Mathematically gifted students and high achievement: the role of motivation and classroom structure

One of the most intriguing questions for those who study intellectually gifted students is why some of them reach peak performances at school and others don’t. Moderator theories of giftedness assume that domain-specific gifts are transformed into achievement in a process influenced by non-cognitive and environmental variables. Thus, the current study investigates differences in the non-cognitive construct motivation (achievement goals, interest, self-concept, self-efficacy, implicit theories) and perception of classroom environment (classroom structure, class climate) between mathematically gifted high achievers (n = 66) and mathematically gifted students with non-high achievement (n = 144) using a latent variable approach. Gifted high achievers expressed higher levels of motivation than non-high achievers. Furthermore, they perceived a classroom structure that provides more tasks with a focus on learning and more autonomy.     

Behavioral self-regulation and executive function both predict visuomotor skills and early academic achievement

The present study explored direct and interactive effects between behavioral self-regulation (SR) and two measures of executive function (EF, inhibitory control and working memory), with a fine motor measure tapping visuomotor skills (VMS) in a sample of 127 prekindergarten and kindergarten children. It also examined the relative contribution of behavioral SR, EF, and VMS skills for concurrent academic achievement. Results indicated that a measure of working memory (WJ-Working Memory) and a measure of behavioral SR (Head–Toes–Knees–Shoulders task; HTKS) were directly related to VMS. Differential relations were also examined for prekindergarten and kindergarten children. Results revealed a significant interaction between age and inhibitory control (Day–Night), and an interaction at a trend level between age and working memory suggesting both tasks are more related to VMS skills for younger children. Results also indicated that behavioral SR, EF, and VMS skills were differentially related to the three achievement outcomes. Both behavioral SR and VMS were significantly related to math, behavioral SR, EF, and VMS were significantly related to emergent literacy, and behavioral SR and EF were related to vocabulary scores. Results point to significant relations between behavioral SR and EF with VMS, and how each is related to early academic achievement in preschool and kindergarten.     

Assessing heterogeneous student bodies using a methodology that encourages the acquisition of skills valued by employers

This work compares the results of three assessment systems used in two Spanish universities (the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and the Universidad Católica de Ávila): the traditional system based on final examinations, continuous assessment with periodic tests and a proposed system (specially designed for heterogeneous student bodies) orientated towards motivating students. This third system involved dividing the syllabus into two different parts: a common core assessed by multiple choice tests, and a specialisation assessed by a literature review, the writing of an article and an oral presentation. The latter skills are highly valued by employers. The proposed system led to a greater pass rate than that achieved by students taking similar courses assessed by the more conventional systems. In addition, the results show that involving students in the assessment process increases their participation in their studies and generates a feeling of satisfaction and justice.     

Competency level of Nigerian Primary 4 pupils in life skills achievement test

One of the goals of education in Nigeria is to develop in children the ability to adapt to their changing environment. This goal could be achieved through competency in life skills. Therefore, this study examines the competency level of Nigerian Primary 4 pupils in the life skills achievement test. The test was administered on a sample of 22,638 pupils. The results show that the competency level of the majority of the pupils in life skills is below the national benchmark (50%). Boys are more competent than girls. Pupils in urban areas are more competent than the pupils in rural.     

Parental writing support and preschoolers’ early literacy,language, and fine motor skills

The current study examines the nature and variability of parents’ aid to preschoolers in the context of a shared writing task, as well as the relations between this support and children's literacy, vocabulary, and fine motor skills. In total, 135 preschool children (72 girls) and their parents (primarily mothers) in an ethnically diverse, middle-income community were observed while writing a semi-structured invitation for a pretend birthday party together. Children's phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, word decoding, vocabulary, and fine motor skills were also assessed. Results revealed that parents provided variable, but generally low-level, support for children's approximation of sound-symbol correspondence in their writing (i.e., graphophonemic support), as well as for their production of letter forms (i.e., print support). Parents frequently accepted errors rather than asking for corrections (i.e., demand for precision). Further analysis of the parent–child dyads (n = 103) who wrote the child's name on the invitation showed that parents provided higher graphophonemic, but not print, support when writing the child's name than other words. Overall parental graphophonemic support was positively linked to children's decoding and fine motor skills, whereas print support and demand for precision were not related to any of the child outcomes. In sum, this study indicates that while parental support for preschoolers’ writing may be minimal, it is uniquely linked to key literacy-related outcomes in preschool.     

Building professionalism and employability skills: embedding employer engagement within first-year computing modules

This paper outlines a means of improving the employability skills of first-year university students through a closely integrated model of employer engagement within computer science modules. The outlined approach illustrates how employability skills, including communication, teamwork and time management skills, can be contextualised in a manner that directly relates to student learning but can still be linked forward into employment. The paper tests the premise that developing employability skills early within the curriculum will result in improved student engagement and learning within later modules. The paper concludes that embedding employer participation within first-year models can help relate a distant notion of employability into something of more immediate relevance in terms of how students can best approach learning. Further, by enhancing employability skills early within the curriculum, it becomes possible to improve academic attainment within later modules.     

高中生生物学习动机与成绩的关系研究

通过调查高中生生物学习动机的现状,将其与学生的生物成绩作相关性分析,得出二者相关系数为R=0.228,同时发现此系数在不同成绩段的学生之间具有差异性;学生的内部学习动机对成绩的影响起主要作用,最后根据调查结果提出三条建议来培养与激发学生的生物学学习动机。     

Social skills and problem behaviors as mediators of the relationship between behavioral self-regulation and academic achievement

Early behavioral self-regulation is an important predictor of the skills children need to be successful in school. However, little is known about the mechanism(s) through which self-regulation affects academic achievement. The current study investigates the possibility that two aspects of children's social functioning, social skills and problem behaviors, mediate the relationship between preschool self-regulation and literacy and math achievement. Additionally, we investigated whether the meditational processes differed for boys and girls. We expected that better self-regulation would help children to interact well with others (social skills) and minimize impulsive or aggressive (problem) behaviors. Positive interactions with others and few problem behaviors were expected to relate to gains in achievement as learning takes place within a social context. Preschool-aged children (n = 118) were tested with direct measures of self-regulation, literacy, and math. Teachers reported on children's social skills and problem behaviors. Using a structural equation modeling approach (SEM) for mediation analysis, social skills and problem behaviors were found to mediate the relationship between self-regulation and growth in literacy across the preschool year, but not math. Findings suggest that the mediational process was similar for boys and girls. These findings indicate that a child's social skills and problem behaviors are part of the mechanism through which behavioral self-regulation affects growth in literacy. Self-regulation may be important not just because of the way that it relates directly to academic achievement but also because of the ways in which it promotes or inhibits children's interactions with others.     

Response to ACCEL: Emphasize Development,Domains, and Application

In this article, we provide a response to the Active Concerned Citizenship and Ethical Leadership (ACCEL) model put forward by Sternberg (2017). Our commentary focuses on four critical areas that do not receive sufficient attention in Sternberg’s proposed model: (a) the developmental nature of giftedness; (b) that giftedness is domain specific, particularly at later stages in the talent development process; (c) the challenge in applying ACCEL in the real world of schools; and (d) whether the arts and other performance areas are compelled to have an ethical theme in order to be valuable.     

Stimulation of thinking skills in high school students

The objective of this research was to examine the effects of the instruction method “thinking actively in an academic context (TAAC)” on thinking skills, creativity, self‐regulation and academic achievement. The design was pre‐test–intervention–post‐test with control group. The sample included 46 participants (aged 16 to 18 years), 24 experimental and 22 controls. Before and after application of the method, six instruments were used to measure thinking skills and academic achievement. The method, divided into eight stages, was followed in each didactic unit during an academic course. The method allows teaching the thinking skills, the creativity and the self‐regulation simultaneously with the syllabus content. The results showed that greater changes were obtained with the new method of instruction in all the dependent variables. Relevant scientific and educational implications are drawn from the study.     

The role of inquiry-based self-efficacy,achievement goal orientation,and learning strategies on secondary-school students’ inquiry skills

Background: In recent years, science curricula (chemistry, physics, biology, earth science, life science, etc.) in many countries have been prepared and applied according to the inquiry-based learning approach. Although the acquisition and application of the inquiry skills are one of the important objectives of the science curriculum, the inquiry skills of each student do not enhance at the same level. The inquiry level of the learning environment; the importance and value attached to the inquiry in that environment, students who have different goals when attending to the learning environments, and students who do not get involved in the learning process at the same level can be shown as the reasons of this.

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to examine both the direct and indirect relationships between the inquiry-based self-efficacy, the achievement goal orientation, the learning strategies, and the inquiry skills variables.

Sample: This research was conducted during the 2015-2016 school year among 498 seventh and eighth graders at public schools in Turkey’s Ayd?n province.

Design and methods: The Inquiry-based Self-Efficacy Scale, the Goal Orientation Scale, the Learning Approach Scale, and the Inquiry Skills Test were applied to the students. The analysis of data was carried out through the Multilevel Structural Equation Model (MSEM).

Results: The findings related to the first model did not provide evidence for either direct or indirect effects of the inquiry-based self-efficacy on inquiry skills, achievement goal orientation, and learning strategies. However, findings from the final models provided evidence for both direct and indirect effects of separately inquiry-based self-efficacy and the achievement goal orientation on the inquiry skills through the learning strategies.

Conclusions: This study demonstrates the potential that relations with self-efficacy, achievement goal orientation, and task value theory while improving inquiry skills.     

Understanding motivational structures that differentially predict engagement and achievement in middle school science

Middle school has been documented as the period in which a drop in students’ science interest and achievement occurs. This trend indicates a lack of motivation for learning science; however, little is known about how different aspects of motivation interact with student engagement and science learning outcomes. This study examines the relationships among motivational factors, engagement, and achievement in middle school science (grades 6–8). Data were obtained from middle school students in the United States (N?=?2094). The theoretical relationships among motivational constructs, including self-efficacy, and three types of goal orientations (mastery, performance approach, and performance avoid) were tested. The results showed that motivation is best modeled as distinct intrinsic and extrinsic factors; lending evidence that external, performance based goal orientations factor separately from self-efficacy and an internal, mastery based goal orientation. Second, a model was tested to examine how engagement mediated the relationships between intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors and science achievement. Engagement mediated the relationship between intrinsic motivation and science achievement, whereas extrinsic motivation had no relationship with engagement and science achievement. Implications for how classroom practice and educational policy emphasize different student motivations, and in turn, can support or hinder students’ science learning are discussed.     

Assessing and accessing high human potential: A brief history of giftedness and what it means to school psychologists

The history of giftedness pertains to historical changes regarding how giftedness is conceptualized and defined, and how it serves the practical purpose of identifying gifted children and providing them an appropriate education. The past century has witnessed debates and controversies about what constitutes this elusive human quality we deem “gifted.” Overall, it has undergone significant changes from monolithic, static to more pluralistic, dynamic conceptions. The first part of this article delineates historical changes in the past 100 years in our understanding of the nature and development of giftedness, followed by the second part on the changing ways we define, assess, and identify gifted children or gifted potential for intervention purposes. The final part of this article depicts a broad trend toward expanding gifted education to a wider range of students, with the understanding that gifts and talents are widely distributed in student populations, and the deliberate cultivation of human potential should not be confined to a selected few.     

The motivations,attitudes, perceptions and skills of customer service staff working in Australian university student administration

In 2012, government changes to higher education shifted Australia to a demand driven funding model. The consequential increase in student numbers, along with greater focus on retention and student satisfaction, resulted in rising customer expectations. There are now strategic imperatives to change administrative cultures to focus on delivering service excellence. This study analyses customer service behaviours of student administration staff at one Australian university. Using a conceptual framework of motivations, attitudes, perceptions and skills towards customer service, this small-scale study suggests that staff are intrinsically motivated and have largely positive attitudes towards their student customers. A gap was identified between individuals’ perceptions of their customer service delivery compared with that of colleagues, while staff learn informally from their supervisors and colleagues. Finally, this paper explores how universities might develop and embed a workforce that is student-centric, delivering outstanding customer service, while at the same time upholding governance and compliance requirements.     

The developmental interplay of academic self-concept and achievement within and across domains among primary school students

The reciprocal internal/external frame of reference model (RI/EM) extends the internal/external frame of reference model (I/EM) over time and the reciprocal effects model (REM) across domains. The RI/EM postulates positive developmental relations between academic achievement and self-concept within a domain and negative relations across two non-matching domains (e.g., math and English). However, until now, empirical investigations of the RI/EM had only focused on secondary school students from specific countries. In the present study, we test whether the RI/EM also applies to primary school students and to students in the United States, by using a representative longitudinal data set: the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten (ECLS-K: 1998–1999). We found positive reciprocal relations between academic self-concept and standardized test scores within a domain, whereas the effect of prior achievement on self-concept was much stronger (skill-development part) than the effect of self-concept on achievement (self-enhancement). Furthermore, we found negative effects of achievement on subsequent self-concepts across domains (I/E frame of references). Overall, the findings of the study strongly support the RI/EM for primary school students. Our results are compared to previous findings in the literature for secondary school students and are discussed with regard to self-concept formation in primary school.     

Impact of rapid reading skills training on reading rate and reading achievement among primary school students in China

Abstract

The current study examined the effects of a silent rapid reading skills training intervention on the reading rate and reading achievement of primary school students in China in order to determine the efficacy of the intervention and explore potential gender differences. A total of 108 Chinese primary school students were randomly assigned by the classroom to either an experimental (n = 54) or control (n = 54) condition. Students in the experimental group completed 12 sessions of rapid reading skills training designed to increase their ability to rapidly read Chinese text in silence. Students in the control group engaged in regular Chinese language curriculum for the same time period. After the three-week intervention period, students in the experimental group displayed significantly greater silent reading speed of Chinese characters (M?=?1331.26 characters per minute) compared to students in the control group (M?=?617.48 characters per minute; p?<?.001). Children in the intervention group also displayed a significantly greater effective reading rate (F = 87.11, p?<?.001, partial η²?=?0.46) at post-test compared to the control. Male students displayed greater increases in reading speed than female students. Neither intervention effect nor gender difference was evident for reading comprehension. Implications for educational interventions designed to increase silent reading speed among Chinese students are discussed.     

Rural adolescents' reading motivation,achievement and behavior across transition to high school

The authors examined 1,781 rural students' reading motivation and behavior across the transition from middle to high school. Using expectancy-value theory, they investigated how motivational variables predicted changes in reading behavior and achievement across the transition in terms of their expectancies, values, and out-of-school reading behaviors. A repeated measures analysis of variance indicated significant increases in vocabulary, intrinsic value, and out-of-school reading, whereas significant decreases were found in attainment value. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated students' subjective expectancy for success was a significant predictor of increases in both comprehension and vocabulary scores. Students' utility value interacted with intrinsic value in predicting reading comprehension scores. In terms of change in students' reading behavior, their perceptions of intrinsic value and utility value were significant predictors. Gender interacted significantly with expectancies in predicting behaviors. Findings have implications for instructional support, particularly as it relates to reading motivation across the transition from middle to high school.     

Parental autonomy support,community feeling and student expectations as contributors to later achievement among adolescents

This longitudinal study examined the relationships among parental autonomy support, student intrinsic life goals (i.e. community feeling), student expectations for long-term educational attainment and later academic performance (measured by GPA) in 227 students in an ethnically and racially diverse high school. Hypotheses were tested with structural equation models, which included gender, parent education and prior GPA as control variables. As self-determination theory suggests, parental autonomy support was indirectly and positively related to academic performance via intrinsic life goals. Intrinsic life goals and student expectations were moderately and positively related and both contributed to growth in academic performance, which suggests that self-determination theory and expectancy-value theory provide additive insight in predicting educational achievement. Fifty per cent of the variance in intrinsic life goals was explained by parental autonomy support and 77% of the variance in later GPA was explained collectively by variables in the study. The way in which student expectations and intrinsic life goals work in concert to promote achievement should be examined in future intervention studies. The significant indirect effect of parental autonomy support on GPA via intrinsic life goals and student expectations suggests that students will benefit from parents fostering intrinsic life goals through autonomy supportive communication.