The AEQ-S: A short version of the Achievement Emotions Questionnaire

The Achievement Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ) is a well-established instrument for measuring achievement emotions in educational research and beyond. Its popularity rests on the coverage of the component structure of various achievement emotions across different academic settings. However, this broad conceptual scope requires the administration of 6 to 12 items per scale (Mdn = 10), which limits the applicability of the AEQ in empirical studies that necessitate brief administration times. We therefore developed the AEQ-S, a short version of the AEQ, with only 4 items per scale that nevertheless maintain the conceptual scope of the instrument. We validated the AEQ-S based on a reanalysis of Pekrun, Goetz, Frenzel, Barchfeld, and Perry's (2011) dataset (N = 389 university students) and by administering them to a new and independent validation sample (N = 471 university students). Despite their brevity, the AEQ-S scales achieved satisfactory reliability and correlated substantially with the original AEQ scales. Moreover, structural relationships and intercorrelations between the scales and their relations with external measures of antecedents and outcomes of achievement emotions were highly similar for the AEQ-S and AEQ scales. These findings suggest that the AEQ-S is a suitable substitute for the AEQ when administration time is limited.     

Measuring emotions in students’ learning and performance: The Achievement Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ)

Aside from test anxiety scales, measurement instruments assessing students’ achievement emotions are largely lacking. This article reports on the construction, reliability, internal validity, and external validity of the Achievement Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ) which is designed to assess various achievement emotions experienced by students in academic settings. The instrument contains 24 scales measuring enjoyment, hope, pride, relief, anger, anxiety, shame, hopelessness, and boredom during class, while studying, and when taking tests and exams. Scale construction used a rational-empirical strategy based on Pekrun’s (2006) control-value theory of achievement emotions and prior exploratory research. The instrument was tested in a study using a sample of university students (N = 389). Findings indicate that the scales are reliable, internally valid as demonstrated by confirmatory factor analysis, and externally valid in terms of relationships with students’ control-value appraisals, learning, and academic performance. The results provide further support for the control-value theory and help to elucidate the structure and role of emotions in educational settings. Directions for future research and implications for educational practice are discussed.     

Exploring Achievement Emotions in Physical Education: The Potential for the Control-Value Theory of Achievement Emotions

ABSTRACT

Emotions experienced in educational settings link to students’ motivation, engagement, learning, and achievement. Despite meaningful interconnections between emotions, motivation, and desired outcomes, a dearth of research on student emotions in physical education (PE) currently exists. The Control-Value Theory of Achievement Emotions (CVTAE) highlights the importance of emotions within students’ achievement motivation and provides a comprehensive framework for investigating their antecedents and outcomes. The purpose of this investigation was to explore CVTAE as a potential framework to understand students’ achievement emotions in PE. We focus on emotional antecedents associated with the PE learning context and the role of emotions in facilitating desired PE outcomes.     

Expectancy-value appraisals and achievement emotions in an online learning environment: Within- and between-person relationships

Motivation and emotion are of critical importance for students' academic learning and achievement. Drawing on Eccles and Wigfield's situated expectancy-value theory and Pekrun's control-value theory, we examined to what extent specific expectancy-value appraisals related to studentsʼ achievement emotions. We collected intensive state data of N = 95 university students over one semester in an online learning environment. Students' appraisals were analyzed on different aggregation levels in a hierarchical design, which accounts for variability within learning situations and between students. Our results corroborated theoretical assumptions that expectancy-value appraisals are positively associated with positive emotions and negatively with negative emotions. However, we found that students experienced positive emotions in learning situations of high intrinsic and utility value, but not in situations of high attainment value. Examining appraisal combinations and discrete emotions, we found that particularly studentsʼ perceived costs moderated the relationship between expectancy and frustration and boredom on the situation level.     

Emotions in the history of Latin American popular education: constructions for a thinking-feeling pedagogy

The purpose of this paper is to identify the presence of emotions in the constitution of popular education in Latin America, thus contributing to understand popular education as a thinking-feeling practice. It starts from the assumption that emotions are also historical and cultural expressions that mark societies and their understanding of education. In the chronicles of Guaman Poma de Ayala, one can see signs of the resistance to the conquest and of the ambivalence that characterizes coloniality; in Juana Inés de la Cruz, one hears the voice of a woman who breaks the silence; in Paulo Freire, lovingness and indignation are constitutive elements of his liberating pedagogy. In history, some emotions, such as honour, lose their strength or have their meaning changed; others, such as solidarity and insurgency, appear as possibilities of transformation in new times. The study attempts to contribute to the understanding of the complex relation between rationality and emotions in education.     

Chinese Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (trial) (CECERS): A validity study

The Chinese Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (trial) (CECERS) is a new instrument for measuring early childhood program quality in the Chinese socio-cultural contexts, based on substantial adaptation from the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised Edition (ECERS-R). This paper describes the development and validation process of CECERS. Empirical data were collected from a stratified random sample 178 classrooms, from which a random sample of 1012 children was measured for child development outcomes. Guided by the framework of broad conceptualization of validity and validation as advocated by Messick (1989), evidence in a variety of forms is presented and discussed, including content validity considerations (e.g., measuring socially and culturally relevant domains), measurement reliability considerations (e.g., internal consistency reliability, inter-rater reliability), and measurement validity considerations (concurrent validity, criterion-related validity, internal structure based on exploratory factor analysis). The empirical findings for CECERS compare very favorably with the validation outcomes of ECERS-R. The body of evidence accumulated in the validation process supports the use and interpretation of CECERS scores as quality indicators of early childhood education program in the Chinese social and cultural contexts. Limitations and future directions are also discussed.     

Self-regulated learning partially mediates the effect of self-regulated learning interventions on achievement in higher education: A meta-analysis

It is often assumed that interventions aimed at supporting students’ self-regulated learning (SRL) are effective for improving achievement because these interventions support SRL activity. In this study, meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM) was used to test whether SRL activity indeed mediates the effect of SRL interventions on achievement in higher education. Contrary to popular belief, the results only provide evidence for partial mediation. Furthermore, three separate meta-analyses were performed to investigate the role of possible moderators of the relations between: (1) SRL interventions and achievement, (2) SRL interventions and SRL activity, and (3) SRL activity and achievement. Although SRL interventions were effective in improving SRL activity and achievement, most of the study, measurement, and intervention moderators did not explain significant variance of the investigated effect sizes. Other factors, such as task motivation and time on task, potentially influence the effectiveness of SRL interventions. Practical, theoretical and methodological implications are provided.     

(Re)turning to practice in teacher education: embodied knowledge in learning to teach

Contemporary research conversations about the utility of practice theories to professional education support the reconceptualisation of pre-service teacher education in ways that provide strong preparation for continued professional learning. This paper reports on an empirical inquiry that introduced a theoretically informed practice-based intervention in a pre-service teacher education course in order to judge the utility of such an approach for student learning. Innovations within the Study of Teaching programme illustrate the bringing together of pedagogies of observation, pedagogies of enactment, and pedagogies of reflection toward an integrated theory of teacher education that focuses on the teaching body as a central site for research and for the building of preparatory knowledge and skill for ongoing learning. Data was collected from pre-service teachers involved in the programme through video and audio recordings along with individual and focus group interviews, questionnaires and student reflection on video recordings. These were analyzed within an emerging theoretical framework derived from both practice-theoretical literature and international empirical research into core practices. Initial findings suggest that a focus on practice within pre-service teacher education may enhance traditional understandings of ‘practice-based’ approaches that situate the study of practice outside of the university, in school settings. These findings have implications for the ongoing reform of teacher education in increasingly regulated contexts framed in terms of teacher quality.     

Effectiveness of lab-work learning environments in and out of school: A cluster randomized study

The issue of how to increase student motivation and achievement in science subjects is considered to be a major challenge in modern school systems. Lab-work learning environments in which students get direct (“hands-on”) experience with science content that is related to their everyday lives are posited to have positive effects on state/trait motivation and achievement, but there is a lack of sound empirical evidence to support this claim. In the present study, the effectiveness of a lab-work learning unit on the topic of “the chemistry of starch” was examined by applying a cluster randomized field study with three treatment conditions with lab-work elements and a control group. The first group was taught with lab-work elements in School only, the second group (SCOL & school) was taught in a combined condition encompassing both a SCOL (Science Center Outreach Lab) visit and classroom learning, the third group was taught entirely outside the school environment (SCOL only), and the fourth group was a wait-list control group, which was not exposed to a “starch” curriculum at the time of this study. Data from 1854 students were gathered in 67 ninth-grade classes on state motivation during the intervention and on trait motivation and achievement at pretest, posttest, and follow-up. Multilevel regression analyses revealed several differences between the lab-work conditions and the control group: Whereas the hands-on practical approach effectively enhanced state motivation with positive effects on joy, situational interest, situational competence, and reduced boredom in all three treatment conditions (School only, SCOL & school, and SCOL only), there were differences in trait effects: learning at school (School only and SCOL &school) increased achievement (posttest and follow-up), whereas the SCOL visit resulted in a small and spurious increase in trait motivation (reduced cost and increased competence beliefs only on the posttest).     

(Re) thinking Emotions in Visual Education Activities: Students' Experiences

This article focuses on the emotions of 13 and 14 year‐old students related to visual art education activities. Our aim is to understand the interference of the students' emotions with the processes of the creation and reception of their own pictures, as well as their characteristics in an art education context. The article adopts a Vygotskian theoretical perspective about emotion and aesthetic education that refers to the biopsychological nature of emotion and its cultural determination. The need to transform emotions in art activities is stressed and the teenagers' pictures are interpreted as a means of communication. The data collection was based on questionnaires and interviews with seventh and eighth grade secondary school students. It is concluded that students' emotions are not only present in the creative process and in its result, but also that they could have a significant positive or negative impact on students' motivation and achievement behaviour in art education classes. In this context, the students' pictures, acting as stimuli, may evoke their emotions.     

Crossing the ‘bridges’ and navigating the ‘learning gaps’: Chinese students learning across two systems in a transnational higher education programme

ABSTRACT

Chinese universities are actively pursuing cross-border collaborations in the form of transnational higher education programmes. Our study captures the experiences of Chinese students to illuminate how they navigate their learning journeys in a China-Australia articulation programme. To communicate the complexity of learning in modern transnational higher education programmes, we employed activity theory as the theoretical framework to explore cross-cultural contradictions shaping students’ experiences of learning. Assessment, programme rules, teaching strategies, and class and campus settings created contradictions that students had to negotiate as in-between learning spaces. We argue that cross-system contradictions play important roles in transnational higher education programmes. Therefore, instead of seeking to eliminate these contradictions or smooth cross-educational differences, these contradictions should be leveraged as learning opportunities to enrich transnational higher education programmes.     

Student performance in computing education: an empirical analysis of online learning in programming education environments

The benefits of using online exercises have been analysed in terms of distance learning, automatic assessment and self-regulated learning. In this study, we have not found a direct proportional relationship between student performance in the course exercises that use online technologies and the exam grades. We see that the average submission rate to these online exercises is not positively correlated with the exercise points. Yet, our results confirm that doing exercises along supports student learning and skill accumulation equipping them with the knowledge of programming. While the student performance in programming courses is affected by factors such as prior background in programming, cognitive skills and the quality of teaching, completing the course exercises via learning-by-doing is an indispensable part of teaching. Based on the student feedback from the course survey, the students are highly satisfied with using online technologies as part of learning.     

远程教育与终身教育和学习化社会--世界远程教育发展历史追溯和展望(5)

从精英教育到大众教育和普及教育;从成人教育到全民教育和继续教育;从终身教育、终身学习再到全民终身学习;从学习化社会到学习型组织等。这些教育思想的提出及相应教育实践的开拓,不仅适应了、信息时代和知识经济的到来,也为教育技术的应用、远程教育的持续发展奠定了思想理论基础。     

Peer and teacher influences on the motivational climate in physical education: A longitudinal perspective on achievement goal adoption

This study examined the temporal patterns and concurrent effects of teachers and peers on the motivational climate to student’s achievement goal adoption in the physical education (PE) classroom. On three occasions, over the course of one school year, 655 students in Years 7, 8, and 9 of a secondary school completed measures of approach-avoidance goal adoption, perceptions of the teacher-created motivational climate and perceptions of the peer-created motivational climate in PE. Measures were taken towards the end of each school term. Perceptions of a teacher mastery climate were found to decrease over the course of the school year, while perceptions of a peer performance climate increased. Multilevel analyses considered the intraindividual, interindividual and interclass levels and revealed that perceptions of both the teacher and peer climate influenced student achievement goal adoption over the course of the school year. The findings indicate that future research would benefit from incorporating peer as well as teacher influences on the motivational climate in order to understand the dynamics of student motivation in the PE classroom.     

Assessment of prior learning in higher education: a review from a validity perspective

The process of giving official acknowledgment to formal, informal and non‐formal prior learning is commonly labelled as assessment, accreditation or recognition of prior learning (APL), representing a practice that is expanding in higher education in many countries. This paper focuses specifically on the assessment part of APL, which undoubtedly is central to the whole process, through a review of research in this area and an analysis of the reviewed studies from a validity perspective. The research reviewed (published 1990–2007) is categorised into empirical as well as more theoretically oriented publications, with a quantitative dominance of the latter. According to the validity analysis, a majority of the studies conducted in this area relate to the evidential basis of test interpretation and use, primarily providing theoretical rationales and theories for a variety of practices. The consequential basis of test interpretation and use has not been studied to any larger extent, resulting in a lack of both theoretical and empirical studies dealing with this aspect of validity.     

Models and measures of learning outcomes for non-technical skills in simulation-based medical education: Findings from an integrated scoping review of research and content analysis of curricular learning objectives

Simulations are increasingly used to enhance ‘non-technical’ skills (NTS) in medical education but little is known about the effectiveness of many simulations. The field lacks robust outcome measures and there is lack of clarity about educationally relevant conceptual and operational dimensions of NTS to support instrument development and testing. Our study addresses this dual gap through a multi-component design focusing on three key NTS: interprofessional teamwork, communication and decision-making. A Scoping Review (ScR) was utilised to synthesise instruments used in recent publications on medical/clinical simulations targeting NTS. Full-text analysis identified a sub-set of robust instruments for further analysis. Systematic qualitative content analysis of learning objectives (LOs) in UK medical education curricula identified and synthesised the conceptual dimensions underlying NTS. Finally, identified measures’ dimensions were systematically compared with the dimensions of curricular LOs to establish the extent to which instruments used in current SBL-research address desired learning goals, and to identify relevant measures and gaps. The ScR identified 225 studies from 2018−20 of which 72 met the inclusion criteria. 31/72 studies referred to a named instrument in their abstract, including 27 unique instruments. The curriculum analysis identified a set of key conceptual dimensions of each of the target NTS. Finally, comparative analysis found that while the outcome measures used in the SBL-studies addressed many of the identified curricular LO-dimensions, there are significant gaps, notably relating to evidence use and inclusive practice. Moreover, it revealed there is little conceptual overlap between the instruments, highlighting the need for further research to ensure comparability of different studies. This study contributes to our understanding and evaluation of learning outcomes in, and our readiness to generate a rigorous evidence base for, NTS-focused SBL, by describing conceptual and operational constructs of NTS-learning outcomes in medical education and identifying appropriate validated assessment instruments to evaluate SBL.     

Examining professional learning and the preparation of professionally competent teachers in initial teacher education

The relative contributions of higher education and schools, and hence the conceptual and practical aspects of ITE, to student teachers’ professional learning have been an issue of concern in teacher education. This article reports a mixed-methods study showing the relationship between student teachers’ engagement with the practical and conceptual aspects of a Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) Programme in Hong Kong and different facets of their perceived professional competence. One hundred and thirty-two student teachers participated in the quantitative survey of whom seven were interviewed. The findings reveal that experiences associated with learning the pragmatic facets of professional practice were more valued by student teachers compared to learning the conceptual aspects of ITE. Yet, in terms of relationship with professional competence, student teachers’ engagement with the practical aspects of ITE was related to competence in classroom teaching, whereas their engagement with the conceptual aspects contributed to their mastery of professional knowledge, competence in classroom teaching and competence in interacting with stakeholders. The study illuminates the distinctive contributions of schools and higher education in ITE. While acknowledging the important role of schools in providing a setting for practical work, this study affirms the distinctive contribution of higher education in equipping student teachers with practical and conceptual tools in the preparation of professionally competent teachers.     

Recognition of prior learning (RPL) policy in Australian higher education: the dynamics of position-taking

The Bourdieuian concept of ‘position-taking’ is applied in this analysis of recognition of prior learning (RPL) policy and practice in Australian higher education. Data from institutional documents and participant interviews indicate that, within RPL policy, the universities selectively employ prevailing discourses of ‘quality’ and ‘equity’ to reinforce or potentially improve their reputation and symbolic power in the field of higher education. There is no common consensus about either equity or quality across the sector, as each university interprets the two concepts for its own benefit. The evidence suggests that, despite rhetoric in government policy implying that both are equally important, quality is a far stronger discourse and policy imperative than equity in RPL policy and practice. Also, RPL policies and practices provide an insight into how the key policy priorities of equity and quality are addressed by universities, when applied to a specific educational process or practice.     

Advantages of authentic assessment for improving the learning experience and employability skills of higher education students: A systematic literature review

This study is a systematic review of literature that investigates the advantages of implementing authentic assessment for improving two major categories that are relevant to academic and professional success of higher education students: learning experience and employability skills. Authentic assessment involves students in challenging tasks that closely resemble those of the workplace settings. 26 papers from 2010 to 2019 that were relevant to the topic of this paper were selected for the review process. Findings of this review indicate that authentic assessment can play a role in improving the learning experience of higher education students through enhancing their engagement in learning and improving their satisfaction as well as positively influencing their efforts to achieve educational goals. We also discuss the benefits of authentic assessment for equipping students with essential skills for their future professional life, such as communication skills, collaboration skills, critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, self-awareness, and self-confidence.     

Medical student attitudes to the autopsy and its utility in medical education: A brief qualitative study at one UK medical school

Attending postmortems enables students to learn anatomy and pathology within a clinical context, provides insights into effects of treatment and introduces the reality that patients die. Rates of clinical autopsies have declined and medical schools have cut obligatory autopsy sessions from their curricula making it difficult to assess medical student perceptions of, and attitudes towards, the educational value of autopsy. Our aim was to investigate these perceptions by designing a brief qualitative study comprising nominal technique and focus group discussions with Cambridge Graduate Course students, all of whom had attended autopsies. Three general themes emerged from the focus group discussions: the value of autopsy as a teaching tool and ways the experience could be improved, the initial impact of the mortuary and the autopsy itself, and the “emerging patient”—an emotional continuum running from cadaver to autopsy subject and living patient. Educational benefits of autopsy‐based teaching included greater understanding of anatomy and physiology, greater appreciation of the role of other health care professionals and an enhanced appreciation of psycho‐social aspects of medical practice. Students suggested improvements for ameliorating the difficult emotional consequences of attendance. We conclude that autopsy‐based teaching represents a low‐cost teaching technique which is highly valued by students and has application to many diverse medical specialties and skills. However, careful preparation and organization of sessions is required to maximize potential educational benefits and reduce any negative emotional impact. Anat Sci Educ 7: 87–96. © 2013 American Association of Anatomists.