A Statistical Study of a New Type of Objective Examination Question

ABSTRACT

The author attempted to examine how Taiwanese junior high school students’ perfectionistic tendencies and achievement goals were related to their academic burnout versus work engagement, and to determine differences in the indicators of burnout versus engagement among students with different subtypes of perfectionism. A total of 456 eighth-grade Taiwanese students completed a self-reported survey assessing their perfectionistic tendencies, achievement goals, academic burnout, and work engagement. Results of this study indicated that perfectionism along with achievement goals emerged as statistically significant predictors of Taiwanese students’ burnout and work engagement. Additionally, the quality of adolescents’ engagement varied as a function of perfectionistic tendencies. Adaptive perfectionists displayed the healthiest pattern of engagement in schoolwork. Implications for educational practices and future research are discussed.     

The effect of tertiary teachers’ goal orientations for teaching on their commitment: the mediating role of teacher engagement

This study explored the effect of tertiary teachers’ goal orientations for teaching on their commitment, with a particular focus on the mediating role of teacher engagement. The results of a survey of 597 Chinese tertiary teachers indicated that teacher commitment was positively predicted by ability approach, mastery and relational goals, but was negatively predicted by work avoidance goals. Ability avoidance goals positively predicted teacher commitment to institution and to students, but negatively predicted teacher commitment to profession. Moreover, teacher engagement mediated the effect of ability approach, mastery and work avoidance goals on teacher commitment. The mediation effect of teacher engagement between teachers’ ability avoidance and relational goals and teacher commitment was not significant. The results of this study have implications for understanding the nature of teachers’ psychological state and attitudes towards teaching and for the enhancement of teacher commitment.     

Motivational Climates,Achievement Goals,and Physical Education Outcomes: A Longitudinal Test of Achievement Goal Theory

The present research tested the longitudinal relations over a school‐year between motivational climates, achievement goals, and five physical education outcomes, namely intrinsic motivation, perceived competence, positive attitude, exertion, and attendance in physical education. The results showed that students’ mastery goals measured early in the school‐year (Time 1) predicted all five physical education outcomes one year later (Time 2), controlling for physical education outcomes at Time 1. Two structural equation change models of climates and goals were also tested: (1) change in mastery climate predicted positively change in mastery goals, which positively predicted physical education outcomes after one year; and (2) distinct performance climate sub‐factors, namely changes in normative praise and negative emotional tune, predicted positive changes in performance‐approach, and performance‐avoidance goals, respectively. In turn, change in performance‐approach goals predicted positively, and change in performance‐avoidance goals predicted negatively, the PE outcomes after one year.     

Expanding the Nomological Network of Work Avoidance: Antecedents and Consequences Across Contexts

Abstract

Work avoidance, or the goal to reduce effort in an achievement context, is related to disengagement and may offer insight into disengaged students and employees. To shed light on this issue, we investigated the antecedents of work avoidance in academic and work contexts to distinguish it from mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals. Two samples of employed college students (N?=?207, N?=?233) completed questionnaires about their jobs and in one sample about their introductory psychology class. Across both contexts, proposed antecedents of alienation, low need for achievement, and perceiving one’s competence needs as not being met predicted work avoidance. Work avoidance also accounted for additional variance when combined with achievement goals to predict citizenship behaviors, perceiving work/classwork as meaningless and wanting to leave/quit.     

The role of motivation between perceived teacher support and student engagement in science class

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to investigate the relationships among the middle school students’ perceptions of science teacher support, students’ motivation and students’ engagement in learning science. Student motivation was addressed with task value and academic self-concept while student engagement included aspects of agentic, behavioural, emotional and cognitive engagement. In the study, survey method was used and the data were collected though previously validated self-report questionnaires. Valid data were obtained from 1006 middle school students enrolled in one of the nine public schools in Turkey. The path analysis revealed that perceived science teacher’s support positively predicted students’ task value and academic self-concept in science. Furthermore, students who reported high levels of task value and academic self-concept showed higher levels of engagement in science. Accordingly, it seems important for science teachers to listen to the students, behave fairly and help them to solve their problems in order to motivate them for learning science and increase their engagement in science class.     

Achievement Goals and Persistence Across Tasks: The Roles of Failure and Success

The focus of this study is on the role of achievement goals in students’ persistence. The authors administered 5 puzzles to 96 college students: 4 unsolvable and 1 relatively easy (acting as a hope probe). They examined whether and how persistence may deteriorate as a function of failing the puzzles, as well as whether and how persistence may rebound after an event of success. Time spent engaging in the task comprised the dependent variable persistence (representing a behavioral aspect of engagement). Results suggested that mastery-oriented students persisted significantly longer compared with performance approach–oriented, performance avoidance–oriented, and amotivated students across failure trials. However, performance approach–oriented students were more likely to rebound after experiencing success. Qualitative data provided insights into the affective processes that accompanied engagement with the task.     

Teachers and students' divergent perceptions of student engagement: recognition of school or workplace goals

In extant research, the concept of student engagement refers to individual behavioural patterns and traits. Recent research indicates that engagement not only should be related to the individual but also should be anchored in the social context. This ethnographic field study of students and teachers in a Danish vocational education and training school responds to the need for more knowledge on this theme by exploring the social dynamics of engagement perceptions. Results show that teachers and students held diverging perceptions of student engagement that rested on educational goals as well as goals related to the perceived future work settings. The misrecognition of the students' perception of engagement had direct negative consequences for student performance and school attachment. The implications of the findings are discussed in detail.     

Making the connection: The role of social and academic school experiences in students' emotional engagement with school in post-secondary vocational education

This study examines the emotional engagement with school of a diverse sample of 909 students in post-secondary vocational education in the Netherlands. Using multilevel regression analysis, we assess the role of students' background characteristics and school experiences, and their interaction, in students' emotional engagement with school. At-risk students do not report lower levels of emotional engagement, except for students using (soft)drugs. While Dutch dropout prevention focuses on fostering a sense of belonging through enhancing teacher–student relationships, we do not find a significant role of perceived support from school staff in students' sense of belonging. A good relationship with classmates is more important to engage students in post-secondary vocational education. Perceiving an academic fit is most prominently related to the emotional engagement of vocational students, indicating that a sense of belonging should not only be defined in social, but also in academic terms.     

Personal best (PB) and ‘classic’ achievement goals in the Chinese context: their role in predicting academic motivation,engagement and buoyancy

Prior research has shown personal best (PB) goals to be significantly related to students’ motivation, engagement and achievement. However, research thus far has investigated PB goals only among Western samples and it is unclear to what extent PB goals hold academic merit in the Asian context. It is also unclear whether PB goals explain variance in motivation and engagement beyond that explained by ‘classic’ performance, mastery and avoidance goals. With a sample of 3753 middle school students in China, the present study showed that mastery and PB goals explained the bulk of variance in motivation, engagement and academic buoyancy outcomes. It therefore appears that the effects of PB and ‘classic’ goals derived in Western contexts generalise to the Chinese context. Further, although correlated, mastery and PB goals explain unique variance in distinct academic outcomes such that mastery goals appear more salient in mapping onto motivation factors while PB goals appear more salient in mapping onto engagement and buoyancy factors.     

Students’ achievement goals,emotion perception ability and affect and performance in the classroom: a multilevel examination

Performance at school is affected not only by students’ achievement goals but also by emotional exchanges among classmates and their teacher. In this study, we investigated relationships between students’ achievement goals and emotion perception ability and class affect and performance. Participants were 949 Greek adolescent students in 49 classes and their Greek language and mathematics teachers. Results from multilevel analyses indicated that students’ mastery-approach and performance-approach goals were positively related to positive affect whereas performance-avoidance goals were negatively related to positive affect. At class-level, relationships between achievement goals and affect were moderated by students’ emotion perception ability. These findings highlight the importance of emotion abilities and their role in motivational processes for class-level outcomes.     

Formative Evaluation of Eccomi Pronto [‘Here I Am Ready’]: a School Counselor-Led,Research-Based,Preventative Curriculum For Italian Primary Schools

Eccomi Pronto is a school counselor-led, story-based curriculum that is designed to promote simultaneously the development of early elementary school students’ self-direction, active engagement in school, and pre-literacy skill development. This article reports the results of the first evaluation of a large-scale implementation of Eccomi Pronto in Italian elementary schools. The evaluation employed a mixed methods approach involving qualitative analyses of interviews and observations supported by quantitative analyses of student self-reports and teacher ratings (with a single group pre-test post-test design). Observations and interviews with parents and teachers suggested that Eccomi Pronto was associated with a number of improvements in students’ academic behavior, including engagement, involvement, reading interest, reading comprehension, work conscientiousness, inquisitiveness, and social support of classmates. Quantitative findings confirmed these qualitative findings, indicating that implementation of the curriculum was associated with improvements in classroom climate and student engagement. Limitations of the evaluation are discussed along with suggestions for necessary follow-up assessments.     

Implicit theories of intelligence,goal orientation,cognitive engagement,and achievement: A test of Dweck’s model with returning to school adults

This study tested and extended Dweck’s social-cognitive theory of motivation with adults who deliberately chose to face the challenge of returning to school. We examined the relationships among beliefs (implicit theories) on the nature of intelligence, goal orientation, cognitive engagement in learning, and achievement using path analyses. Findings were generally consistent with Dweck’s theoretical predictions. Striving for competence improvement (mastery goals) had a positive impact on learning activities and outcomes, while striving to demonstrate competence (performance goals) or to avoid effort (work avoidance) had a negative influence on learning and achievement. Additionally, data suggested that mastery goals had a positive influence on academic achievement through the mediation of effort expenditure. The predicted effects of implicit theories of intelligence on goal orientation and cognitive engagement in learning, however, failed to emerge. Results are discussed in relation to their general theoretical implications and with regard to the specific characteristics of returning to school adults.     

The work avoidance goal construct: Examining its structure,antecedents, and consequences

Work avoidance goals have been relatively neglected in the literature with most research focusing on mastery and performance goals. The central aim of this study was to examine the structure, antecedents, and consequences of the work avoidance goal construct. Four studies were conducted. Study 1 investigated the construct validity of work avoidance, while Study 2 focused on its antecedents. Using a longitudinal panel design, Study 3 examined the impact of work avoidance—alongside mastery and performance goals—on engagement and achievement, while Study 4 explored its relationship to broader well-being outcomes. Results showed that work avoidance was distinct from mastery and performance goals. Entity theory of intelligence positively predicted work avoidance goal pursuit, while teacher and peer support buffered against it. Pursuing work avoidance goals was found to be associated with less engagement, lower grades, and greater negative affect. The impact of work avoidance on achievement and well-being outcomes seem to be more salient compared to the oft-examined mastery and performance goals. Implications are discussed.     

The role of personal best (PB) and dichotomous achievement goals in students’ academic motivation and engagement: a longitudinal investigation

This study assessed the role of prior personal best goals in predicting subsequent academic motivation and engagement. A total of 1160 high school students participated in a longitudinal survey study exploring the extent to which personal best and mastery and performance (dichotomous) achievement goals predict students’ academic motivation and engagement across the course of a full academic year. Findings showed that personal best goals predicted higher motivation and engagement a year later. Along with personal best goals, mastery goals also predicted higher motivation and engagement, while the role of performance goals was either neutral or negative. These findings provide support for the contention that personal best goals are associated with higher motivation and engagement across time.     

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

Abstract

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

Adolescents' daily sense of school connectedness and academic engagement: Intensive longitudinal mediation study of student differences by remote,hybrid, and in-person learning modality

In spring 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic thrust nearly 56 million students in the United States into remote education. By fall 2020, states' and school districts' differing public health measures resulted in the adoption of varying COVID-adapted learning modalities (i.e., in-person, remote, and hybrid). Using daily diary data with a nationally representative sample (N = 517, M_age = 14.65 years), we investigated whether adolescents' academic engagement and connectedness to their teachers and classmates differed by COVID-adapted learning modalities. We also assessed whether adolescent connectedness mediated the link between learning modality and academic engagement. Results revealed that academic engagement and connectedness to teachers and classmates were higher for in-person learners than for students in hybrid and remote learning modalities. Moreover, students’ connectedness to classmates and teachers explained the relationship between learning modality and academic engagement.     

Growth goals and growth mindset from a methodological-synergistic perspective: lessons learned from a quantitative correlational research program

This review explores predictors and consequences of students’ growth goals and growth mindset in school with particular emphasis on how correlational statistical methods can be applied to illuminate key issues and implications. Study 1 used cross-sectional data and employed structural equation modelling (SEM) to investigate the role of growth goals in mediating the link between interpersonal relationships and academic engagement. Study 2 conducted multi-group path analysis to investigate the role of growth goals in the academic outcomes of two groups of students (ADHD and non-ADHD). Study 3 used longitudinal data and SEM to test a cross-lagged panel design to investigate reciprocal links between growth goals and growth mindset. Study 4 conducted multi-level SEM where the effects of a growth orientation on engagement and achievement were investigated at the student-level (level 1) and the classroom-level (level 2). Taking these four studies together, we aim to show how correlational data and multivariate correlational analyses have been effective in answering research questions in a way that have practical and theoretical implications for students’ academic growth. We also position this review as a substantive-methodological synergy – an approach recently recommended in response to concerns about the increasing polarization of substantive and methodological research and researchers.     

‘Becoming co-operative’ – challenges and insights: repositioning school engagement as a collective endeavour

ABSTRACT

This article explores how a school’s decision to become co-operative affects its engagement relationships with students and parents. The findings stem from a wider study exploring approaches to engagement in a recently converted co-operative academy, a large secondary school in a northern English city. The article surfaces the possibilities and tensions that occur as the school seeks to reposition itself in the English education marketplace, with a co-operative model that explicitly sets out to promote mutualisation, not privatisation; ‘we’ rather than ‘me’. The process of becoming co-operative is examined by exploring the underlying purposes of the school’s engagement with students and parents and the relationships that emerge as a result. The study surfaces the issues faced as a co-operative school seeks to enact thicker, ‘collective forms’ of democratic engagement against a backdrop of English education policy based on individualistic notions of democracy as freedom of choice. The findings point to the need for a different policy understanding of school engagement, an understanding that suggests engagement is about the process of developing more equitable, collaborative relationships with stakeholders and rests on the repositioning of students, parents and community members – from ‘choosers’ and ‘consumers’ to a collective public in education.     

The emergence of leadership in students’ group interaction in a school-based makerspace

This case study is an examination of the emergence of leadership in students’ group interaction in a school-based makerspace. The data comprised video records of 20 primary school students’ group work within this context, encompassing student-driven creative engagement in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) learning activities. Interaction analysis was applied to analyze the students’ leadership moves and to depict how students’ leadership was related to their collaboration. The analysis resulted in a typology of students’ leadership moves in a makerspace context, namely, coordination of joint work, exploring new ideas, seeking out resources,

and offering guidance and supporting others, adding to the existing literature on student leadership and collaboration in novel learning environments. The study also illustrates how the students’ leadership moves in group interactions can lead to dominating and/or shared leadership, with consequences for students’ collaboration. The study points to the importance of more research and development of pedagogical practices that support students’ symmetric participation and opportunities to lead collaborative work and to promote advanced collaboration in school-based makerspaces.

     

Restructuring,Teacher Engagement and School Culture: Perspectives on School Reform and the Improvement of Teacher's Work 1

ABSTRACT

Recent educational policy reports in the U.S. have called for significant changes in teachers’ work to increase their effectiveness. The paper examines the relationship between the restructuring strategies in two comprehensive high schools and teachers’ engagement, which is defined as a multi‐dimensional construct. In one school, the restructuring strategies focused on creating a supportive climate for students, and in empowering students and teachers; in the other, emphasis was on developing professional skills of the faculty and strengthening group cohesiveness. The implications of the strategies for teacher engagement are illustrated with case study data. The discussion points to several conclusions: (1) the effects of restructuring are more bounded than is often assumed; (2) a quality of work life framework drawn from the social scientific literatures is useful for analyzing the effects of reform policies on teachers’ work; (3) teachers make trade‐offs between different types of engagement in order to increase their work satisfaction; and (4) restructuring has potential for increasing teachers’ engagement in schools with mixed socio‐economic and racial populations.