Types of parental psychological control and rural and urban Chinese adolescents’ psychological well-being and academic functioning

The present study took a differentiated perspective on parental psychological control to examine its impact on adolescent adjustment among urban (n = 349, females: 53%) and rural (n = 293, females: 54%) Chinese adolescents (M_age = 12.14 years). Four times over the first 2 years of Junior High school (from October, 2016 to April, 2018), adolescents reported on parental psychological control, their psychological well-being (life satisfaction and depressive symptoms), and academic relative autonomy. Adolescents’ grades also were obtained. The findings show generally negative effects of social comparison shame, love withdrawal and harsh psychological control (but not shared shame or parental relationship-oriented guilt induction) on adolescents’ psychological well-being, and negative effects of social comparison shame on adolescents’ academic functioning.     

The impact of peer collaboration on teachers’ practical knowledge

Due to changes in Dutch mathematics education, teachers are expected to use new teaching methods such as enquiry-based teaching. In this study, we investigate how teachers design, implement and evaluate new methods for statistics teaching for 7^th-graders during a professional development trajectory based on peer collaboration. We monitored teachers’ development in a network of four mathematics teachers from the same school. By using a mixed-methods approach in which we combined data from interviews, concept maps and classroom observations, we describe changes in teachers’ practical knowledge. We found how the nature of these changes highly depends on teachers’ personal concerns that emerge during the trajectory. Some teachers considered their concerns as challenges stimulating their learning, while other teachers experienced their concerns as a reason to fall back to previous teaching methods. Based on our results, we give some recommendations for organising teacher networks.     

The impact of adolescents’ dyslexia on parents’ and their own educational expectations

The present study examined the role that adolescents’ dyslexia plays in their educational expectations, as well as their parents’ expectations concerning their offspring’s future education. To investigate this, 170 adolescents were asked to report their educational expectations on two occasions while they were still attending comprehensive school (in 7th and 9th grade). Forty-five of the 170 adolescents were diagnosed as having dyslexia. The adolescents’ mothers and fathers also filled in questionnaires concerning their educational expectations for their offspring. The results showed that parents of boys with dyslexia had lower expectations about their sons’ future education than parents of typically reading boys. However, parents of girls with dyslexia and parents of typically reading girls did not differ in this respect. Parents’ expectations also predicted the adolescents’ own educational expectations. Moreover, dyslexia was associated with boys’ academic achievement (GPA), which further predicted their educational expectations.     

The impact of peer mentoring on pupils’ emotional literacy competencies

Research suggests that peer mentoring can positively impact on emotional literacy competencies. This study explored the effects of peer mentoring on the emotional literacy competencies of Year 7 peer mentees using a quasi-experimental pre-test and post-test control group design. Results supported the hypothesis that peer mentoring has a positive impact on the emotional literacy competencies of mentees with low to average levels of emotional literacy at pre-intervention. Results also showed a significant negative correlation between attendance at sessions and perceived Conduct Problems. Unexpectedly, results indicated adverse effects of reading mentoring on the emotional literacy competencies of control participants.     

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 impact of formative peer feedback on higher education students’ academic writing: a Meta-Analysis

Peer feedback is frequently implemented with academic writing tasks in higher education. However, a quantitative synthesis is still lacking for the impact that peer feedback has on students’ writing performance. The current study conveyed two types of observations. First, regarding the impact of peer feedback on writing performance, this study synthesized the results of 24 quantitative studies reporting on higher education students’ academic writing performance after peer feedback. Engagement in peer feedback resulted in larger writing improvements compared to (no-feedback) controls (g?=?0.91 [0.41, 1.42]) and compared to self-assessment (g?=?0.33 [0.01, 0.64]). Peer feedback and teacher feedback resulted in similar writing improvements (g?=?0.46 [-0.44, 1.36]). The nature of the peer feedback significantly moderated the impact that peer feedback had on students’ writing improvement, whereas only a theoretically plausible, though non-significant moderating pattern was found for the number of peers that students engaged with. Second, this study shows that the number of well-controlled studies into the effects of peer feedback on writing is still low, indicating the need for more quantitative, methodologically sound research in this field. Findings and implications are discussed both for higher education teaching practice and future research approaches and directions.     

The impact of pre-school on adolescents’ outcomes: Evidence from a recent English cohort

This paper investigates the relationship between attendance at pre-school school and children's outcomes into early adulthood. In particular, we are interested in: child cognitive development at ages 11, 14 and 16; intentions towards tertiary education; economic activity in early adulthood; a group of non-cognitive outcomes such as risky health behaviour; and personality traits. Using matching methods to control for a very rich set of child and family characteristics, we find evidence that pre-school childcare moderately improves results in cognitive tests at age 11 and 14, and 16. Positive effects are especially noticeable for girls and children from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. Results for non-cognitive outcomes are weaker: we do not find any significant evidence of improvement in psychological well-being, petty crime involvement, or on almost all health behaviours. While the cognitive effects may well serve to reduce lifecycle inequalities there is no support here for other important social benefits.     

The impact of an elaborated assessee’s role in peer assessment

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of an elaborated assessee’s role on metacognitive awareness, performance and attitude in peer assessment. Two intact groups (a total of 82 students) were randomly assigned to a treatment condition (having back‐feedback activity) or a control condition (not having back‐feedback activity). The results indicated that, regarding metacognitive awareness, when participants played the elaborated assessee role, they tended to report higher metacognitive awareness in their learning process. Regarding performance, when participants played the elaborated assessee role, they tended to receive better scores in making a concept map. Regarding attitude, when participants played the elaborated assessee role, they reported greater motivation towards the peer assessment. The findings of this study suggest instructional implications for those who want to employ peer assessment as a learning method by showing the effectiveness of a well‐developed role design, specifically one that includes the back‐feedback activity.     

The impact of parental availability on Swazi students’ school achievement: a nine year longitudinal study

This paper constitutes a major part of the third phase of a longitudinal study in Swaziland investigating the short- and long-term effects of parental absence on primary children’s school achievement. In 1998, 42 of the original sample of 80 students who entered grade one in 1990 were found remaining in the educational system but varied in their educational attainment. While girls had a higher drop-out rate than boys, males repeated grades at a higher rate. Father absence from the home had a negative influence on boys’ participation in and successful completion of school. Generally, the study found school achievement to be highly impacted by social variables rather than academic ability for both boys and girls.     

The impact of vision impairment on students’ self-concept

This study investigated the self-concept of students with vision impairment who were placed in specialist and mainstream educational settings in South Australia. Self-Concept was explored across six dimensions, namely Physical, Moral, Personal, Family, Social and Academic Self-Concepts and the Total Self-Concept. The ‘Tennessee Self-Concept Scale: Second Edition’ was administered to 25 students with vision impairment (13 females and 12 males). Participating students’ age ranged between 15 and 25 years and they were included from all levels of vision impairment. The visual acuity of the participants ranged from 6/18 or less (low vision) to 3/60 and less (blindness). Although the majority of the students with vision impairment obtained low scores on all dimensions of self-concept, namely physical, moral, personal, family, social and academic, some students obtained normal scores in relation to family and academic self-concepts. There were no significant differences between female and male students with vision impairment across the six dimensions of self-concept and thus total self-concept. These findings have implications for teachers, special educators, policy-makers and a range of professionals in the education and special education sector in enabling greater understanding of the self-concept accomplishment of the students with vision impairment. However, this study has limited scope for generalisation of the study's conclusions due to the study's small population sample size.     

The impact of Australia’s Royal Commission on child- and youth-serving organizations

This commentary considers the impact to date of Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on child- and youth-serving organizations, particularly its influence on organizations’ efforts to create and maintain ‘child safe, child friendly’ cultures, policies and practices. Opportunities and challenges for organizational leaders are outlined. The commentary calls for more involvement by researchers in empirical research that is relevant to the causes and prevention of abuse in organizations, and for findings to be disseminated in ways that are useful to organizations.     

Exploring the potential impact of reciprocal peer tutoring on higher education students’ metacognitive knowledge and regulation

It is widely recognized that metacognition is an important mediator for successful and high-level learning, especially in higher education. Nevertheless, a majority of higher education students possess insufficient metacognitive knowledge and regulation skills to self-regulate their learning adequately. This study explores the potential of reciprocal peer tutoring to promote both university students’ metacognitive knowledge and their metacognitive regulation skills. The study was conducted in a naturalistic higher education setting, involving 67 students tutoring each other during a complete semester. A multi-method pretest–posttest design was used combining a self-report questionnaire, assessing students’ metacognitive knowledge and their perceived metacognitive skilfulness, with the analysis of think-aloud protocols, revealing students’ actual use of metacognitive strategies. Results indicate no significant pretest to posttest differences in students’ metacognitive knowledge, nor in their perception of metacognitive skill use. In contrast, significant changes are observed in students’ actual metacognitive regulation. At posttest, students demonstrate significantly more frequent and more varied use of metacognitive regulation, especially during the orientation, monitoring, and evaluation phases. Furthermore, our findings point to an increase in more profound and higher-quality strategy use at posttest.     

The impact of collaboration on teachers’ individual data use

Research considers collaboration to be a significant factor in terms of how teachers use data to improve their practice. Nevertheless, the effects of teacher collaboration with regard to teachers’ individual data use has remained largely underexplored. Moreover, little attention has been paid to the interplay between collaboration and the personal factors that influence teachers’ data use. This paper addresses this research gap by defining factors that affect collaboration, and by investigating the impact of collaboration on teachers’ individual data use. The resulting research questions were answered by drawing on questionnaire data from 1,472 primary and secondary school teachers in Flanders. The findings indicate that collaboration is the main explanatory factor for teachers’ individual data use compared to teachers’ self-efficacy and attitude. Therefore, this study demonstrates the value of collaboration for future research and for creating a supportive environment for teachers’ individual data use.     

The impact of educational development workshops on teachers’ practice

Abstract

Workshops are common practice as a staff and educational development tool in higher education around the world, yet while it is common to seek participants’ immediate reactions there been little attempt made to measure their impact. This paper reviews the available literature on the effectiveness of workshops and reports the findings of a study in to the effectiveness of 33 workshops delivered by the Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development over a four month period. The study used questionnaires at the end of the workshops and four months later, and these were followed up by telephone interviews with a sample of participants. The study demonstrates that workshops can lead to changes in practice, and that these changes are themselves deemed to be successful by those involved. In addition, where at the end of a workshop participants report that they are likely to make changes this can be used as a reasonably accurate predictor of subsequent change. The features of workshops identified in end‐of‐workshop questionnaires which are linked with likelihood of subsequent change are also reported.     

A longitudinal study on the impact of parental academic support and expectations on students’ academic achievement: the mediating role of happiness

European Journal of Psychology of Education - Previous studies have separately explored the impact of parents’ academic support and expectation on students’ academic achievement....     

The psychological environment and teachers’ collective-efficacy beliefs

The psychological environment of schools is a powerful determinant of staff well-being and educational outcomes for children. The work reported here explored teachers’ Collective-Efficacy (CE) and well-being. Staff in a sample of schools completed a survey of their CE. A sub-sample of teachers was interviewed to elicit views about the relationship between CE and leadership practices. Overall staff CE was correlated with key indicators of pupils’ attainments. Four themes in the interviews indicated attributions for staff well-being and motivation: Communication, Learning, Supporting Roles, and Stress Management. Enhancing CE is critical for staff well-being. At a time when staff recruitment, retention and well-being may be jeopardised, the findings here indicate the critical importance of professional relationships for the ethos and effectiveness of schools.     

The influences of integrating reading,peer evaluation,and discussion on undergraduate students’ scientific writing

Scientific writing is related to the practice of communicating scientific knowledge. This study treats scientific writing as a social practice, taking as its premise the notion that participating in related activities such as reading, peer evaluation, and discussion would positively affect the competence of students’ scientific writing, by developing their epistemic cognition regarding scientific knowledge communication and legitimation. An empirical study was conducted with twenty-two Chinese undergraduate students to test this premise. These students were majoring in chemistry and undertook a researcher-designed intervention course (Advanced Organic Chemistry Experiment), which embodied the integrated strategy of reading, peer evaluation, and discussion on scientific writing. Based on data pertaining to those students’ performance in terms of the normativity, objectivity, and logicality of scientific writing drawn from a previous study by the current author (Deng, Kelly, & Xiao, 2019. The development of Chinese undergraduate students’ competence of scientific writing in the context of advanced organic chemistry experiment course. Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 20, 270–287), alongside data drawn from students’ written texts in reading reflections and on-line discourse related to peer evaluation and discussion, this study claimed that the tasks of reading, peer evaluation, and discussion were seen gradually to lead to the development of Chinese undergraduate students’ greater competence in scientific writing regarding the synthetic experiments of organic chemistry.     

The impact of engineering curriculum design principles on elementary students’ engineering and science learning

The Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards propose that students learn core ideas and practices related to engineering as well as science. To do so, students will need high-quality curricular materials designed to meet these goals. We report an efficacy study of an elementary engineering curriculum, Engineering is Elementary (EiE) that includes a set of hypothesized critical components designed to encourage student engagement in practices, connect engineering and science learning, and reach diverse students. To measure the impact of the curriculum, we conducted a cluster randomized controlled trial in 604 classrooms in 152 schools in three states. Schools were randomly assigned to either the treatment curriculum or to a comparison curriculum that addressed the same learning goals but did not include several critical components. Results show that students who used the treatment curriculum (EiE) regardless of demographic characteristics outperformed students in the comparison group on outcome measures of both engineering and science content learning. The results show that curriculum design affects student-learning outcomes.     

The impact of field experiences on prospective preservice teachers’ technology integration beliefs and intentions

This study investigated how field experiences impacted the technology integration beliefs and intentions of prospective preservice teachers. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), a three-way interaction between the type, frequency, and quality of field technology observations predicted changes in beliefs and intentions. Beliefs about the utility of technology directly predicted intentions to use technology and intentions to use Meaningful Learning approaches to technology integration. Additionally, beliefs about technology’s importance in education indirectly predicted both variables. Positive impacts of field experiences on beliefs and intentions only existed when prospective preservice teachers saw technology used frequently by skilled teachers using Meaningful Learning approaches.