Enhancing student motivation and engagement: The effects of a multidimensional intervention

The present study sought to investigate the effects of a multidimensional educational intervention on high school students’ motivation and engagement. The intervention incorporated: (a) multidimensional targets of motivation and engagement, (b) empirically derived intervention methodology, (c) research-based risk and protective factors, (d) established practices that nurture optimal youth development, (e) use of interpersonally skilled staff, and (f) evidence-based programming. Using a pre-/post-treatment/control group design, it was found that the self-complete intervention brought about significant shifts in motivation and engagement. Specifically, findings showed that the treatment group made positive motivation shifts on key dimensions including task management, persistence, anxiety, failure avoidance, and uncertain control. Moreover, against a large weighted external comparison group, the treatment group made positive shifts on valuing, mastery orientation, planning, task management, persistence, failure avoidance, uncertain control, and self-handicapping. Taken together, these findings attest to the potential for multidimensional educational interventions for enhancing students’ motivation and engagement.     

数字化学习中的学习者参与：联结学习动机与学习绩效——访俄亥俄州立大学知名学者谢魁教授

在数字化学习领域,如何设计、开发和整合能够提升学生学习动机并促进学生参与的创新技术以提高学习绩效,一直是学术界关注的热点问题。数字化学习环境中的学习者参与作为联结学习动机和学习绩效的桥梁与纽带,由行为参与、认知参与、情感参与、社会性参与四个维度构成。学习者参与能提高学习绩效,但是学习者的社会性参与也可能引起社会性冲突,需要通过社会性冲突演化模型来进行干预和化解。数字化学习动机研究涉及的关键变量包括兴趣、价值感、自治感、胜任感和关系感。研究证实,内部动机和外部动机对学习者参与均具有显著影响。开展数字化学习中学习者参与研究可以引入多种跨学科研究方法,其中经验取样法是一种有效的学习者参与数据采集方法,该方法有助于即时、准确地捕捉参与者的真实体验和感受。未来数字化环境下的学习者参与研究可以从三个方面深化：一是探查数字化学习参与的具体机制,二是设计提高学习者参与度的有效策略,三是寻求研究方法的创新和突破。     

Students’ adaptability in mathematics: Examining self-reports and teachers’ reports and links with engagement and achievement outcomes

Adaptability refers to the capacity to adjust one’s thoughts, behaviors, and emotions in order to manage changing, new, or uncertain demands. Although preliminary research has highlighted its relevance for positive student outcomes, there remain several important empirical questions to be examined. In particular, research on adaptability has used domain-general measures (i.e., not tied to a particular domain such as a school subject) and has focused only on self-reports of adaptability (not, for example, reports by significant others). The aim of the current study was to advance knowledge of adaptability by addressing these gaps. We examined students’ domain-specific adaptability in mathematics as reported by students themselves and by their mathematics teachers (n = 371). We examined the extent to which the two reports of mathematics adaptability are associated with students’ mathematics engagement, mathematics achievement, and literacy achievement (the latter a test of discriminant validity). Well-known covariates were included as controls (e.g., gender, prior achievement). Results revealed that student-reported adaptability predicted students’ mathematics engagement. Moreover, student-reported and teacher-reported adaptability uniquely predicted mathematics achievement. In terms of discriminant validity, (mathematics-based) student and teacher reports of adaptability were not associated with students’ literacy achievement. Together, findings advance knowledge of the adaptability construct, including providing preliminary evidence of domain-specificity and the complementary nature of self- and teacher-reports for assessing adaptability. Implications for practice are discussed.     

Job characteristics and teacher well-being: the mediation of teacher self-monitoring and teacher self-efficacy

Teacher well-being is a critical factor affecting job performance and thus, significant for enhancing quality teaching. Based on the job demands-resources model, this study examines the mediating effects of teachers’ self-monitoring and self-efficacy on the relationships between the emotional job demands of teaching and trust in colleagues and teacher well-being. A questionnaire was administered to 1115 primary school teachers in Hong Kong. The results highlight the maladaptive role of self-monitoring as a personal demand and the adaptive role of self-efficacy as a personal resource: self-monitoring is positively related to anxiety and depression; self-efficacy is positively related to enthusiasm and contentment and negatively related to anxiety and depression. The results not only support the beneficial role of trust in colleagues, which is positively associated with teacher self-efficacy and well-being, but also reveal the rewarding side of emotional job demands in enhancing teacher self-efficacy. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed.     

绩效评价与一流大学教师的成长

大学教师绩效评价是组织基于一定的评价标准对教师工作绩效进行价值判断的过程,教师个体与相关组织根据评价结果做出反馈,实现双方互动。根据工作需求—资源理论,绩效评价是大学组织向教师个体提出的任务需求,具有诊断性、鉴定性、导向性、调控性和激励性等功能。但在教育实践中,评价指标体系本身的合理性及教师对它的理解都可能与评价的初衷出现背离,从而影响评价实施的效果。因此需要在充分认识教师劳动本质的前提下,重视指标体系的科学化建设,释放评价指标体系的多重功能,真正深化一流大学评价改革。     

Teachers’ classroom management self-efficacy,perceived classroom management and teaching contexts from beginning until mid-career

Teacher self-efficacy for classroom management is an important component of teachers' identity with implications for their teaching quality. Theoretically, it has been described that contextual variables play an important role for self-efficacy development and its consequences. However, little is known about the interrelationships of job resources and demands with teacher self-efficacy, and consequences for teachers' professional behaviors. We extend teacher self-efficacy research by drawing on the Job Demands-Resources model in examining contextual influences on developmental dynamics between classroom management self-efficacy and teacher-reported classroom management, from prior to qualifying as a teacher until mid-career. Participants were 395 primary and secondary Australian school teachers. Longitudinal structural equation models showed teachers’ classroom management self-efficacy positively related to aspects of their perceived classroom management, particularly during early career. Between early and mid-career, the positive relationship between self-efficacy and classroom management was moderated by early career excessive demands. Implications are outlined for teacher education and school administration.     

Teaching in the Yukon: Exploring teachers’ efficacy beliefs,stress, and job satisfaction in a remote setting

This article presents a mixed methods examination of teachers’ job beliefs in the Yukon Territory in northern Canada. In Study 1 we used questionnaires to examine job beliefs for 221 teachers from the Yukon and western Canada. Teachers’ self- and collective efficacy and workload stress were lower for Yukon teachers, but levels of overall stress and satisfaction were similar across settings. In Study 2 we conducted interviews to examine how geographical, community, and cultural factors were related to Yukon teachers’ job beliefs. Results showed that job stress and job satisfaction were influenced by physical and human geography, level of connection with the community, and by the community's cultural transitions. The findings highlight the influence of cultural and community factors on teachers’ working lives.     

Researchers’ achievement goals: Prevalence,structure, and associations with job burnout/engagement and professional learning

Researchers’ motivations are important for high-quality research and the productivity of the scientific system, but remain largely uninvestigated. Using three studies, we tested the usefulness of Achievement Goal Theory (AGT) for describing research motivations, investigated which goals researchers pursue, and examined their associations with job burnout/engagement and professional learning. Interviewing 20 researchers (Study 1), we found that most of their goals in the research context were classifiable as achievement goals. Apart from mastery and performance goals that are well-established in the AGT literature, they also mentioned relational and work-avoidance goals. Mastery goals comprised task and learning standards, performance goals comprised appearance and normative strivings. In Study 2, we used a standardized questionnaire to assess these goals in 824 researchers, along with burnout/engagement, professional learning time, and professional learning gains. Results confirmed the separability of all conceptualized goals, measurement invariance across academic status, and differential patterns of associations with burnout/engagement and professional learning. In Study 3, we analyzed these constructs in 471 researchers at two time points, six months apart. Results attested measurement invariance over time. Cross-lagged analyses documented similar associations as in Study 2. Learning approach and relational goals had positive effects on professional learning; appearance avoidance and work-avoidance goals were negative predictors. In contrast, burnout was negatively predicted by normative avoidance goals. However, high initial burnout levels were associated with reduced task approach and learning approach, and stronger work-avoidance goals six months later. Taken together, the results highlight the usefulness of AGT for understanding researchers’ motivations, and their relatedness with professional learning and well-being at work.     

How domain specific is motivation and engagement across school,sport, and music? A substantive–methodological synergy assessing young sportspeople and musicians

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the domain specificity (or otherwise) of motivation and engagement across academic, sport, and music domains using a survey-based methodology with parallel forms of the Motivation and Engagement Scale. The secondary purpose of the study was a methodological one seeking to test the most appropriate analytical means of assessing domain specificity. The sample comprised 329 young sportspeople (62% of total sample; 53% male; mean age 14 years) and classical musicians (38% of total sample; 40% male; mean age 14 years) in which target academic, sporting, and music domains are salient. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) led to the conclusion of modest domain specificity in motivation and engagement. This conclusion was based on fit indices for competing models, the size of parallel between-domain correlations, the proportion of shared variance between parallel domains, the number of within-domain correlations that were higher than parallel between-domain correlations, the decline in model fit when parallel correlations were constrained to be equal, and differences between parallel means. Notwithstanding this, constructs that were more trait-like evinced relatively less specificity. In terms of the secondary, methodological purpose, the study found that CFAs that correlated parallel uniquenesses resolved biased parameters found in raw scale score correlations that did not correct for unreliability and CFAs that did not correlate parallel uniquenesses. Together, findings hold implications for more targeted intervention, guidance for appropriate analysis in parallel domains using parallel measures, and more differentiated approaches to measurement.     

“Wearing a mask” vs. connecting identity with learning

Contemporary insights regarding identity emphasize its situated, negotiated nature (i.e., identity is shaped by – and shapes in response – the contexts in which it is formed;  and ) Recent work also suggests that this identity/context intersection holds powerful implications regarding engagement in learning (Brophy, 2008). This pair of qualitative studies drew from contemporary models connecting learning with identity (Study 1: cultural modeling, Lee, 2007 and third-space/hybrid-identities, Gutiérrez, 2008; Study 2: Kids’ business inquiry projects, Fairbanks, 2000) to explore the nature and impact of such connections among disaffected ninth-grade English students at a high-needs school. Results demonstrate evidence of: (1) a significant connection between identity and learning; (2) students’ negotiation of engaged patterns of participation; (3) the relevance of student voice to this process; and (4) the impact of connections between identity and learning on students’ participation in, and affective response to, learning.     

UNICEF’s lessons learned from the education response to the COVID-19 crisis and reflections on the implications for education policy

COVID-19 triggered mass innovation that grew flexible learning modalities and pathways that can be built upon in future sector plans to make education systems more resilient. These tools must be paired with investments in the people expected to use them and strengthened data systems. To ensure plans are rooted in ever-pressurised budgets, Education Ministers will increasingly need to turn to economic analysis. Expansion of partnerships will be necessary to secure greater and more innovative forms of finance but also affordable digital learning solutions. If these opportunities are seized alongside the disruption wrought by the pandemic, they can equalize opportunities and accelerate progress.