts to reduce disgust.