New working conditions and well-being of elementary teachers in Ecuador

The objective of this study was to analyze the stressors and working conditions which affect elementary teachers according to the TP-M theory. For this purpose, a research study was performed with nine focus groups composed of 75 teachers, each working in a different elementary school in Guayaquil (Ecuador). The results showed that occupational risks could be classified in two categories: (1) risks stemming from the social environment in which the teachers carry out their work; (2) risks derived from the new organizational demands that affect the physical and psychological health of teachers as well as their social and family relationships.     

Mastery goal orientations and subjective well-being in school among elementary school students: The mediating role of school engagement

European Journal of Psychology of Education - Based on the self-system model of motivational development, we examined the mediating role of school engagement, including cognitive engagement and...     

Scientific reasoning in elementary school children: Assessment and relations with cognitive abilities

The primary goal of this study was the broad assessment and modeling of scientific reasoning in elementary school age. One hundred fifty-five fourth graders were tested on 20 recently developed paper-and-pencil items tapping four different components of scientific reasoning (understanding the nature of science, understanding theories, designing experiments, and interpreting data). As confirmed by Rasch analyses, the scientific reasoning items formed a reliable scale. Model comparisons differentiated scientific reasoning as a separate construct from measures of intelligence and reading skills and revealed discriminant validity. Furthermore, we explored the relationship between scientific reasoning and the postulated prerequisites inhibitory control, spatial abilities and problem-solving skills. As shown by correlation and regression analyses, beside general cognitive abilities (intelligence, reading skills) problem-solving skills and spatial abilities predicted performance in scientific reasoning items and thus contributed to explaining individual differences in elementary school children's scientific reasoning competencies.     

Problem solving, recall, and mapping relations in isomorphic transfer and nonisomorphic transfer among preschoolers and elementary school children

Analogical problem-solving processes were studied in 4 experiments using 5- and 7-move scheduling problems. Subjects were preschool and elementary school children. On each acquisition trial, the child heard a list of statements representing the exact series of moves necessary to solve the problem and was immediately asked to recall the list. Physical materials representing the problem were then produced and the child was asked to solve it. In transfer only setting/constraint information was provided prior to problem solving. In the first study, mapping processes were explored in nonisomorphic transfer tasks with different constraints and problem spaces. Mapping processes were very good, except when a feature of the base was mapped to a misleading cue in the transfer problems. The second study revealed that combining the problem-solving task with the recall task facilitated isomorphic transfer but not nonisomorphic transfer. The 2 remaining studies revealed that preschool children show excellent isomorphic transfer in both 5- and 7-move problems. The major developmental difference was in how the children ordered the propositions in their recall protocols. The findings were discussed in terms of problem spaces, flexibility of transfer, and developmental theory.     

大学新生自我评价、人际关系与幸福感关系研究

随着社会的进步,大学生的心理问题日益受到重视。大一新生是大学生中的特殊群体,他们当中存在着地区差别、专业差别和已有的心理状况差别。针对不同专业、不同地区的大一新生进行问卷调查,着重考察其自我评价、人际关系和幸福感的关系,结果发现:不同专业和不同地区的学生,其幸福感没有显著地差异;学生的自我评价和人际关系与个体的幸福感呈正相关关系,对于幸福感有着重要的影响作用。     

Parent-child cohesion,self-esteem,and academic achievement: The longitudinal relations among elementary school students

This study addressed the longitudinal reciprocal relations among parent-child cohesion, self-esteem, and academic achievement in elementary school students. A total of 659 students from Grades 4–5 in China (M_age = 10.09 years, 46.3% female) was investigated on five occasions across 12 months. The results indicated that: (a) For the direct reciprocal relations, mother-child cohesion and academic achievement reciprocally enhanced each other; self-esteem and academic achievement transactionally facilitated each other; father-child cohesion and self-esteem reciprocally enhanced each other; self-esteem facilitated mother-child cohesion, but not vice versa. (b) For the indirect relations, father-child cohesion and students’ academic achievement facilitated each other indirectly via self-esteem; students’ academic achievement influenced mother-child cohesion indirectly via self-esteem, but not vice versa. These results delineated the dynamic system among these study variables, and also revealed that father-child cohesion and mother-child cohesion showed both similarities and differences. Implications for educational practices were discussed.     

Truancy and well-being among secondary school pupils in England

The paper considers two problematic aspects of the lives of young people: the long-standing issues of truancy from school and more recent concerns about the extent of mental well-being. It uses data from a large-scale survey, the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE). LSYPE provides a very large sample which allows for robust analysis of sub-groups within the population, data from families as well as the young people themselves and a panel design, so that characteristics of the young people at one point in time can be related to later outcomes. The results show the extent of truancy among year-10 pupils with well over one in five reporting truanting but high levels of truancy much less common. The reasons given for truancy mostly revolved around dislike of aspects of school. Truancy, even at low levels, was associated with more negative outcomes such as poor examination results and later unemployment. Data on mental well-being, based on the General Health Questionnaire, showed the extent of feelings of distress and inability to cope with everyday life with more serious levels affecting perhaps one in five of the young people. Young women were more likely to report problems of mental well-being than young men and truancy was strongly associated with poorer levels of well-being. The contrast between the way that most truants said that it was important to them to do well at school but also that disliking school was given as a reason for truancy suggests the possibility of school interventions.     

Co-developmental trajectories of psychological need satisfactions at school: Relations to mental health and academic functioning in Chinese elementary school students

This study explored the co-developmental trajectories of autonomy, competence and relatedness need satisfactions at school and their relations to mental health and academic functioning in Chinese elementary school students. An accelerated longitudinal design was used with a sample of three cohorts (grade 3, grade 4, and grade 5) (N = 1070, 45.8% female; M_age = 9.44, SD = 0.97) on four occasions at 6-month intervals. Parallel process latent class growth models revealed five heterogeneous patterns (i.e., Congruent-moderate; Congruent-high; Congruent-low; Congruent-decreasing; Low-autonomy, High-competence and relatedness), all of which significantly associated with time-varying mental health and academic functioning indicators. The findings highlight the importance of subgroup differences and possible cultural considerations in understanding the progression of psychological need satisfactions and the need for universal screening and dynamic monitoring of students’ psychological need satisfactions at school and implementing more sophisticated interventions tailored to the unique characteristics of the relevant subgroups to promote optimal mental health and learning.     

The etiology of mathematical self-evaluation and mathematics achievement: understanding the relationship using a cross-lagged twin study from age 9 to 12

The genetic and environmental origins of individual differences in mathematical self-evaluation over time and its association with later mathematics achievement were investigated in a UK sample of 2138 twin pairs at ages 9 and 12. Self-evaluation indexed how good children think they are at mathematical activities and how much they like those activities. Mathematics achievement was assessed by teachers based on UK National Curriculum standards. At both ages self-evaluation was approximately 40% heritable, with the rest of the variance explained by non-shared environment. The results also suggested moderate reciprocal associations between self-evaluation and mathematics achievement across time, with earlier self-evaluation predicting later performance and earlier performance predicting later self-evaluation. These cross-lagged relationships were genetically rather than environmentally mediated.     

Teaching the concepts of physical and chemical change to elementary school children

Replication of this study on instructional sequence and grade placement is in order. Do all children behave similarly in acquiring a concept of physical and chemical change?     

«Repetência» by Portuguese school children in relation to their self-perception and self-evaluation

Primary school pupils in Portugal who have had to repeat two years of schooling were compared with a control group of normally progressing pupils. Harter’s scales were used to measure components of self-concept and of self-worth. There was no evidence that repeating years was associated with differences in mean scores other than those for perception of personal scholastic competence. However, correlations between components of the self-concept and global self-worth in four sub-samples of pupils differing in gender and repetência yielded patterns that could be used to suggest a more complex interpretation.     

Using children's literature to decrease moral disengagement and victimization among elementary school students

Previous research has suggested that moral disengagement is strongly associated with bullying and bystander behavior. The current study evaluated the effectiveness of a 5‐week classroom‐wide bullying intervention, The Bullying Literature Project‐Moral Disengagement Version (BLP‐MD), on moral disengagement and bullying among elementary school students. A quasiexperimental design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the BLP‐MD. A sample of 84 third grade students (M_age = 7.93 years, 53.6% female) from four classrooms and their teachers participated in this study. The results revealed significant time by treatment interactions for decreasing both victimization and moral disengagement in treatment classrooms compared to waitlist control classrooms. The program also resulted in improved perception of peer friendships and was rated as having high social validity for both students and their teachers. How to incorporate the BLP‐MD into the general language arts curriculum to decrease moral disengagement and bullying, and promote positive bystanding is discussed.     

Chaos in the classroom: Exposing gifted elementary school children to chaos and fractals

A unit of study for gifted 4th and 5th graders is described on the subject of mathematical periodicity and chaos and the underlying physical processes which produce these phenomena. A variety of hands-on experiments and the use of various data analysis tools and computer aids provide students with powerful raw material for their analysis, interpretation, and understanding. The concepts of simple periodic motion (e.g., a pendulum), complex superposition of motions (e.g., the vibrations in musical instruments), and chaotic sequences (e.g., stock prices) are covered, with numerous practical examples. Opportunities to involve related activities emphasizing language arts, history, and graphic art are included. The student response to the material is documented.     

Development of decoding,reading comprehension,vocabulary and spelling during the elementary school years

The goal of this study was (1) to investigate the development of decoding(efficiency), reading comprehension, vocabulary and spelling during theelementary school years and (2) to determine the differences between poor,average and good performers with regard to the development of theseskills. Twice each year two standardized tests for each skill wereadministered. For two successive periods, one of the tests for each skill wasthe same. To describe the development in terms of a latent variable evolvingacross grades, the structured-means version of the structural equationmodel was used. The growth was expressed in terms of effect size. Withrespect to the first question, clear seasonal effects were found for readingcomprehension, vocabulary and spelling, while the seasonal effect fordecoding efficiency was restricted to the early grades. Progress tended tobe greater from fall to spring than from spring to fall. For decodingefficiency, and to a lesser degree for vocabulary and spelling, growthshowed a declining trend across grades. For reading comprehension, theprogress in grade 2 was lower than the progress in grade 3, but progresswas declining across higher grades. With respect to the second question,it appeared that initially low performers on reading comprehension,vocabulary and spelling tended to show a greater progress, especially inperiods where the largest amount of instruction was given. Although it wasfound that the low, medium and high ability groups remain in the sameorder, as far as their means are concerned, these findings do not confirmthe existence of a Matthew effect for reading comprehension, vocabularyand spelling. For decoding efficiency no clear differential effect could befound: the gap between the poor and good performers did not widen overtime for this skill.     

Subskill mastery among elementary and middle school students at risk in mathematics

In the present study, we evaluated the number of attempts required to master specific subskills for working with whole and rational numbers among students at risk for math difficulties. Participants included a subset of students in grades four through eight receiving supplemental math support. Mastery—defined as 85% correct on short tests—was assessed following instruction for each subskill. Using survival analysis, we evaluated the number of attempts required to reach a .50 and a .90 probability of mastery on each subskill. The number of required attempts varied across subskills, with many subskills requiring more than one attempt to demonstrate mastery. Further, some of the most difficult content was aligned with curricular standards below students’ grade level. Thus, among students identified for supplemental support, it may be worthwhile to remediate select subskills that fall outside of the grade‐level curriculum before providing additional instruction on grade‐level content. Implications for math subskill assessment and remediation are discussed along with limitations and directions for future research.     

Profiles and predictors of behavioral resilience among children in child welfare

Children living in out-of-home care have experienced a multitude of adversities, often resulting in compromised functioning. The current study used Ontario Looking After Children (OnLAC) project data to estimate developmental trajectories of behavioral outcomes (i.e., conduct and emotional problems) over a 4-year period (i.e., ages 6–10 to 9–13) in 313 children living in out-of-home care. Predictors measured at baseline (e.g., sex) and across the subsequent 4-year period (e.g., parenting practices) were also investigated. Findings indicated that 64.2% and 58.6% followed resilient trajectories for conduct behaviors and emotional functioning, respectively. Predictors of resilient trajectories included internal developmental assets, number of children in the home, whether the child was receiving treatment, and positive parenting. Findings need to be interpreted with an understanding that children in out-of-home care have varying levels of functioning across various domains (e.g., educational, social) other than the ones measured here. Predictors were static and dynamic and cut across various contexts, emphasizing the importance of considering child functioning within an ecological model.     

Artificial grammar learning in primary school children with and without developmental dyslexia

This paper explores implicit learning in typically developing and primary school children (9–12 years old) with developmental dyslexia using an artificial grammar learning (AGL) task. Two experiments were conducted, which differed in time of presentation and nature of the instructional set (experiment 1—implicit instructions vs experiment 2—explicit instructions). Repeated measures analysis of variance (group × grammaticality × chunk strength) showed a group effect only in experiment 1 (implicit instructions), with only the typically developing children showing evidence of AGL. There was a grammaticality effect (adherence to the rules) for both groups in the two experimental situations. We suggest that the typically developing children exhibited intact implicit learning as manifested in AGL performance, whereas children with developmental dyslexia failed to provide such evidence due to possible mediating cognitive developmental factors.     

Age of entry,sex, and academic achievement in elementary school children

It was hypothesized that children who enter school at a relatively early age do less well on standard measures of school achievement than do their older peers. One hundred fifty-two children born in 1970 and attending grades one through six in an upper-middle-class, suburban school district were studied. In general, it was found that children born in the later quarters of the year did, in fact, perform less well than children in the same grade born earlier through grades one to four. Analyses of covariance yielded a main effect for birth quartile (p < .05) in most cases. A significant main effect for sex was found for language scores at grades two and three. Implications of these findings for age of school entry, educational programming, and screening procedures are discussed.