Gender by racial/ethnic intersectionality in the patterns of Adolescents’ math motivation and their math achievement and engagement

Individuals' math motivational beliefs are theorized to shape their STEM achievement and engagement in high school and beyond. Combining situated expectancy-value theory and intersectionality framework, the goals of this study were to (a) identify the unique patterns of U.S. high school students' math motivational beliefs, (b) examine differences in the patterns based on the intersection of gender and race/ethnicity, and (c) test the extent to which these patterns predicted differences in students' math achievement and classroom behavioral engagement for each of the gender by racial/ethnic groups. The current study included 16,120 high schoolers (50% female; 63% White, 17% Latina/o, 11% Black, and 9% Asian Americans; Mage = 14.46 at Grade 9) from the High School Longitudinal Study. There were six unique patterns of students' math motivational beliefs: Overall High, Above Average but not Identified, Identified but Average Value, Average, Low Identity, and Overall Low. Pattern membership at the intersection of gender and race/ethnicity showed nuances that could not be represented by gender or race/ethnicity alone; for example, male and female Asian American adolescents had similar patterns, but many male and female adolescents of other racial/ethnic groups had different patterns. Adolescents' math motivational belief patterns were associated with their Grade 11 math achievement and behavioral engagement even after controlling for prior math achievement and family socioeconomic status, and the associated varied by the gender and racial/ethnic groups.     

Multiple predictors of perceived learning and satisfaction: The importance of information transfer and non‐verbal immediacy in the televised course

This study examines how telecommunication system design and human factors combine to affect student learning and satisfaction with televised instruction. Participants in the study were 164 adult learners surveyed for their evaluation of forty courses taken via two‐way, multi‐camera, telecommunications systems. The study investigated which factors of system conveyance and instructor behaviour had the greatest impact on interactive communication, measured as perceptions of satisfaction and learning among students.

Among those responding, ‘amount of information received' was found to be the single greatest contributor to perceived learning and satisfaction. Instructor non‐verbal behaviours and audio and video transmission also contributed significantly to perceived learning and satisfaction. Results indicated clearly mat direct face‐to‐face contact with instructors, and interpersonal rapport with other class participants, were less important than the amount of information transmitted in distance education courses.     

The effects of perceived parental math support on middle school students’ math engagement: the serial multiple mediation of math self-efficacy and math enjoyment

The present study explored the direct and indirect (serial multiple mediation of math self-efficacy and math enjoyment) effects of perceived parental math support on middle school students’ math engagement. A total of 374 middle school students ranging the age of 11 to 15 years completed a set of questionnaires assessing perceived parental math support, math self-efficacy, math enjoyment, and math engagement. In the analysis of structural model, a multiple-step multiple mediation analysis was employed. The findings indicated that perceived parental math support was directly and positively associated with math engagement. Additionally, math self-efficacy and math enjoyment sequentially mediated the relationship between parental math support and math engagement. The limitations and implications of the results are discussed and suggestions for future research are proposed.

     

Who am I and where do I belong? The perception and evaluation of teacher leaders concerning teacher leadership practices and micropolitics in schools

The phenomenon of teachers taking on leadership tasks beyond their classroom duties has become widespread internationally. While presented as a catalyst for educational improvement, it blurs the traditional division between teaching and leading and therefore challenges the conventional professional relationships in schools as well as the professional self-understanding of teacher leaders. This article reports on an exploratory study of the perceptions of teacher leaders in Flemish primary and secondary schools. By conducting semi-structured interviews of 26 teacher leaders, we collected data concerning their tasks and the consequences for both their social–professional relations with teacher colleagues and school leaders and their professional self-understanding. From a micro-political perspective, the results demonstrate how teacher leadership introduces new structures of interactions in schools that makes teacher leaders find themselves continuously juggling between two different agendas of professional interests: obtaining recognition as a teacher leader by their colleagues as well as maintaining their social–professional relationships with their colleagues.     

A need to belong? The prevalence of experiences of belonging and exclusion in school among minority ethnic children living in the ‘White hinterlands’

Based on a survey of 711 children in Northern Ireland, this paper explores a range of aspects of experiences of belonging and exclusion in relation to school among three main minority ethnic groups: Irish Traveller, Chinese/Asian and European Migrant children. The study examines variations between each group and how they compare to the White settled population. The findings indicate that all three groups experience lower levels of belonging and higher levels of exclusion compared to their White, settled Northern Irish peers. The experiences of Irish Traveller children were the most negative. The article adds to the dearth of data on minority ethnic children living in mainly white regions in the UK and Ireland. It argues for the need to move beyond achievement gaps in assessing minority ethnic children's differential experiences in education and highlights the potential of belongingness as a concept for the further study of differential patterns of need and processes of inclusion.     

‘I can write my name,I can’: The importance of the writing of own name

Young children demonstrate an interest in the writing of their own name. Very often it is the first word written by the child. The importance of that writing and the learning about letters, sequencing and space is explored. A number of activities that support children in their recognition and writing of own name are noted. Those activities include many which were observed during visits to early years settings.     

The importance of socio-cultural context for understanding students’ meaning making in the study of genetics

In this rejoinder to Ann Kindfield and Grady Venville’s comments on our article “Reconsidering conceptual change from a socio-cultural perspective: Analyzing students’ meaning making in genetics in collaborative learning activities,” we elaborate on some of the critical issues they raise. Their comments make apparent some of the crucial differences between a socio-cultural and a socio-cognitive approach towards conceptual change. We have selected some issues that are addressed, either implicitly or explicitly, in their comments. The main issues discussed are talk and interaction as data, the significance of context in interaction studies, the feasibility of generic claims in small-scale interaction studies, and the difference between studying students’ understanding of science concepts as opposed to studying the construction of meaning.

The teaching–research nexus and the importance of context: a comparative study of England and Sweden

The teaching–research nexus has been studied by many researchers, mainly looking at pedagogic links and direct benefits arising from the interaction of both activities. The paper takes a comparative approach, looking at the relationship between teaching and research in four universities from two different countries. This paper argues that contextual factors are vital in shaping the nature of the relationship and also identifies differences between disciplines in how these contextual factors may be understood. In particular, the contrasting structural and political contexts provided by two different national settings are seen to have a crucial role in shaping institutional activity.     

Do teachers’ perceptions of children’s math and reading related ability and effort predict children’s self-concept of ability in math and reading?

This study investigated to what extent primary school teachers’ perceptions of their students’ ability and effort predict developmental changes in children’s self-concepts of ability in math and reading after controlling for students’ academic performance and general intelligence. Three cohorts (N?=?849) of elementary school children and their teachers were followed for four years. Children’s self-concepts and performance ability in math and reading were measured annually during Waves 2–4. Teachers rated the children’s ability and effort at each of the four waves. Domain-specific differences and developmental changes could be identified in the associations between teachers’ perceptions and children’s ability self-concepts. Teachers’ ability perceptions predicted children’s concurrent and subsequent ability self-concepts in math and reading, whereas teachers’ effort perceptions predicted children’s math ability self-concept only at Wave 4. Analyses with multi-sample procedure showed that these models were similar for boys and girls and for children in different cohort groups.     

“How do I remember when I got my dog?” The structure and development of children’s metamemory

Kreutzer et al.’s (Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 40(1):1–60, 1975) metamemory interview has been widely used in children’s metamemory literature, yet the psychometric properties of the measure have yet to be reported, and the format and language of some subtests may pose problems for young children. Researchers often combine subtests with other tests purported to measure metamemory, yet there is little empirical data regarding how these subtests relate. It has been proposed that metamemory is comprised of distinct procedural and declarative components, but this has not been empirically tested in young children. Therefore, the two studies reported here aimed to adapt Kreutzer et al.’s interview to increase its developmental appropriateness, to examine the relationship between the interview subtests, to add subtests that purport to test procedural metamemory, and then to examine the factor structure of the resulting scores and investigate how metamemory changes with age across the elementary school years. The results suggest that the adapted versions of the subtests are generally less contaminated by language ability, especially for the younger children. Factor analysis indicated the presence of two declarative metamemory factors and one procedural metamemory factor. Both declarative factors followed a similar developmental trajectory, increasing steadily from early to late elementary school age, whereas procedural metamemory increased significantly between Grades 1 and 3 only.     

Knowledge development of tweens in RE – the importance of school class and communication

This article draws on empirical findings from an religious education (RE) test done by 52 pupils in three different classes on two occasions at the beginning and end of the 2011/2012 academic year. The purpose is to examine whether RE knowledge development can be identified generally, whether there are differences between classes, and if so whether they can be related to communication patterns and describe directions of knowledge development within RE. A sociocultural perspective on learning is used, stressing the importance of communication and the discursive practices the individual is a part of for what is learnt. The findings show that RE developments over the course of the academic year can be identified in all three classes, and that there are differences among the classes in both achievement levels and developments, indicating variety in the degree to which the discursive practices of the classes facilitate RE learning. Among the individual communicative factors, ‘asking questions’ when one is curious or does not understand shows to be one important factor. The greatest developments seem to be among less complex and learning-about forms of RE knowledge.     

Who Am I and What Can I Do? Children's Self-Concepts and Motivation in Achievement Situations

We review recent theoretical and empirical work on children's self-concept development and how their self-concepts motivate their behavior in achievement situations. Several important issues regarding the self-concept are considered, including what beliefs make up the self-concept, how those beliefs are structured, how the self-concept differs across age and between boys and girls, and how specific aspects of the self-concept relate to an individual's overall self-evaluation. Theoretical views and research on how children's self-concepts relate to their motivation in achievement settings are presented, as is work on how the self-concept guides achievement behavior. We address the issue of causal direction in the relation between the self-concept and achievement. Suggestions for future research are provided.     

University rankings in action? The importance of rankings and an excellence competition for university choice of high-ability students

This paper analyzes how high-ability students respond to different indicators of university quality when applying for a university. Are prospective students influenced by quality indicators of a university ranking or by an excellence status awarded within a nationwide competition? And if so, are some quality dimensions, e.g. research reputation, mentoring, faculty infrastructure, students’ satisfaction or the excellence status, more important than others? In order to address these questions, I estimate a random utility model using administrative application data of all German medical schools. As identification relies on the variation in quality indicators over time, I can disentangle the response to changing quality indicators from the common knowledge regarding university attractiveness. Results show that the ranking provides more relevant information in the quality dimensions mentoring, faculty infrastructure and the overall students’ satisfaction than with respect to research.     

The benefit of being naïve and knowing it: the unfavourable impact of perceived context familiarity on learning in complex problem solving tasks

Previous research has found that embedding a problem into a familiar context does not necessarily confer an advantage over a novel context in the acquisition of new knowledge about a complex, dynamic system. In fact, it has been shown that a semantically familiar context can be detrimental to knowledge acquisition. This has been described as the “semantic effect” (Beckmann, Learning and complex problem solving, Bonn, Holos, 1994). The aim of this study was to test two competing explanations that might account for the semantic effect: goal adoption versus assumptions. Participants were asked to learn about the causal structure of a linear system presented on a computer containing three outputs by changing three inputs through goal free exploration. Across four conditions the level of familiarity was experimentally varied through the use of different variable labels. There was no evidence that goal adoption can account for poor knowledge acquisition under familiar conditions. Rather, it appears that a semantically familiar problem context invites a high number of a priori assumptions regarding the interdependency of system variables. These assumptions tend not to be systematically tested during the knowledge acquisition phase. The lack of systematicity in testing a priori assumptions is the main barrier to the acquisition of new knowledge. The semantic effect is in fact an effect of untested presumptions. Implications for research in problem solving, knowledge acquisition and the design of computer-based learning environments are discussed.     

The importance of context: Vietnamese,Somali, and Iranian refugee mothers discuss their resettled lives and involvement in their children’s schools

Parental involvement in schools is regarded as critical to student success in Australia, Canada, and the USA, the world’s top refugee resettlement countries. Refugees can be disadvantaged when they are unfamiliar with the practices and when their own cultural beliefs conflict with expectations in their new communities, or when they are consumed by other pressing needs. As part of an evaluation of a nonprofit US refugee agency’s liaison program, three groups of refugee mothers from different world regions spoke about their lives and connections with their children’s schools. Focus groups revealed satisfaction with many aspects of their children’s schools as well as contrasts between the groups’ needs and experiences. Differences indicate the need for the education community and other service providers to be aware of international backgrounds that bring refugees to the countries of resettlement and cultural differences that create diverse concerns of these groups.     

The roles of perceived parental expectation and criticism in adolescents’ multidimensional perfectionism and achievement goals

Perfectionism consists of personal predispositions and attitudes toward performance. Although there is some disagreement in the field regarding how to best define and measure perfectionism, most studies have supported a distinction between adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism. The current study examines a model in which students’ perceptions of parents’ standards and criticism are proposed as antecedents of multidimensional perfectionism, which in turn are hypothesised to be associated with types of academic achievement goal orientations. The sample consisted of 256 high school students who completed questionnaires assessing adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism, perceptions of their parents and personal achievement goals. Structural equation modelling supported the hypotheses suggesting that high parental standards are positively associated with the adaptive perfectionist characteristic of self-organised perception, which in turn are associated with a mastery goal orientation. Parental criticism predicted the maladaptive perfectionist characteristic of concern over mistakes, which in turn was found associated with a performance-avoidance goal orientation.     

The effects of perceived professor competence,warmth and gender on students’ likelihood to register for a course

Abstract

The present research examined whether students’ likelihood to take a course with a male or female professor was affected by different expectations of professors based on gender stereotypes. In an experimental vignette study, 503 undergraduate students from a Canadian university were randomly assigned to read a fictitious online review, similar to those found on RateMyProfessors.com, that varied professor gender, overall quality score and level of caring for students. Students responded to items assessing their likelihood to take a course with the professor, perceived competence and warmth of the professor, and their own gender bias. An analysis of variance revealed an interaction between professor gender, student gender, quality score and caring. When quality score was low, male students indicated a lower likelihood of taking a course with female professors who were not described as caring. Regression analyses showed, however, that students' gender bias was negatively associated with likelihood to take a course with a female professor. These results imply that student gender plays a role in evaluations of female professors who do not display stereotypical warmth but that gender bias, which is typically higher for males at the group-level, may be an underlying factor.     

The interaction of attitudes toward racial membership and learning ability in school‐age children

Although prejudice exists during childhood, it is unclear how attitudes toward peers of lower or higher academic ability and from one's own or a different racial group interact. This study qualifies previous research by showing that prejudice varies according to whether children are asked to evaluate peers based on academic ability, racial membership, or both, and whether evaluations are based on cognitive, behavioural, or affective components of attitudes. Younger children, particularly girls, had greater negative biases toward lower‐ability and different‐race target children. Gender differences were specific to attitude component, age, and target child characteristics. Consistency in prejudice was found within components, but components were differentially correlated across target children. Results are discussed from a theoretical and applied perspective.