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.     

Can the flipped classroom model improve students’ academic performance and training satisfaction in Higher Education instructional media design courses?

While “flipping” a classroom has gained attention in K-12 and Secondary school programs, there has been relatively no explicit focus on its effectiveness as a teaching method for instructional media design courses in Higher Education. The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to determine the effectiveness of the flipped classroom approach to teaching instructional media design subjects by comparing students’ academic performance and training satisfaction in traditional lecture-based instruction with those in a flipped classroom. A total of 128 undergraduate students participated voluntarily and were divided into a control (n = 62) and an experimental (n = 66) group, respectively. The study findings indicated substantial differences in both academic performance and training satisfaction between the two groups, with the students in the experimental group performing significantly better. Specifically, the results showed some determining factors associated with training satisfaction that explain why students in flipped classes achieved notably higher mastery in the learning objectives than their control group peers. This study adds to the literature by providing evidence on how a flipped classroom can potentially benefit students’ academic performance, leading to higher training satisfaction and deeper disciplinary understanding in instructional media design courses.     

Achievement goal orientations and academic well-being across the transition to upper secondary education

The aim of this study was to examine students' (N = 579) achievement goal orientation profiles, the temporal stability of these profiles across the transition to upper secondary education, and profile differences in academic well-being (i.e., school value, school burnout, schoolwork engagement, satisfaction with educational choice). By means of latent profile analysis, four groups of students with distinct motivational profiles were identified: indifferent, success-oriented, mastery-oriented, and avoidance-oriented. Motivational profiles were relatively stable across the transition; half of the students displayed identical profiles over time and most of the changes in the group memberships were directed towards neighboring groups. Regarding group differences, indifferent and avoidance-oriented students showed less adaptive patterns of motivation and academic well-being than did mastery- and success-oriented students. Both mastery- and success-oriented students were highly engaged in studying and found their schoolwork meaningful, although success-oriented students' stronger concerns with performance seemed to make them more vulnerable to school burnout.     

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.     

Strategies for success in education: Time management is more important for part-time than full-time community college students

This paper examines relationships between the Big Five personality factors, time management, and grade-point-average in 556 community colleges students. A path model controlling for vocabulary, gender, and demographic covariates demonstrated that time management mediates the relationship between conscientiousness and students' academic achievement at community college. Separate modeling for part-time (n = 147) and full-time students (n = 409) showed that this mediation was moderated by enrollment status. Thus, time management was a significant mediator for part-time students but not for full-time students. The greater importance of time management for part- versus full-time students suggests that noncognitive constructs such as time management may be more critical for non-traditional students. These findings gather fresh currency as ever increasing numbers of students are enrolling part-time in post-secondary education across the globe.     

Academic Achievement Trajectories of Homeless and Highly Mobile Students: Resilience in the Context of Chronic and Acute Risk

Analyses examined academic achievement data across third through eighth grades (N = 26,474), comparing students identified as homeless or highly mobile (HHM) with other students in the federal free meal program (FM), reduced price meals (RM), or neither (General). Achievement was lower as a function of rising risk status (General > RM > FM > HHM). Achievement gaps appeared stable or widened between HHM students and lower risk groups. Math and reading achievement were lower, and growth in math was slower in years of HHM identification, suggesting acute consequences of residential instability. Nonetheless, 45% of HHM students scored within or above the average range, suggesting academic resilience. Results underscore the need for research on risk and resilience processes among HHM students to address achievement disparities.     

Does spatial awareness training affect anatomy learning in medical students?

Spatial ability (SA) is the cognitive capacity to understand and mentally manipulate concepts of objects, remembering relationships among their parts and those of their surroundings. Spatial ability provides a learning advantage in science and may be useful in anatomy and technical skills in health care. This study aimed to assess the relationship between SA and anatomy scores in first- and second-year medical students. The training sessions focused on the analysis of the spatial component of objects' structure and their interaction as applied to medicine; SA was tested using the Visualization of Rotation (ROT) test. The intervention group (n = 29) received training and their pre- and post-training scores for the SA tests were compared to a control group (n = 75). Both groups improved their mean scores in the follow-up SA test (P < 0.010). There was no significant difference in SA scores between the groups for either SA test (P = 0.31, P = 0.90). The SA scores for female students were significantly lower than for male students, both at baseline and follow-up (P < 0.010). Anatomy training and assessment were administered by the anatomy department of the medical school, and examination scores were not significantly different between the two groups post-intervention (P = 0.33). However, participants with scores in the bottom quartile for SA performed worse in the anatomy questions (P < 0.001). Spatial awareness training did not improve SA or anatomy scores; however, SA may identify students who may benefit from additional academic support.     

The role of engagement in immigrant students’ academic resilience

Academic resilience refers to academic success despite chronic socio-educational adversity. Given increases in immigration across the world in the past decade (including in Europe), there have been calls to identify factors (e.g., engagement) that can better support immigrant students’ academic resilience. With a sample of N = 17,241 immigrant students from 18 European countries, the present investigation employed multi-level probit regression to determine the extent to which cognitive, behavioral, and social-emotional engagement predict academic resilience status at both the student- and school-level. Findings revealed that cognitive engagement and behavioral engagement, at both the student- and school-level, are positively associated with academic resilience (yielding moderate and large effect sizes), while the findings regarding social-emotional engagement were more equivocal.     

Writing about personal goals and plans regardless of goal type boosts academic performance

Academic underachievement is a problem for both our education system and general society. Setting personal goals has the potential to impact academic performance, as many students realize through reflection that studying is a path towards realizing important life goals. Consequently, the potential impact of a brief (4–6 h), written, and staged personal goal-setting intervention on undergraduate academic performance (earned European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System credits) was investigated. Using a time-lagged quasi-experimental design, our model was tested with two first-year university goal-setting cohorts and two control cohorts (total n = 2928). The goal-setting cohorts (n = 698 and 711) showed a 22% increase in academic performance versus the control cohorts (n = 810 and 707). This increase depended on (1) the extent of participation in the 3-stage goal-setting intervention, (2) number of words written in the exercise, and (3) the specificity of students’ goal-achievement plans (GAP). Contrary to goal-setting theory, which necessitates goal-task specificity, the results revealed that it did not matter whether the students wrote about academic or non-academic goals, or a combination of both. Rather, it appeared to be the overall process of writing about their personal goals, the specificity of their strategies for goal attainment, and the extent of their participation in the intervention that led to an increase in their academic performance. This study suggests an important modification to goal-setting theory, namely a potential contagion effect of setting life goals, an academic goal primed in the subconscious, and subsequent academic performance.     

The developmental trajectory of intrinsic reading motivation: Measurement invariance,group variations,and implications for reading proficiency

The goal of the present study is to extend previous research on the developmental trajectory of intrinsic reading motivation during early adolescence. Using large-scale panel data on secondary school students in Germany, we examined: (1) the longitudinal measurement invariance of intrinsic reading motivation, (2) the generalizability of the developmental trajectory of intrinsic reading motivation across students’ gender, parental socioeconomic status (SES), and school tracks (academic vs. vocational), and (3) the associations between the developmental trajectory of intrinsic reading motivation and the developmental trajectory of reading proficiency. The scale we used to measure intrinsic reading motivation showed the (strict) measurement invariance across six occasions of measurement from Grades 5 to 10, indicating the high structural similarity (e.g., factor loadings, intercepts) of intrinsic reading motivation during early adolescence. Our analyses of latent growth curve models also confirm previous findings that students tend to experience a steady and significant linear decline in intrinsic reading motivation from Grades 5 to 10. This developmental decline also seems to be more pronounced in size (Δ =  − 0.772, p < .001) than previously reported. The developmental decline in intrinsic reading motivation was observed irrespective of students’ gender, parental SES, and school tracks. Male students expressed lower mean-levels of intrinsic reading motivation across the waves and exhibited a steeper motivational decline compared to female students. Despite mean-level differences across the waves, students showed similar degrees of a motivational decline across parental SES and school tracks. Finally, the larger decline in students’ intrinsic reading motivation was associated with the smaller growth of their reading proficiency from Grades 5 to 10. Our study provides further support for the high prevalence of the developmental decline in intrinsic reading motivation during early adolescence, its generalizability across students’ demographic characteristics, and its implications for the development of reading proficiency.     

Professional development on fostering students’ academic language proficiency across the curriculum—A meta-analysis of its impact on teachers’ cognition and teaching practices

This meta-analysis aggregates effects from 10 studies evaluating professional development interventions aimed at qualifying in-service teachers to support their students in mastering academic language skills while teaching their respective subject areas. The analysis of a subset of studies revealed a small non-significant weighted training effect on teachers’ cognition (g’ = 0.21, SE = 0.14). An effect aggregation including all studies (with 650 teachers) revealed a medium to large weighted overall effect on teachers’ classroom practices (g’ = 0.71, SE = 0.16). Methodological variables moderated the effect magnitude. Nevertheless, the results suggest professional development is beneficial for improving teachers’ practice.     

A tale of two tests: The role of topic and general academic knowledge in traditional versus contemporary scenario-based reading

We compared high school students’ performance in a traditional comprehension assessment requiring them to identify key information and draw inferences from single texts, and a scenario-based assessment (SBA) requiring them to integrate, evaluate and apply information across multiple sources. Both assessments focused on a non-academic topic. Performance on the two assessments were moderately correlated (r = 0.57), but the SBA was more difficult (Study 1; n = 342). The two assessments similarly depended on basic reading skills but diverged in the relation to academic knowledge and (non-academic) topic knowledge (Study 2; n = 1107). Academic knowledge was highly predictive of traditional comprehension, but less so for SBA. Topic knowledge was more predictive of SBA than traditional comprehension. Thus, the two assessments tap into similar constructs related to comprehension; however, the level of topic knowledge is more important for performance on scenario-based, multiple-source reading tasks, whereas academic knowledge is more important for traditional reading comprehension tasks.     

The effects of augmented reality-supported instruction in tertiary-level medical education

A significant body of the literature has documented the potential of Augmented Reality (AR) in education, but little is known about the effects of AR-supported instruction in tertiary-level Medical Education (ME). This quasi-experimental study compares a traditional instructional approach with supplementary online lecture materials using digital handout notes with a control group (n = 30) and an educational AR application with an experimental group (n = 30) to investigate any possible added-value and gauge the impact of each approach on students' academic performance and training satisfaction. This study's findings indicate considerable differences in both academic performance and training satisfaction between the two groups. The participants in the experimental group performed significantly better than their counterparts, an outcome which is also reflected in their level of training satisfaction through interacting and viewing 3D multimedia content. This study contributes by providing guidelines on how an AR-supported intervention can be integrated into ME and provides empirical evidence on the benefits that such an approach can have on students' academic performance and knowledge acquisition.

Practitioner notes

What is already known about this topic

• Several studies have applied various Augmented Reality (AR) applications across different learning disciplines.
• The effects of AR on students' perceptions and achievements in higher education contexts is well-documented.
• Despite the increasing use of AR-instruction in Medical Education (ME), there has been no explicit focus on AR's effects on students' academic performance and satisfaction.

What this paper adds

• This quasi-experimental study compares the academic performance and training satisfaction of students in an experimental group (AR) and a control group (handout notes).
• This study provides instructional insights into, and recommendations that may help students achieve better academic performance in AR-supported ME courses.
• The experimental group reported greater training satisfaction than their counterparts.

Implications for practice and policy

• Students who followed the AR-supported instruction achieved better academic performance that those in the control group.
• AR-supported interventions encourage active learning and lead to significant performance improvement.
• The experimental group outperformed the control group in academic performance and training satisfaction measurements, despite the lower experimental group's lower pre-test performance scores.

     

Data-based differentiated instruction: The impact of standardized assessment and aligned teaching material on students’ reading comprehension

The paper analyzes the efficacy of a data-based differentiated instruction (DBDI) intervention in addressing growing achievement-related heterogeneity in school. The intervention consisted of a reading strategy training conducted by teachers, in which 27 secondary-school classes (n_students = 656) participated. The propensity-matched control group consisted of another 27 classes (n_students = 558). Linear mixed models showed that students of the intervention classes had no greater gain in reading competence on average compared to students of the control classes. However, the groups differed regarding the learning gain at different achievement levels. In the control group, the gain was greatest for the low achievers and lowest for the high achievers. This imbalance was not found in the intervention group, where the learning gain was similar for students of each achievement level. This shows that DBDI is a tool for addressing achievement-related heterogeneity which empowers teachers to cater to the differences between students.     

Examining perceived control level and instability as predictors of first-year college students’ academic achievement

The aim of the present study was to examine the intraindividual level and instability of perceived academic control (PC) among first-year college students, and their predictive effects on academic achievement. Two studies were conducted measuring situational (state) PC on different schedules: Study 1 (N = 242) five times over a 6-month period and Study 2 (N = 80) daily over a 2-week period. Consistent across both studies were confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation models demonstrating significant PC instability, as well as negative correlations between intraindividual PC levels (average across measurements) and instability (standard deviation across measurements). Also, in both studies PC level positively predicted subsequent academic achievement, although no significant PC instability first-order effects were found. Both studies revealed a PC level by instability interaction, as students with high-unstable PC typically received poorer grades than high-stable PC students. Study findings highlight the importance of considering both PC level and instability, and identify a previously unknown group of first-year college students at-risk of under-achieving academically – students with high-unstable perceived control.     

Does it pay to be one of the oldest in class? Relative age effects on academic self-concept,peer relations,and teacher judgments in German primary schools

Several studies have revealed that older students in a year group reach higher achievement scores than younger students in that group. But less is known about how students' relative age in class relates to their self-perception of academic achievement, their social acceptance in class and to how teachers judge their abilities. Therefore, we examined relative age effects within class on students' academic self-concept, peer relations, grades, and teachers’ secondary school recommendation. Analyses were based on a sample of N = 18,956 German fourth graders, who had never been retained or accelerated. We applied multilevel regression to control for covariates at the individual and classroom level. There were no substantial relative age effects within class across any of the outcomes, except for a small advantage for the youngest in their reading self-concept. Our findings therefore contradict the common assumption that younger students in class are disadvantaged compared to their older classmates.     

Academic goals,goal process cognition,and exam performance among college students

We investigated the nature of and linkages between student-generated academic goals, individual differences in self-regulatory thinking (goal process cognition), and exam performance among college students. In Study 1 (N = 365) and in Study 2 (N = 325), we elicited students' self-ascribed most important academic goals for introductory psychology and their goal process cognition toward their most important goal. In addition, in Study 2, we collected data on students' exam scores in introductory psychology and their most important academic goal and goal process cognition for another course. Three types of academic goals were identified: performance (39–55%), mastery (22–39%), and study strategies (20–23%). Students with mastery academic goals had the highest positive arousal whereas students with performance academic goals had the highest negative arousal. Compared to students with performance academic goals, students with mastery academic goals had lower exam scores in introductory psychology and this difference was mediated, in part, by goal process cognition.     

Adolescent students’ grit: Do parents’ grit and educational expectations matter?

Despite the widespread enthusiasm towards grit, little attention has been paid to how stable grit remains over time and what contextual factors can predict longitudinal changes in grit. The present study investigated adolescent students’ grit and its change over one year. We employed nationally representative longitudinal data from a sample of Korean adolescent students (N = 2,590) and their parents (N = 2,590). Specifically, we evaluated the temporal stability of student grit, parent grit and educational expectations as determinants of student grit, and the relative importance of student grit in predicting academic achievement compared to academic self-concept. Results of autoregressive cross-lagged modeling revealed that grit was fairly stable over one year. In addition, parents’ grit and educational expectations for students’ educational attainment emerged as significant predictors of longitudinal changes in students’ grit. Finally, when students’ academic self-concept was controlled, students’ grit was not predictive of their academic achievement. Implications and areas of future research are presented and discussed.     

Development of school engagement and burnout across lower and upper secondary education: Trajectory profiles and educational outcomes

Inter- and intraindividual differences in Finnish adolescents’ developmental trajectories of school engagement and burnout (exhaustion, inadequacy, and cynicism) and their associations with students’ concurrent progression in mathematics performance and educational aspirations were investigated in an accelerated longitudinal study design spanning ages 13–17 (N = 1131, 50.9% girls). Growth mixture modeling analyses identified four distinct trajectory profiles: Positive academic well-being (high and stable engagement, low and stable burnout), Negative academic well-being (low U-shaped engagement, increased burnout), Disengaged (low U-shaped engagement, but also low and stable burnout), and Declining academic well-being (declining but U-shaped engagement, increasing burnout). Most students experienced a positive change in their trajectories after entering upper secondary education. Furthermore, students in the Positive academic well-being group performed better and progressed faster in mathematics and reported higher educational aspirations. Students in the Declining academic well-being group started out with high performance and aspirations, but they progressed at a slower rate in mathematics and lowered their aspirations over time. The Disengaged students’ performance progressed at the slowest rate of all groups, and they had one of the lowest educational aspirations overall. Lastly, students in the Negative academic well-being group performed the lowest in mathematics, and had one of the lowest aspirations for future educational degrees.     

Materialism does not pay: Materialistic students have lower motivation,engagement, and achievement

The aim of this study was to examine how materialism, or the focus on acquiring money and material possessions, is associated with students’ academic engagement and achievement via their motivational regulation (amotivation, controlled motivation, and autonomous motivation). Study 1 (n = 606 secondary students) was a cross-sectional study which found that materialism was negatively associated with engagement. This association was partially mediated by amotivation. Study 2 (n = 404 secondary students) was a longitudinal study which found that Time 1 materialism was negatively associated with Time 2 engagement and Time 3 academic achievement via amotivation. Results of the two studies provide converging lines of evidence that materialism is negatively associated with key indicators of learning. Students with high levels of materialism have lower levels of engagement and achievement, and these associations are partially mediated by amotivation. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.