Growth goal setting in high school: A large-scale study of perceived instructional support, personal background attributes, and engagement outcomes.
The present investigation examined the role of teachers’ instructional support (student reports of relevance, organization and clarity, feedback-feedforward) in predicting students’ growth goal setting and, in turn, the roles of instructional support and growth goal setting in predicting students’ academic engagement (perseverance, aspirations, school attendance, homework behavior). Also examined was the question of whether the relationship between students’ background attributes and engagement is moderated by their growth goal setting (e.g., whether growth goal setting attenuates negative effects of low socioecono...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - June 28, 2021 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Relations of epistemic beliefs with motivation, achievement, and aspirations in science: Generalizability across 72 societies.
The proliferation of information and divergent viewpoints in the 21st century requires an educated citizenry with the ability to critically evaluate information and make informed decisions. To meet this demand, adaptive epistemic understandings and beliefs about the nature of knowledge are needed, such as believing that scientific knowledge is evolving (development of knowledge) and needs to be justified through experimentation (justification of knowledge). Our study is the first to use nationally representative samples from 72 countries/regions (PISA 2015 database; N = 514,119 students) to examine how scientific epistemic...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - June 24, 2021 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Absolute standing feedback is more influential than relative standing feedback.
There is limited and inconsistent evidence on whether absolute or relative standing feedback is more influential. Three experiments were conducted to compare the effects of absolute and relative standing feedback on self-evaluative and affective responses. College students completed math tests in a lab setting. They were randomly assigned to one of four feedback conditions resulting from a 2 (Absolute Score: high vs. low) × 2 (Relative Percentile: high vs. low) between-subjects design. The results showed strong and consistent effects of absolute feedback on satisfaction with performance and affect, despite the varied magn...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - June 24, 2021 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Longitudinal associations between spontaneous number focusing tendencies, numerical abilities, and mathematics achievement in 4- to 7-year-olds.
This longitudinal cross-lagged panel study investigated the development of the structure of young children’s spontaneous number focusing tendencies and their longitudinal associations with numerical abilities and mathematics achievement over the course of a 3-year period, that is, in the second and third year of kindergarten and in first grade of primary school in Flanders (Belgium). Participants included 177 children (50% boys) with a mean age of 4.35 years at the start of the study. Each school year, children completed measures of their spontaneous focusing on Arabic number symbols (SFONS), spontaneous focusing on nume...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - June 24, 2021 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Promoting positive attitudes toward peers with disabilities: The role of information and imagined contact.
This prepost test experimental study examined the effectiveness of an intervention providing information about peers with sensory disability, intellectual disability, and behavioral difficulties (cognitive intervention), an intervention using imagined contact with peers with these disabilities (behavioral intervention), and an intervention combining information with imagined contact, against a no-intervention control condition. One hundred and forty-two typically developing children were randomly assigned to 1 of the 4 conditions. Measures of attitudes, stereotypes, and feelings toward and intentions to engage in contact w...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - May 27, 2021 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Helping preschoolers learn math: The impact of emphasizing the patterns in objects and numbers.
Preschoolers’ repeating patterning knowledge is predictive of their concurrent and later math and numeracy knowledge, but strong experimental evidence is needed to determine if these relations are causal. The purpose of the current study was to examine the causal effects of repeating patterning and numeracy tutoring on repeating patterning, numeracy, and general mathematics knowledge in the year before kindergarten (i.e., pre-K). Children in pre-K (N = 211) were randomly assigned to receive five sessions of researcher-delivered tutoring (a) on repeating patterns and numeracy or (b) on numeracy (and literacy as an active ...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - May 3, 2021 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Burning passion, burning out: The passionate school principal, burnout, job satisfaction, and extending the dualistic model of passion.
We describe how future studies of longitudinal passion can be integrated into the broader job demands-resources model. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: Journal of Educational Psychology)
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - April 26, 2021 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Development of early childhood teachers’ knowledge and emotions in mathematics during transition from teacher training to practice.
The present study investigated the development of n = 129 early childhood teachers’ mathematics content knowledge, mathematics pedagogical content knowledge, mathematics anxiety, and enjoyment of mathematics over 4 years from teacher training to practice. Latent autoregressive models with cross-lagged effects were applied. Scalar measurement invariance of the model also allowed analyses of intraindividual change of knowledge and emotions. Results indicate a decline of mathematics anxiety, an increase of enjoyment and mathematics content knowledge and mathematics pedagogical content knowledge, and medium (emotions) to str...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - April 26, 2021 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Using machine learning to predict children’s reading comprehension from linguistic features extracted from speech and writing.
Advances in machine learning (ML) are poised to contribute to our understanding of the linguistic processes associated with successful reading comprehension, which is a critical aspect of children’s educational success. We used ML techniques to investigate and compare associations between children’s reading comprehension and 260 linguistic features extracted from their speech and writing. Language samples were gathered from 99 linguistically diverse children in grades 4–6 using Talk2Me, Jr., an online language and literacy assessment platform. Lexical and syntactic features were extracted via a consolidated natural l...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - April 26, 2021 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Engaging caregivers and children in picture books: A family-implemented mathematical language intervention.
The goal of this study was to evaluate immediate and delayed effects of a caregiver-implemented picture book intervention to support children’s mathematical language and numeracy skills. Eighty-four 3- to 5-year-olds (Mage = 4.14) were randomly assigned to intervention (n = 40) or active control (n = 44) conditions. Participants in the intervention condition received three researcher-designed picture books with embedded mathematical language content. The active control group received similar books without mathematical language content. All families were asked to read each book a total of four times over 4 weeks (a total ...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - April 15, 2021 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Does motivation predict changes in academic achievement beyond intelligence and personality? A multitheoretical perspective.
While bivariate associations between motivation and academic achievement have been soundly established, only a few studies have documented evidence for its incremental predictive role above and beyond other student features related to student achievement, such as intelligence and personality. Moreover, it is not yet clear which motivational processes are most essential for academic achievement. The current study considered how an array of motivational processes related to academic achievement, controlling for intelligence and personality, in a large sample of Flemish seventh graders. Students’ intelligence and need for c...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - March 18, 2021 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
From Here to There! A dynamic algebraic notation system improves understanding of equivalence in middle-school students.
Understanding equivalence is fundamental to STEM disciplines, yet misunderstandings and misconceptions inhibit students from fully appreciating or leveraging the concept. Using the game-based algebraic notation system, From Here to There! (FH2T), students explore ideas of equivalence by dynamically transforming expressions or equations among mathematically equivalent states. In the fall of 2019, 475 middle-school students participated in a randomized control trial where they worked in either FH2T or online problem sets with hints and feedback in ASSISTments over four 30-min sessions during their math class. We found that (...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - February 22, 2021 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
The “big fish” from the teacher’s perspective: A closer look at reference group effects on teacher judgments.
Teacher judgments impact on students’ academic development, yet studies have revealed only modest judgment accuracy. Identifying biases hampering judgment accuracy is crucial. The present study scrutinized one such bias, namely reference group effects on teacher judgments (i.e., systematic relations between class-average ability and teacher judgments of individual students’ abilities). The study investigated both direction and size of reference group effects on teacher ratings of students’ reading comprehension, mathematical ability, and cognitive ability; grades in German (mother tongue) and math; and tracking recom...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - February 18, 2021 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Expecting to teach affects learning during study of expository texts.
Past research has suggested that there may be benefits in learning from expository science text when students study with the expectation that they will need to teach another student. The present experiments were designed to extend prior work by testing whether an effect would be seen on both immediate tests (similar to those used in most prior studies) as well as delayed tests (which are important for demonstrating long-term learning of material). The experiments also tested whether an effect would be seen when learning outcomes were measured using questions testing memory for the text and questions testing comprehension f...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - February 15, 2021 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Examining high-school students' motivation change through a person-centered approach.
Students’ academic motivation is malleable in nature and can change over time. Variable-centered research can detect general changes in motivational variables. Recent studies have shown that learning behaviors are driven by a combination of motivations, resulting in distinct motivational profiles. Person-centered studies can detect nuanced changes in students’ motivation profile memberships. Examining the nature of profile shifts could be the key to support long-term development of academic motivation. The purpose of this study was to investigate how high-school students’ academic motivational profiles changed across...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - February 11, 2021 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
