Relations between impostor feelings and upward and downward identification and contrast among 10- to 12-year-old students

The first objective of this study was to examine the presence of the impostor phenomenon (IP) among 740 students aged 10 to 12 years old. The second objective was twofold: (1) to examine the link between the impostor feelings and the propensity to use social comparison and (2) to examine whether this feeling is related to the processes of identification with versus contrast to others who are either doing better or worse than oneself. Results showed that, although generally of low intensity, the impostor feelings are indeed present in late elementary school children. A positive link between the impostor feelings and the propensity to use social comparison was also observed. It also appeared that, more than for others, children who feel like impostors were likely to differentiate themselves from their more capable peers while identifying themselves with less capable peers. The discussion focuses on the presence of the IP in late elementary children and on how the upward contrast and the downward identification may contribute to its development and maintenance.     

Early stages in building hybrid activity between school and work: the case of PénArt

This formative intervention documents the emergence of a hybrid activity aiming at student engagement and academic achievement. In this context-bound study, early stages of this activity consisted in establishing PénArt meant to enable high school students with difficulties to start up their own business at school. It involved reaching agreements between a high school and a youth centre so that high school students engage in the production and selling of their branded t-shirt. At the frontiers of their respective activity system, students, youth workers, special education teachers and members of the school board took actions to cross boundaries and redefine their interrelations. Cultural historical activity theory was fruitful to document the development of a new object-oriented activity. Tensions and contradictions revelaled to be the key moments in the emergence of the hybrid activity. Expansive learning led us to understand that, in a conflicting situation, a collective’s agentive actions create an expansive form of learning and leads to a successful entrepreneurship experience. Change laboratory capacity to foster change for cooperative education in Quebec was successful. The students enrolled in a regional entrepreneurship contest and won it. That was a significant event for students with low self-esteem linked with their performance at school.     

Capacité cognitive,sentiment d’auto-efficacité et autorégulation

Feelings of self-efficacy have been the object of several studies that have confirmed its ability to predict performance in different contexts. Yet few studies have been conducted using cognitive or academic tasks in which it is more difficult to clearly distinguish self-efficacy from competence. The present study aims to study the moderating role of cognitive capacity in determining the relationship between self-efficacy and on-line self-regulation observed while solving a verbal concept formation task. In order to distinguish self-efficacy from competence, 44 subjects were selected based on the results of their SSPI; these results of which are related to comprehension ability. Analyses of results allow us to observe that, when compared to subjects who consider themselves less efficacious, subjects who have strong feelings of self-efficacy have a higher success rate, are more certain of these successes and reject fewer correct hypotheses, no matter what their cognitive ability. These results once again bring to light the relative independance of cognitive ability and motivational determinants of a person’s actual accomplishments.