Motivational and affective determinants of self-regulatory strategy use in elementary school mathematics

The aim of the study was to investigate the relationships between elementary students’ reported use of self-regulatory strategies in mathematics and their motivational and affective determinants. Participants of the study were 344 fifth- and sixth-grade Greek students. Students were asked to complete self-reported measures regarding the strategies they use to self-regulate mathematics learning, their achievement goals in relation to mathematics, their self-efficacy concerning mathematics learning and achievement, the value they attribute to mathematics as a subject domain and their enjoyment of mathematics learning. Structural equation modelling confirmed a mediation model, that is, students’ mathematics self-efficacy, value beliefs about mathematics and enjoyment mediated the effects of achievement goals on reported strategy use. Results are discussed in terms of implications for elementary students’ self-regulated learning skills.     

Gender-specific trajectories of academic achievement in Chinese elementary school students: Relations with life satisfaction trajectories and suicidal ideation trajectories

This study explored heterogeneous developmental trajectories of academic achievement and their relations to trajectories of life satisfaction and trajectories of suicidal ideation among Chinese elementary school students. A sample of 547 students (55.0% boys; M_age = 9.00 years, SD = 0.76 at Time 1) completed a packet of measures on five occasions across two years, using 6-month intervals. Three distinct trajectories of academic achievement were identified: “high-stable” (86.28%), “low-increasing” (8.94%), and “low-decreasing” (4.78%). Girls demonstrated higher academic achievement than boys. Students displaying adverse developmental trends in academic achievement were more likely to show adverse trends in life satisfaction. Finally, trajectories of academic achievement and trajectories of suicidal ideation were related for girls, but not boys. Programs promoting academic achievement may require adaptations for the differing genders and start as early as elementary school.     

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.     

Validity and bias of academic achievement measures in the first year of elementary school

We tested the criterion-related validity and potential bias of two measures of pupils' academic achievement: the Teacher Rating Scale (TRS) and the Mathematics and Literacy Achievement Tests (MLTs). These measures are representative of assessment methods largely used in the elementary school. The aims were: (1) to verify the extent to which TRS and MLTs can be predicted by external criteria collected at kindergarten and (2) to estimate the degree to which each measure might be biased by family, teacher and children's characteristics. A total of 239 children were assessed during kindergarten. At the end of the first grade, they were tested for social-emotional adjustment and academic achievement (TRS and MLTs). Results suggest that family socioeconomic status and children's school readiness at kindergarten were associated with both measures; however, the predictors accounted for significantly more variance in TRS than in MLTs. Regarding the presence of bias, results indicate that TRS seems more sensitive to children's social competence, whereas the MLTs appears to be more sensitive to pupils' anxiety.     

将运动成就感融入小学体育教育的建议

目前对于运动成就感的理论和研究不多,在体育课中的作用也没有充分的得到重视,本文对运动成就感提出了一些看法,以期能够提高运动成就感在体育教学中的被重视程度,以及对体育课上提高运动成就感的方法和手段做出一些建议。     

Elementary school parent engagement efforts: Relations with educator perceptions and school characteristics

School efforts to engage parents are posited to influence whether and how they are involved in their children's schooling. The authors examined educators' engagement efforts in beginning reading, their subjective evaluations of engagement practices, and beliefs about parent involvement, in two stratified samples of New Zealand elementary school educators. They explored whether educators' ratings supported multidimensional and multitiered theoretical models of engagement. The authors invited responses from elementary principals and teachers, given their different roles in the nested ecology of schools and relationships with parents, and examined associations between pairs of principals and teachers working in the same school. Finally, the authors examined relations among educators' engagement efforts, evaluations of engagement practices, and beliefs about involvement, and school characteristics including community socioeconomic status, size of school population, ethnic composition of school population, community size, and geographic region.     

Engaging with parents: the relationship between school engagement efforts,social class,and learning

Using data from the U.S. Department of Education's (2000) Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–99 (ECLS-K), this study investigates the relationship between school efforts to engage parents, average socioeconomic status (SES) of families within a school, and kindergarteners' end-of-year reading and mathematics achievement. Drawing from Epstein's (2001 Epstein, J.L. 2001. School, family, and community partnerships: Preparing educators and improving schools, Boulder, CO: Westview Press.  [Google Scholar]) parent involvement framework, the 4 types of engagement efforts explored are intended to promote communication, parent volunteering, parent influence in school decision making, and parenting skills. We apply multilevel methods to explore the impact of schools' efforts to engage parents on student achievement. Our findings indicate certain types of school efforts to engage parents influence achievement. Depending on average school SES, efforts to promote volunteering has a differential impact on reading achievement, efforts to involve parents in school decision making has a differential impact on mathematics achievement, and efforts to increase communication and promote parenting skills have a differential impact on reading and mathematics achievement.     

The impact of kindergarten learning-related skills on academic trajectories at the end of elementary school

Recent research indicates that children's learning-related skills (including self-regulation and social competence) contribute to early school success. The present study investigated the relation of kindergarten learning-related skills to reading and math trajectories in 538 children between kindergarten and sixth grade, and examined how children with poor learning-related skills fared throughout elementary school on reading and math. Latent growth curves indicated that learning-related skills had a unique effect on children's reading and math scores between kindergarten and sixth grade and predicted growth in reading and math between kindergarten and second grade. In addition, children with poor learning-related skills performed lower than their higher-rated peers on measures of reading and mathematics between kindergarten and sixth grade, with the gap widening between kindergarten and second grade. Between third and sixth grade, this gap persisted but did not widen. Discussion focuses on the importance of early learning-related skills as a component in children's academic trajectories throughout elementary school and the need for early intervention focusing on children's self-regulation and social competence.     

Promoting Gypsy children's behavioural engagement and school success: Evidence from a four‐wave longitudinal study

Low schooling, high non‐attendance and school dropout rates are critical phenomena within disadvantaged groups, especially among the Gypsy community. For example, in the UK, 10%–25% of Gypsy children do not attend school regularly and have significantly higher levels of overall absence from school (percentage of half‐day sessions missed) than pupils from other ethnic groups. In Portugal, available data on Gypsy children is sparse, yet data from one geographic region of the country reports high school failure (45%) and dropout rates (15%) among this population. The present study assessed the efficacy of a four‐year intervention to promote Gypsy children's behavioural engagement and school success. Gypsy communities were contacted and 30 children participating in the four waves were randomly distributed into control and experimental groups. Every school day throughout four years, 16 children in the experimental group were called at home and invited to go to school. The effectiveness of the intervention was evaluated in four waves (at the end of each of the four school years), assessing behavioural engagement (i.e. school non‐attendance, classroom behaviour) and school achievement (i.e. mathematics achievement, student progression). Findings show the efficacy of the intervention on promoting behaviour engagement and academic success without devaluing Gypsy people's culture.     

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.     

Engaging students emotionally: the role of emotional intelligence in predicting cognitive and affective engagement in higher education

Student engagement is a key predictor of academic performance, persistence and retention in higher education. While many studies have identified how aspects of the college environment influence engagement, fewer have specifically focused on emotional intelligence (EI). In this study, we sought to explore whether EI could predict cognitive and/or affective engagement in a sample of undergraduate psychology students in Ireland. Ninety-one students completed two forms of the student engagement instrument, rating current engagement and retrospective secondary school engagement, along with the trait EI (TEI) questionnaire. After controlling for academic ability, gender and school engagement, multiple regression analyses found TEI to be a positive predictor of both cognitive and affective engagement. Previous academic performance acted as an additional predictor of cognitive engagement, while retrospective affective school engagement predicted current affective engagement. These results suggest that interventions aimed at increasing EI may have positive implications for many aspects of student engagement, and hence performance at third level.     

Parent involvement and academic outcomes among urban adolescents: examining the role of school engagement

The present study examined the extent to which parent involvement in education was directly and indirectly (via school engagement) related to academic outcomes in an effort to more fully understand the school experiences of urban adolescents. Participants (80% racial/ethnic minority; n = 108) were in grades 6, 7 or 8. In the Fall and subsequent Spring youth completed in-school surveys with items on parental involvement in education, school engagement (affective, behavioural, cognitive engagement) and perceived academic competence. Grades were obtained from official school records. Findings showed that parental involved was positively associated with behavioural and cognitive engagement, which in turn contributed to academic competence and achievement. Results underscore the importance of parental involvement in adolescents’ engagement and academic success and highlight the importance of examining the multiple components of school engagement simultaneously, as we found differential effects for affective, behavioural, and cognitive engagement on academic competence and achievement.     

Student engagement as a mediator of the effects of socio-economic status on academic performance among secondary school students in Australia

In this article, we contribute to understanding of the mechanisms through which students’ socio-economic family background can translate into academic performance by focusing on the concept of student engagement. Drawing on theoretical perspectives from disciplines across the social sciences, and a major nationally representative dataset from Australia, which links survey responses with administrative records on school performance, we conduct a series of multiple regression models to investigate the mediating role of student engagement on the relationship between students’ socio-economic status (SES) and academic achievement. We find that, first, low-SES students show lower levels of engagement than other students, particularly in terms of behavioural and cognitive aspects; they also have lower achievement levels as measured by standardised test scores. We further find that lower engagement is associated with lower achievement levels, and that the effects of SES on achievement are partially mediated through student engagement. Although there are clearly other mechanisms in place that operate at the same time, it is important to focus on student engagement since it can be directly influenced by teachers and school leaders, as well as curriculum choices and school resources. This makes it a ripe target for government policies aimed at improving educational outcomes for students from low-SES families, compared with approaches targeting the influences of family environment or peer groups.     

Academic self-concept and causal attributions for success and failure amongst elementary school children

A great deal of research shows that the way in which children attribute causes to their successes and failures in school has implications for the development of their academic self-concept (ASC). The most common attributions are ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck. The present study asked 68 elementary school children aged seven to eight years how they explained their successes and failures in school subjects. The aim of the study was to examine whether there were gender differences in the children’s responses which might indicate differences in ASCs or in their explanations for the causes of success or failure. Data were collected via quantitative questionnaires. Results showed no gender differences in ASC but, within the group, boys were more likely to attribute their success to high ability; on the other hand girls were more likely to attribute their failures to low ability or the difficulty level of task. This suggests that boys are more likely than girls to provide positive, self-enhancing reasons for their success while girls are more likely than boys to provide negative, self-deprecating reasons for their failures.     

Intelligence quotient,short-term memory and study habits as academic achievement predictors of elementary school: A follow-up study

Few studies have explored the differential contribution of general intelligence, short-term memory and study habits has on academic achievement during elementary school, especially during a two-year follow-up. The aim of this study is to determine whether there is a relationship between intelligence quotient (IQ), short-term memory and study habits and their ability to predict the academic achievement of children in elementary school (74 pupils aged 8–9 years old). The instruments used are the General and Factorial Intelligence Test (GFI-3 revised), the Yuste Memory Test (MY), the Study Habits and Techniques Questionnaire (SHTQ) and the average score obtained in the final exams in both 3rd and 4th grade. IQ, short-term memory and study habits are significantly related to academic achievement. These variables can predict 56–59 % (p < .001) of the variability of academic achievement. The study concludes that IQ and study habits are two significant predictor variables of academic achievement.     

When children move: Behavior and achievement outcomes during elementary school

School moves are common during elementary school in the United States. The authors address whether changing schools and residences affects the academic and behavioral development of young students. Utilizing data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, the regression analyses show that, after controlling for prior achievement and behavior, students who experience nonroutine school changes, especially coupled with residential changes, are more likely to develop internalizing and externalizing behavior problems, are less engaged in classroom activities, and have slower reading growth compared to stable students.     

Preschool writing and premathematics predict Grade 3 achievement for low-income,ethnically diverse children

The present study was designed to explore the association between preschool academic skills and Grade 3 achievement among a sample of ethnically diverse children from low-income families. Data were collected from a sample of 1,442 low-income, ethnically diverse children in preschool and associated with Grade 3 achievement in reading and mathematics 4 years later. Mixed-effects modeling indicated that preschool skills significantly predicted Grade 3 achievement measures while controlling for various child-level factors and random school effects. While several preschool factors were predictive of Grade 3 achievement, writing/copying and counting/premathematics skills were consistently strong predictors of Grade 3 achievement across all measures and domains suggesting these are important foundational skills for academic success in midelementary school among low-income, ethnically diverse children. Findings also replicate studies demonstrating that writing plays an important role in learning and achievement. Findings have implications for early education policy and practice intended to support academic development among low-income, ethnically diverse children.     

Sixth-grade students’ engagement in academic tasks

Student engagement is important for teachers and researchers because it is associated with student achievement. Guided by self-determination theory, this year-long case study used observations and interviews to examine six students’ behavioral, affective, and cognitive engagement in integrated literacy and social studies tasks. Task differences were rated according to the degree to which tasks were authentic, collaborative, challenging, student directed, and sustained. Results demonstrated that, overall, students were more engaged in tasks that include a higher degree of these elements. In particular, students reported that they were engaged in tasks that included collaboration, new learning, and teacher support.     

Examining the engagement of career academy and comprehensive high school students in the United States

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the levels of student engagement of career academy students to those at a traditional comprehensive high school using propensity score matching and structural equation modeling. We found that academy students had significantly higher levels of emotional engagement and significantly lower levels of behavioral engagement than those at comprehensive schools. We also found no statistically significant differences in the levels of cognitive engagement of academy students compared to comprehensive school students. We believe the academy model has the promise of transforming the high school experience for students as it relates to their attachment to the school, their relationships with peers and teachers, and their sense of belonging and safety. However, academies need to work with students to create and develop co-curricular and extracurricular activities of interest to engage students in their schools at a higher level.