Can Providing Rubrics for Writing Tasks Improve Developing Writers' Calibration Accuracy?

Rubric-referenced calibration and the interaction between writing achievement and calibration, a measure of the relationship between one's performance and the accuracy of one's judgments, were investigated. Undergraduate students (N = 596) were assigned to one of three calibration conditions: (a) global, (b) global and general criteria, or (c) global and detailed criteria. Students in all three conditions provided global predictions and postdictions of essay exam scores. Although calibration judgments by condition did not affect calibration accuracy overall, statistically significant main effects were found between calibration accuracy by criteria and prior achievement. High achievers made more-accurate predictions and postdictions by criteria than low achievers. Regardless of achievement level, those students in the detailed rubric condition had higher postdictive accuracy for the organization criteria than did students in the general rubric condition.     

The role of personal best (PB) goals in the achievement and behavioral engagement of students with ADHD and students without ADHD

In the context of competitive classroom settings and relativistic assessment schedules, some groups of students may particularly benefit from an emphasis on personal progress and personal growth approaches to their academic development. Building on recent promising results from general samples of high school students (undifferentiated by academically at-risk sub-groups within them) and dominant models of attention and executive functioning, the present study examines the potential of personal best (PB) goals for students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The study focuses on N = 87 students with ADHD and N = 3374 non-ADHD peers from the same schools and year levels – in addition to a supplementary analysis of a randomly drawn non-ADHD sub-sample of N = 87 and a second supplementary analysis controlling for achievement. Multi-group multivariate path analyses demonstrated (a) significant and positive associations between PB goals and academic outcomes (achievement and behavioral engagement) for students with ADHD, (b) similar positive effects for non-ADHD students (N = 3374), (d) replicated results with the randomly drawn non-ADHD sub-sample (N = 87), (e) similar findings when controlling for achievement, and (f) absolute parameter estimates that trended larger for students with ADHD than non-ADHD students. These findings indicate that the positive role of PB goals may generalize across diverse student groups and that there appears to be merit in broadly promoting PB goals amongst ADHD (and, potentially, other academically at-risk students) and non-ADHD students alike.     

ENHANCING SELF‐REGULATORY SKILLS THROUGH AN INTERVENTION EMBEDDED IN A MIDDLE SCHOOL MATHEMATICS CURRICULUM

We investigated the effects of a self‐regulatory intervention strategy designed to improve middle‐school students’ calibration accuracy, self‐regulatory skills, and math achievement. Focusing on self‐monitoring and self‐reflection as the two key processes of this intervention in relation to improving students’ math achievement and overall self‐regulation, we randomly assigned 30 sixth‐and seventh‐grade students to either a treatment or a delayed‐treatment control group. At the conclusion of the intervention, we conducted interviews to unearth students’ sources of calibration judgments. Results showed that participants who received the intervention had significantly higher math performance and predictive/postdictive calibration accuracy than did the control group. We provided educational implications of our findings for psychologists and educators.     

Measuring emotions in students’ learning and performance: The Achievement Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ)

Aside from test anxiety scales, measurement instruments assessing students’ achievement emotions are largely lacking. This article reports on the construction, reliability, internal validity, and external validity of the Achievement Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ) which is designed to assess various achievement emotions experienced by students in academic settings. The instrument contains 24 scales measuring enjoyment, hope, pride, relief, anger, anxiety, shame, hopelessness, and boredom during class, while studying, and when taking tests and exams. Scale construction used a rational-empirical strategy based on Pekrun’s (2006) control-value theory of achievement emotions and prior exploratory research. The instrument was tested in a study using a sample of university students (N = 389). Findings indicate that the scales are reliable, internally valid as demonstrated by confirmatory factor analysis, and externally valid in terms of relationships with students’ control-value appraisals, learning, and academic performance. The results provide further support for the control-value theory and help to elucidate the structure and role of emotions in educational settings. Directions for future research and implications for educational practice are discussed.     

Effects of explicit rules in learning to spell open- and closed-syllable words

Second graders (N = 222; 7.7 years of age) practiced with open- and closed-syllable words in a computer-assisted training program and appropriate spelling rules were either explicitly provided during practice or not. Also, children practiced either with a small set of exemplars or with a large set; the latter condition was expected to promote the use of rules. A control group consisting of 209 second graders, who did not practice in the computer-assisted training program, was also included in the study. Learning effects of practice were established by testing the spelling of practiced words, as well as novel transfer words, in pre-, post-, and retention tests. The results in the posttest showed that with a large set of exemplars during practice explicitly provided spelling rules are supportive for learning to spell novel words but no further effects of explicit rules were found, either for practiced words or in the retention test.     

Stability and change in achievement goal orientations: A person-centered approach

Two longitudinal studies used a person-centered approach to examine the stability and change in students’ achievement goal orientations within a school year (i.e., during 9th grade; measurement period 4 months, N = 530) and between school years (i.e., across 11th and 12th grade; measurement period 12 months, N = 519). Distinct groups of students with different motivational profiles were extracted in both studies with considerable consistency in profiles across the two academic contexts (i.e., lower and upper secondary school). Four groups of students were identified in both studies: indifferent, success-oriented, mastery-oriented, and avoidance-oriented. Students’ motivational profiles were substantially stable; about 60% of all students displayed a stable motivational profile over time. Furthermore, most changes in the group memberships were directed towards similar groups. Findings support the conception of achievement goal orientation as an enduring disposition that reflects students’ generalized beliefs and tendencies to select certain goals and to favor certain outcomes.     

A structural equation model analyzing the relationship of student achievement motivations and personality factors in a range of academic subject-matter areas

The question of subject-specificity of achievement motivations is important, both for educational psychology, as well as for educational policy. This study contributes to the investigation of the heterogeneity in achievement motivations in the context of the expectancy-value model. Whereas existing research deals with middle and high school students and their motivations for a range of broad domains, this article focuses on university students (n = 264) and subject domains that are more congruent. We adopt an affect-extended version of the expectancy-value model. Using structural equation methods, we are able to decompose achievement motivations in generic and subject-specific components.     

Elementary students’ metacognitive processes and post-performance calibration on mathematical problem-solving tasks

Calibration, or the correspondence between perceived performance and actual performance, is linked to students’ metacognitive and self-regulatory skills. Making students more aware of the quality of their performance is important in elementary school settings, and more so when math problems are involved. However, many students seem to be poorly calibrated, with a tendency towards over-confidence. The present study analyzes the relationship between post-performance calibration accuracy and the metacognitive process shown by 524 fifth- and sixth-grade students while solving two math problems. After calculating a calibration index and establishing the stability of students’ judgments and actual performance, differences in the metacognitive process exhibited by students with different calibration accuracy (Accurate vs. Inaccurate groups) were analyzed. The emergence of different calibration patterns and differences in the metacognitive process as a function of mathematics achievement and grade level were also examined. Results indicated that: (a) students in the overall sample were little calibrated and over-confident, showing high stability in their judgments and actual performance across problems; (b) inaccurate students reported using information representation sub-processes (drawing/summarizing) less frequently, but writing and reviewing (and also correcting mistakes) more frequently than their accurate peers; and (c) differences in calibration patterns and the metacognitive process were found when achievement level was considered, whereas grade level did not generate any important effect. These findings suggest the usefulness of process-based measures to examine the metacognitive processes involved in making post-performance judgments, considering achievement and its possible mediating role in this relationship.     

What's in a teacher test? Assessing the relationship between teacher licensure test scores and student STEM achievement and course-taking

We investigate the relationship between teacher licensure test scores and student test achievement and high school course-taking. We focus on three subject/grade combinations—middle school math, ninth-grade algebra and geometry, and ninth-grade biology—and find evidence that a teacher's basic skills test scores are modestly predictive of student achievement in middle school math and highly predictive of student achievement in high school biology. A teacher's subject-specific licensure test scores are a consistent and statistically significant predictor of student achievement only in high school biology. Finally, we find little evidence that students assigned to middle school teachers with higher basic-skills test scores are more likely to take advanced math and science courses in high school.     

Structuring collaboration in mixed-ability groups to promote verbal interaction,learning, and motivation of average-ability students

Average-ability students often do not take full advantage of learning in mixed-ability groups because they hardly engage in the group interaction. This study examined whether structuring collaboration by group roles and ground rules for helping behavior might help overcome this participatory inequality. In a plant biology course, heterogeneously grouped fourth-grade boys (n=164) were randomly assigned to a structured collaboration condition or an unconstrained comparison condition. Results indicated positive effects of structured collaboration on average-ability students’ achievement, motivation, and contribution to the group interaction. Another positive result was that structuring collaboration did not lower the scores of the high and low-ability students on these measures.     

Integrating self-regulation in whole-class reciprocal teaching: A moderator–mediator analysis of incremental effects on fifth graders’ reading comprehension

In this classroom intervention study, reciprocal teaching (RT) of reading strategies was combined with explicit instruction in self-regulated learning (SRL) to promote the reading comprehension of fifth-grade students (N = 306). Twelve intact classes were randomly assigned either to an RT + SRL condition or to an RT condition without explicit instruction in self-regulation. Three additional classes served as a no-treatment comparison group. Strategies instruction was delivered by trained assistants in conventional German language lessons. Students practiced the application of these strategies in small groups. Both at posttest and at maintenance (8 weeks after the intervention), students in the two intervention conditions (RT and RT + SRL) outperformed comparison students in measures of reading comprehension, strategy-related task performance, and self-efficacy for reading. Relative to RT students, students in the RT + SRL condition were better able to maintain training-induced performance gains over the follow-up interval. A moderated mediation analysis revealed that this difference in the sustainability of the two treatments was (a) mediated by the successful mastery of the learned strategies and (b) most evident among students with poor reading fluency skills.     

Implicit theories of ability of Grade 6 science students: Relation to epistemological beliefs and academic motivation and achievement in science

We investigated: (a) the associations of implicit theories and epistemological beliefs and their effects on the academic motivation and achievement of students in Grade 6 science and (b) the mean differences of implicit theories, epistemological beliefs, and academic motivation and achievement as a function of gender and race/ethnicity (N = 508). Path analysis revealed that an incremental view of ability had direct and indirect effects on adaptive motivational factors, whereas fixed entity views had direct and indirect effects on maladaptive factors. Epistemological beliefs mediated the influence of implicit theories of ability on achievement goal orientations, self-efficacy, and science achievement. Results are discussed in relation to Dweck and Leggett’s (1988) social-cognitive theory with a focus on middle school science.     

Personal and contextual determinants of ethnically diverse female high school students’ patterns of academic help seeking and help avoidance in English and mathematics

This study investigated female high school students’ (N = 293) patterns of help seeking in the domains of English and mathematics. Help seeking was operationalized using both self-report measures of need-contingent help seeking and help avoidance, as well as a behavioral measure of help seeking, namely the number of times students attended after-school tutoring sessions. As predictors of help seeking, the motivational variables of achievement goals, task-value, and expectancy for success were considered, alongside cognitive and metacognitive strategy-use, need for cognition, academic procrastination, and a belief in quick learning. Overall, the motivational variables of expectancy for success, task-value, and mastery goals and the cognitive variables of metacognitive self-regulation and rehearsal were found to significantly predict help seeking in English and math. No discernable effects of grade level or ethnicity on patterns of help seeking were detected. Several subject-level differences, however, were found, suggesting that students’ help-seeking patterns do vary by domain.     

Effects of concept-mapping-based interactive e-books on active and reflective-style students’ learning performances in junior high school law courses

Researchers have pointed out that interactive e-books have rich content and interactive features which can promote students’ learning interest. However, researchers have also indicated the need to integrate effective learning supports or tools to help students organize what they have learned so as to increase their learning performance, in particular, for abstract and complex learning content such as that in law courses. In this study, a concept-mapping-based interactive e-book learning mode was proposed. To understand the learning effects, a quasi-experimental design was used to compare the learning achievement and motivation of the students learning with the proposed approach (experimental group) and those learning with conventional interactive e-books (control group) in a junior high school fundamental law course. Meanwhile, the learning achievement and motivation of the students with different learning styles were also explored. The experimental results showed that the proposed approach significantly improved the students’ learning achievement, especially for the active-style students; moreover, it was found that the lead-in of concept mapping did not affect the students’ learning motivation. Factors that might affect the students’ learning achievement and motivation with the concept-mapping-based interactive e-book approach are discussed accordingly.     

Exploring patterns of Latino/a children's school readiness at kindergarten entry and their relations with Grade 2 achievement

This study contributed to the school readiness literature by taking an intrachild perspective that examined the relations between Latino/a children's school readiness profiles and later academic achievement. Teachers rated the school readiness of 781 Latino/a kindergartners during the first month of school using the Kindergarten Student Entrance Profile (KSEP). Latent class analysis (LCA) examined KSEP profiles across social-emotional, physical, and cognitive domains and identified five distinct school readiness classes that described students’ strengths and weaknesses at kindergarten entry. Among the predictors examined, gender was the only significant difference among the top two readiness classes, with girls less likely to be in the lower of these two classes (OR = 0.38). In addition, children in the bottom three readiness classes were significantly less likely than students in the top readiness class to have preschool experience (ORs = 0.02–0.19) and had significantly lower levels of English proficiency (ORs = 0.51–0.72). Class membership was significantly associated with scores on the Grade 2 California Standards Tests and only the top two readiness classes had reading fluency rates near or above a national benchmark at the end of Grade 2. The variation of early achievement found across readiness classes also showed that considering the pattern of a child's social-emotional and cognitive readiness might enhance school readiness assessment. Implications for integrating universal school readiness screeners within a comprehensive multigating assessment model are also discussed.     

The relationship between future goals and achievement goal orientations: An intrinsic–extrinsic motivation perspective

This research aimed to study the relationships between students’ future goals (FGs) and their immediate achievement goal orientations (AGOs) among 5733 Singaporean secondary school students (M age = 14.18, SD = 1.26; 53% boys). To this end, we hypothesized that the relationships between like valenced FGs and AGOs (both intrinsic or both extrinsic) will be stronger than those of opposite valenced FGs and AGOs (intrinsic–extrinsic) and tested two alternative models: Model A positing the prediction of AGOs by FGs and Model B positing the prediction of FGs by AGOs. Structural equation modeling showed the heuristic superiority of Model B in which intrinsic FGs (career-, society-, and family-oriented) were more strongly related to mastery-approach goal orientation than to performance-approach goal orientation and extrinsic FGs (fame- and wealth-oriented) were more strongly related to performance-approach goal orientation than to mastery-approach goal orientation. The findings suggest that, to enhance school motivation, teachers should encourage students to adopt intrinsic AGOs and FGs.     

An experimental study of the effect of the presence or absence of living visual aids in high school biology classrooms upon attitudes toward science and biology achievement

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects resulting from the presence or absence of living material in the biology classroom on knowledge of biology and attitudes toward science and sciencing. An experimental design employed random assignment to treatment and control groups. A separate-sample pretest-posttest control group design was used with 111 biology students from a medium-sized suburban high school. The treatment was administered for 16 weeks. The treatment group held class in a room containing live plant and animal displays attractively maintained. The control group students held class in a general purpose classroom containing no living materials. Students in the treatment group performed higher on both dependent measures (knowledge of biology and attitude toward science and sciencing) than those in the control group. The findings are interpreted as suggesting that living displays in the classroom serve to stimulate interest and curiosity which in turn influence attitude and achievement.     

Changes in race and sex stereotype threat among diverse STEM students: Relation to grades and retention in the majors

In laboratory studies, induced stereotype threat shows negative effects on academic performance and learning. Is the relation between stereotype threat and grades robust in naturalistic settings, specifically in introductory STEM courses? We gathered data on two new measures we term race and sex stereotype bias, which were administered four times over the course of introductory chemistry and biology courses for STEM majors (N = 1358). Patterns of growth for all stereotype bias measures showed a discontinuous pattern, with increases during each semester (fall and spring) and decreases between semesters. For all stereotype bias measures, sophomores scored significantly higher than freshmen, and juniors scored in between. For the sex stereotype bias measure, females scored significantly higher than males. There were no race or sex differences on slopes of growth; though groups began at different levels, all grew at the same rate. There was little relation between grades and stereotype bias when analyzed by race; Asian students showed the largest number of significant – albeit small – correlations (3) and Black students the fewest (none). Correlations between grades and sex stereotype bias were significant and negative – but small – only for males. Results support a point made by Steele in 1997 but neglected since then; stereotype threat may affect only a small sub-portion within stereotyped groups. We argue that variables other than stereotype threat might be better targets for research attempting to explain gaps in STEM achievement and retention.