Relations between goals,self‐efficacy,critical thinking and deep processing strategies: a path analysis

Research exploring students’ academic learning has recently amalgamated different motivational theories within one conceptual framework. The inclusion of achievement goals, self‐efficacy, deep processing and critical thinking has been cited in a number of studies. This article discusses two empirical studies that examined these four theoretical orientations from both cross‐sectional (N = 279 participants) and longitudinal (N = 264 participants) perspectives. In particular, achievement goals are hypothesised to exert direct and indirect effects on academic performance via self‐efficacy, study processing strategies and critical thinking. Path analysis was used to test and analyse the hypothesised conceptual models. Results from SPSS 16 and LISREL 8.72 provided good support for the hypothesised structural relationships. Students’ academic performance outcomes, for example, are determined directly by deep processing and work‐avoidance goals. Results from Study 2 indicate mastery goals and self‐efficacy, mastery goals and critical thinking and deep processing and critical thinking operate in a reciprocal manner. In general, the evidence established from both studies contributes theoretically and methodologically.     

Self‐efficacy,school resources,job stressors and burnout among Spanish primary and secondary school teachers: a structural equation approach

This study examines the relationship between school resources, teacher self‐efficacy, potential multi‐level stressors and teacher burnout using structural equation modelling. The causal structure for primary and secondary school teachers was also examined. The sample was composed of 724 primary and secondary Spanish school teachers. The changes occurring in the Spanish teacher role in the last decade were taken into account to select job stressors. The results obtained revealed that external (school support resources) and internal (management classroom self‐efficacy and instructional self‐efficacy) coping resources have a negative and significant effect on job stressors. In turn, job stressors have a positive and significant effect on teachers’ burnout considering it as both a unidimensional and multidimensional construct. Furthermore, the hypothesised structure of burnout dimensions revealed that emotional exhaustion plays a key role in explaining Spanish school teachers’ burnout. Practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

A combined social action, mixed methods approach to vocational guidance efficacy research

This article proposes a social action, mixed methods approach to verifying the efficacy of vocational guidance programs. Research strategies are discussed in the context of how the processes and purposes of efficacy research have been conceptualized and studied in vocational psychology. Examples of how to implement this approach in future efficacy research are provided.     

高校国防教育在大学生素质教育中的功效

高校国防教育是大学生素质教育的重要组成部分,具有其他教育形式不可替代的作用,在大学生中开展国防教育有利于提高大学生的国防意识、集体主义观念、组织纪律性、身心素质和科学文化素养,是培养和造就高素质人才的重要途径。     

Gender,self‐efficacy and achievement among South African Technology teacher trainees

This article considers the relationship between gender and self‐efficacy in teacher trainees engaged in an electricity‐related design and construction task. Quantitative data (examination scores, task assessment, and questionnaire) and qualitative data (interviews and written student reflections) were collected. There is a gender bias in student teachers entering the University with more male than female students having done Science to grade 12 level. In addition, the continuing differential in standards of education in South African schools necessitated distinguishing those who had attended educationally advantaged from those who had attended educationally disadvantaged schools. In the examination, a test of theoretical knowledge, male students in each group outperformed female students. This we explain in terms of school background, gender responses from family members who regarded Science as a male domain, and the resulting lower self‐efficacy of female students. However, female students achieved as well as male students in the design and construction task. We argue that although males had better self‐efficacy levels than females at the outset, the hands‐on, individual nature of a task in a domain usually constructed as male led to female students developing increased levels of self‐efficacy, which ensured task performance matching that of the more knowledgeable male students.     

Motivational influences on school‐prompted interest

Some argue that the goal of education is to influence out‐of‐school learning activity, yet little research exists on how teachers can help students develop an interest in a topic and continue to pursue that interest outside of school. The current study tested classroom context variables from self‐determination theory (teachers’ autonomy support) and from achievement goal theory (teachers’ mastery goals) that may predict students’ school‐prompted interest above and beyond students’ mastery goals and self‐efficacy. Survey data were collected from 178 high school students in 15 mathematics classes. Hierarchical multiple regression revealed that students’ perceptions of a teacher who focuses on mastery goals account for little variance above and beyond students’ own motivation, whereas perceived teachers’ autonomy support emerged as a significant predictor. While the results are correlational and do not support causal claims, they suggest that teachers who support student autonomy might foster school‐prompted interest.     

Reciprocal peer coaching and its use as a formative assessment strategy for first‐year students

Co‐operative learning is underused as a teaching and learning strategy in higher education and yet is ideal for courses that require students to learn skills that require manual dexterity, knowledge and clinical reasoning – key elements of professional and clinical competence. Reciprocal peer coaching (RPC) is a form of co‐operative or peer‐assisted learning that encourages individual students in small groups to coach each other in turn so that the outcome of the process is a more rounded understanding and a more skilful execution of the task in hand than if the student was learning in isolation. Used as a formative assessment strategy, RPC has the capacity to increase motivation in students due to the nature of the shared interdependent goal, and to provide immediate feedback to students on completion of the assessment. The purpose of this research was to interview a group of first‐year students to elicit their perceptions of the RPC process. The data were analysed from a phenomenological perspective and revealed three themes: motivating learning, learning in groups and the context of learning. The findings were subsequently explored in relation to the concept of self‐regulation of learning and the benefits which RPC as a formative assessment strategy has in promoting students’ self‐regulation.     

Teacher self-efficacy and teacher burnout: A study of relations

The purpose of this study was partly to test the factor structure of a recently developed Norwegian scale for measuring teacher self-efficacy and partly to explore relations between teachers' perception of the school context, teacher self-efficacy, collective teacher efficacy, teacher burnout, teacher job satisfaction, and teachers' beliefs that factors external to teaching puts limitations to what they can accomplish. Participants were 2249 Norwegian teachers in elementary school and middle school. The data were analyzed by means of structural equation modelling using the AMOS 7 program. Teacher self-efficacy, collective efficacy and two dimensions of burnout were differently related both to school context variables and to teacher job satisfaction.     

Coaching efficacy research: learning from the past and looking to the future

Coaching efficacy (CE) represents the extent to which coaches believe they have the capacity to affect the learning and performance of their athletes, and the CE model details antecedents, dimensions and outcomes of CE. Based around the CE model, the present paper had two main aims. First, to present a comprehensive and critical review of the research underpinned by the CE model. Studies were categorised by whether they investigated antecedents, outcomes or athletes’ perceptions of their coach. Twenty-one published studies were identified for the review. Overall the review provides support for the main tenets of the CE model, with researchers establishing links between CE and many of the antecedents and outcomes proposed in the model. The second aim was to assimilate findings from the review, limitations in the CE model and relevant conceptual models to present a revised CE model. Whilst retaining the essence of the original model, the revised model also incorporates explicit processes linking coach beliefs and athlete perceptions, antecedents of athlete perceptions and an intrarelationship source of CE. It also incorporates specific categories of coach behaviour and athlete-/team-level outcomes. The paper concludes by identifying limitations in the literature and review, and by proposing key directions for future research.     

班杜拉社会学习理论述评

班杜拉的社会学习理论摈弃了传统行为主义对环境的依赖,指出人的更普遍、更有效的学习方式是观察学习,强调了人的认知因素在学习过程中的重要作用,认为行为、认知及环境三者之间构成了动态的交叉互动关系,重视人的自我调节和自我效能感。