Motivational interference in school-leisure conflict and learning outcomes: The differential effects of two value conceptions

It was hypothesized that students' value orientations are connected to their experience of motivational interference in a conflict between a school- and a leisure-related activity as well as to school marks as indicators of learning outcomes. In a self-report study with Italian adolescents (N = 433; M = 14.5 years) using a school-leisure conflict scenario, first, the relations between the 10 values introduced by Schwartz and the Inglehart-based Achievement and Well-being value orientations were investigated. Correlations and multidimensional scaling analysis showed overlaps as well as differences between the two sets of value variables. Regression analyses revealed that the Schwartz values were significantly related to the experience of motivational interference during studying and during leisure as well as to school marks. The inclusion of Achievement and Well-being value orientations explained additional variance of the three dependent variables. The relevance of individual values in explaining students' reactions to motivational conflicts is highlighted.     

How minimal grade goals and self-control capacity interact in predicting test grades

The present research examined the prediction of school students' grades in an upcoming math test via their minimal grade goals (i.e., the minimum grade in an upcoming test one would be satisfied with). Due to its significance for initiating and maintaining goal-directed behavior, self-control capacity was expected to moderate the relation between students' minimal grade goals and their actual grades. Self-control capacity was defined as the dispositional capacity to override or alter one's dominant response tendencies. Prior to a scheduled math test, 172 vocational track students indicated their minimal grade goal for the test and completed a measure of self-control capacity. The test grade was assessed at a second time of measurement. As expected, minimal grade goals more strongly predicted the actual test grades the higher the students' self-control capacity. Implications can be seen in terms of optimizing the prediction and advancement of academic performance.     

Self-fulfilling prophecies in media-based learning: Content relevance moderates quality expectation effects on academic achievement

In the present paper a model of self-fulfilling prophecy effects in media-based learning was developed and tested. The central model assumption was that information about an instructional medium's quality affects students' academic achievement depending on the instructional content's relevance to the student. Experiment 1 (N = 100) demonstrated higher achievement in response to positive compared to negative information, but not the predicted moderating effect of content relevance. Using a revised relevance manipulation, Experiment 2 (N = 199) identified the following moderating function of content relevance: Under moderate relevance positive information led to higher achievement, under high relevance negative information resulted in higher achievement. No differences appeared under low relevance. Path analyses revealed students' cognitive effort as significant mediator for these effects.     

Factors associated with middle and secondary students' perceived science competence

The aim of the present study was to gain a better understanding of students' perceived science competence by examining potentially related beliefs and perceptions in a diverse sample of middle and secondary students (N = 1289). Results of hierarchical regression analysis showed that students' perceived science competence was related to: (a) students' age, gender, and ethnicity; (b) students' mastery and performance–approach goals; (c) students' self‐perceptions of their ability to generate creative ideas (i.e., creative self‐efficacy); and (d) students' perceptions of teacher support and press (i.e., challenging academic demands). Of all these factors, creative self‐efficacy was found to have the strongest positive relationship with students' perceived science competence. Implications for subsequent research are discussed. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 800–814, 2007     

High-school students' need for cognition,self-control capacity,and school achievement: Testing a mediation hypothesis

In the present article, we examine the hypothesis that high-school students' motivation to engage in cognitive endeavors (i.e., their need for cognition; NFC) is positively related to their dispositional self-control capacity. Furthermore, we test the prediction that the relation between NFC and school achievement is mediated by self-control capacity. A questionnaire study with grade ten high-school students (N = 604) revealed the expected relations between NFC, self-control capacity, and school achievement. Sobel tests showed that self-control capacity mediated the relation between NFC and school grades as well as grade retention.     

Students' perceptions of academic quality and approaches to studying in distance education

Attempts to demonstrate a relationship between students' approaches to studying in higher education and their perceptions of their academic context have been bedevilled by limitations of the research instruments and the problem of aggregating students' perceptions and approaches across different course units. The extended version of the Course Experience Questionnaire (Wilson et al., 1997) and the Revised Approaches to Studying Inventory (Entwistle et al., 2000) were adapted for use in distance education and administered in a postal survey to students taking seven courses by distance learning with the Open University. Usable responses were obtained from over 2100 students. Both instruments proved to be remarkably robust, and the students' scores on these two instruments shared 61% of their variance. Students' perceptions of the academic quality of courses in distance education are strongly associated with the approaches to studying that they adopt on those courses.     

Relations of middle school students' perceptions of family and school contexts with academic achievement

The purposes of this study were to examine the relations of both family and school contexts on students' academic achievement and to explore the mediating effects of students' perceptions of their motivations and academic self‐competence between the family and school contexts and achievement. Participants were 230 fifth‐ and sixth‐grade students. Students' perceptions of parenting style (demandingness and responsiveness), parental involvement (parental values and involvement in school functions), teaching style (teacher control and responsiveness), and school atmosphere (school responsiveness and supportive social environment) significantly predicted their school achievement; however, students' motivations and self‐competence mediated the relations between students' contexts and their academic achievement. Furthermore, parental values, teacher responsiveness, school responsiveness, and supportive social environment predicted students' motivations and academic competence above and beyond parenting style, parental involvement, and teacher control. The importance of students' supportive relationships and the internalization of the messages conveyed to them underscore the need for a contextual view by school psychologists when consulting with parents and education staff regarding achievement concerns. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Editorial

The first article in this issue raises some fascinating issues that relate to my own background in research into student learning and experience of courses in conventional higher education. Richardson, Long and Woodley have administered the Academic Engagement Form', used widely in colleges in the USA, and the 'Course Experience Questionnaire', used widely in universities in Australia, to distance learning students. John Richardson and various colleagues have previously shown that these questionnaires, separately, work as well in distance learning contexts as they do in conventional contexts: that is, they identify the same factors as components of students' experience, and the same factors relating to overall perceptions of quality of experience, as in conventional contexts. Of the many findings reported in the study reported in this issue of Open Learning, two stand out for me. First, academic engagement is shown to play a key role in students' perceptions of academic quality: engaged students perceive their course to be of higher quality. This does not tell us if students who are happy with their courses become more engaged or if those who are engaged become happier with their courses, however, merely that they are related. 'Engagement' here encompasses both social and academic engagement as defined in Tinto's model of student retention. Second, students' overall perceptions of academic quality are mediated by their perceptions of their tutors. The authors conclude: '... the attitudes and behaviours of tutors are crucial to students' perceptions of the academic quality of courses in distance education'. In conventional contexts the item on the Course Experience Questionnaire that relates most closely to student performance concerns the quality of teacher feedback, not teaching, and this is easy to understand in a distance context. The methodology of this paper (relying on factor analysis of questionnaires and multivariate analysis of the relationship between questionnaire scale scores and background variables such as age, gender, educational qualifications, workload and hearing status) may be relatively unfamiliar to readers of Open Learning. What is perhaps more familiar is that such an analysis adds to similar conclusions about the centrality of the tutorial role in ODL students' learning from very different kinds of study (such as of the relationship between tutorial attendance and student performance). There is a growing body of evidence that the same variables are involved in student perceptions of courses and of academic quality in distance learning contexts as in conventional contexts.     

The relationship of value orientations,self-control,frequency of school–leisure conflicts,and life-balance in adolescence

The aim of this self-report study is to analyze proposed interrelations between value orientations, self-control, frequency of school–leisure conflicts, and life-balance in adolescence. Life-balance is defined as satisfying time investment in different life areas. The tested model posits that self-control is negatively related to conflict frequency and that the latter is negatively related to life-balance. Achievement and well-being value orientations, in turn, should be connected to the degree of self-control and the frequency of goal conflicts. In the study, 817 German 8th-graders with a mean age of 13.4 years participated. Results from structural equation modeling supported the proposed model. The results suggest that fostering self-control can be a promising approach to decrease the frequency of goal conflicts, and thus increase students' experience of life-balance.     

Impact of social and dimensional comparisons on student's mathematical and English subject-interest at the beginning of secondary school

Recent studies have analyzed social and dimensional comparisons simultaneously in order to consider their impact on students' academic self-concept (e.g., Chiu, 2012). Thereby, social comparisons refer to comparisons with the achievement level of students' classmates, whereas dimensional comparisons comprise comparisons between students' individual achievements across different domains. This paper analyzes whether both achievement comparisons influence students' subject-interest in mathematics and English (as a first foreign language). The analyses are based on N = 1390 German fifth and sixth grade students who participated in the BiKS-8-14 longitudinal study. Using multi-level analyses, results indicate that students' competences influence their mathematical and English subject-interests, demonstrating the typical pattern of social and dimensional comparisons. Further, analyses reveal mediation effects by subject-specific grades and self-concepts. These findings also apply for the development of students' subject-interest from grade 5 to grade 6. Results are discussed with respect to their implications concerning theories of achievement comparisons and interest development.     

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.     

The role of teachers' instrumental and emotional support in students' academic buoyancy,engagement, and academic skills: A study of high school and elementary school students in different national contexts

In this investigation of high school students (N = 2510) in Singapore (Study 1) and elementary school students (N = 119) in Australia (Study 2), we examined the role of instrumental and emotional forms of teacher support in students' academic buoyancy and academic outcomes (engagement and academic skills). In both studies, perceived instrumental support (but not perceived emotional support) was positively associated with academic buoyancy (moderate effect size in Study 1, large effect in Study 2). In Study 1, academic buoyancy was positively associated with students' academic engagement (specifically, effort and persistence [large effect], perceived importance of school [moderate effect], and feelings of school belonging [moderate effect]). In Study 2 academic buoyancy was positively associated with gains in students' academic skills and engagement (specifically, class participation [large effect] and future aspirations [large effect]). In both studies, there was tentative support for a mediating role of academic buoyancy linking students' perceived teacher support to academic outcomes.     

Academic dishonesty and its relations to peer cheating and culture: A meta-analysis of the perceived peer cheating effect

Academic cheating is a worldwide problem, which is exacerbated by perceived peer cheating. The present review of the literature quantitatively examined this perceived peer cheating effect. This meta-analysis included studies reporting correlations between students' own cheating and their perception of cheating in peers. The sample consisted of 43 effect sizes (38 studies) based on a total sample size of 24,181 demographically diverse participants from multiple countries (65% female) from papers published from 1941 to 2021. Results showed a perceived peer cheating effect of intermediate effect size (r = 0.37, 95% CI = 0.35 to 0.39), and that perceived peer cheating is among one of the strongest factors known to be associated with students' academic cheating. Moderator analyses using country level measures revealed this effect to be stronger in cultures that are high in power distance, collectivism, long-term orientation, restraint, and low in uncertainty avoidance and religiosity. The present findings indicate that the behavior of peers plays an important role in students’ academic cheating, suggesting that effective strategies to promote academic integrity will need to consider peer influences as well as the culture in which students are socialized.     

Kindergarten Children's Executive Functions Predict Their Second-Grade Academic Achievement and Behavior

Whether and to what extent kindergarten children's executive functions (EF) constitute promising targets of early intervention is currently unclear. This study examined whether kindergarten children's EF predicted their second-grade academic achievement and behavior. This was done using (a) a longitudinal and nationally representative sample (N = 8,920, M_age = 97.6 months), (b) multiple measures of EF, academic achievement, and behavior, and (c) extensive statistical control including for domain-specific and domain-general lagged dependent variables. All three measures of EF—working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control—positively and significantly predicted reading, mathematics, and science achievement. In addition, inhibitory control negatively predicted both externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors. Children's EF constitute promising targets of experimentally evaluated interventions for increasing academic and behavioral functioning.     

Academic self-efficacy and academic self-concept: Reconsidering structural relationships

The current study investigates (1) whether academic (e.g. math) self-efficacy and academic self-concept represent two conceptually and empirically distinct psychological constructs when studied within the same domain, (2) the nature of the relationship existing between both self-constructs, (3) their antecedents, and (4) their mediating and predictive qualities for background variables such as gender and prior knowledge and outcome variables such as math performance, math interest, and math anxiety. Results indicate that (1) math self-efficacy and math self-concept do indeed represent conceptually and empirically different constructs, even when studied within the same domain, (2) students' academic self-concept strongly influences their academic self-efficacy beliefs, (3) academic self-concept is a better predictor (and mediator) for affective–motivational variables, while academic self-efficacy is the better predictor (and mediator) for academic achievement. These findings underpin the conceptual and empirical differences between both self-constructs as suggested by Bong and Skaalvik [Bong, M., &; Skaalvik, E.M. (2003). Academic self-concept and self-efficacy: How different are they really?. Educational Psychology Review, 15, 1–40.].     

A systematic literature review of K-12 environmental Citizen Science (CS) initiatives: Unveiling the CS pedagogical and participatory aspects contributing to students’ environmental citizenship

Environmental Citizen Science (CS) initiatives have been largely embraced in K-12 education, as they are often hypothesized to improve students' knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviours to act as “environmental citizens” according to the notion of Environmental Citizenship (EC). However, the potential of environmental CS initiatives to promote Education for Environmental Citizenship (EEC) has not been systematically explored. At the same time, environmental CS initiatives for educational purposes are highly heterogenous and learning is enacted in diverse ways, according to the participatory and the pedagogical components underpinning each initiative. To address the complexity of the field, this review study adopts the PRISMA methodology to synthesize thirty-four empirical studies (n = 34) retrieved from a systematic review of the literature covering the last two decades (2000–2020). The reviewed environmental CS initiatives were subjected to a content analysis to identify their impact on students' EC (e.g., EC competences, actions, outcomes), as well as to unveil the CS initiatives' constitutional components in terms of (a) Participation (e.g., types of students' contributions, level of data collection, frequency of students' participation, modes of student engagement, forms of students’ involvement), and (b) Pedagogy (e.g., learning goals, educational contexts, learning mechanisms, EEC pedagogy). Our analysis shed light to the three territories (Participation, Pedagogy, Environmental Citizenship) underpinning the reviewed CS initiatives as well as to their interrelations. We reflect on these findings, and we provide directions for future research to guide the development of more successful environmental CS initiatives in K-12 education, serving as a vehicle for EC.     

大类培养模式下大学生专业学习热情变化的发生机制——基于情感社会学视角的个案研究

大学生的专业学习热情不仅关乎个人发展,也关乎各行各业专业人才供给数量和质量。以某“双一流”建设高校工科平台本科生小鑫的专业学习热情变化故事为切入点,结合情感社会学视角和16位大类平台本科生的访谈资料,探究大类培养背景下大学生专业学习热情变化的发生机制。研究发现：大学生的专业学习热情受到其学习期望与体验一致性的直接驱动;自我核心认知与情感是影响学生期望和学习情境定义的内在动力;学习情境是激发学生学习期望和学习情境定义的外部因素;防御机制的激活状态进一步影响学生的专业学习热情。未来,可重点从重视生涯发展与规划教育、优化专业分流及配套方案、建立学生学习情绪台账等方面激发大学生专业学习热情。     

Developmental changes in students' use of dimensional comparisons to form ability self-concepts in math and verbal domains

Dimensional comparisons (i.e., comparing own performances across domains) may drive an increasing differentiation in students' math and verbal self-concepts over time, but little longitudinal research has directly tested this assumption. Using cross-sequential data spanning Grades 1–12 (N = 1069, ages 6–18, 92% White, 2% Black, 51% female, collected 1987–1996), this study charted age-related changes in the role of dimensional comparisons in students' ability self-concept formation. It used three types of self-concept measures: peer comparisons, cross-domain comparisons, and no comparisons. Results indicated that the increase in students' use of dimensional comparisons in self-evaluations substantially contributed to the increasing differentiation in students' math and verbal self-concepts over time. Findings highlight the importance of dimensional comparisons in the development of students' ability self-concepts.     

Approaches to studying and perceptions of academic quality in electronically delivered courses

The Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) and a short form of the Approaches to Studying Inventory (ASI) were administered to students who were taking electronically delivered courses in computer science. The constituent structure of the CEQ was preserved in this distinctive context, and a second-order factor analysis confirmed its role as an index of perceived academic quality. The students' scores on the individual scales of the CEQ and the ASI shared nearly two-thirds of their variance. In short, approaches to studying in electronically delivered courses are strongly associated with students' perceptions of the academic quality of those courses.