Thriving, catching up, falling behind: Immigrant and refugee children’s kindergarten competencies and later academic achievement.
Immigrant and refugee children and adolescents form a growing socially, culturally, and economically diverse group with the potential for wide-ranging adaptation outcomes. The goal of the study was to examine whether developmental competencies (social-emotional and academic) and sociodemographic disparities (e.g., SES and migration class) identified in kindergarten forecast the academic achievement trajectories of first- and second-generation immigrant and refugee children, from childhood to adolescence. The study used a retrospective, longitudinal, population-based design by making use of linked, individual-level administ...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - October 22, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Achievement emotions and academic achievement: Reciprocal relations and the moderating influence of academic buoyancy.
In this study we examined reciprocal relations between three achievement emotions (enjoyment, boredom, and anxiety) and test performance in the context of mathematics, and whether academic buoyancy moderated relations between these emotions and test performance. Data were collected from 1,242 primary school students (mean age = 9.3 years) over 4 waves within 1 school year. Achievement emotions (T₁ and T₃) and test performance (T₂ and T₄) were measured alternately. Academic buoyancy was measured at T₃. A structural equation model showed negative relations of anxiety to subsequent test performance and negative rela...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - October 8, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
A growth mindset lowers perceived cognitive load and improves learning: Integrating motivation to cognitive load.
Many large-scale, school-based interventions have attempted to improve academic performance through promoting students’ growth mindset, defined as the belief that one’s intellectual ability can increase with practice and time. However, most have shown weak to no effects. Thus, it is important to examine how growth mindset might affect retention and transfer of learning, as well as process-related variables such as cognitive load. In a double-blind, randomized controlled experiment based on 138 secondary school students, the effects of an experimentally induced growth mindset belief were examined during a learning phase...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - October 8, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Numerical magnitude understanding in kindergartners: A specific and sensitive predictor of later mathematical difficulties?
This study investigates whether different measures of numerical magnitude understanding in kindergarten uniquely predict mathematical achievement concurrently and 6 months later, and also examines the relative explanatory of each aspect of magnitude understanding. It also examines the utility of such tasks as sensitive and specific predictors of children at risk of mathematical learning difficulties. Kindergartners (N = 215, M age = 74 months) were administered a number-line estimation task, a nonsymbolic numerical discrimination task, and a nonsymbolic to word mapping task. Multiple measures of math achievement were admin...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - October 8, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Comparing the efficacy of early arithmetic instruction based on a learning trajectory and teaching-to-a-target.
Although basing instruction on a learning trajectory (LT) is often recommended, there is little evidence regarding a premise of a LT approach—that to be maximally meaningful, engaging, and effective, instruction is best presented 1 LT level beyond a child’s present level of thinking. We evaluated this hypothesis using an empirically validated LT for early arithmetic with 291 kindergartners from four schools in a Mountain West state. Students randomly assigned to the LT condition received one-on-one instruction 1 level above their present level of thinking. Students in the counterfactual condition received 1-on-1 target...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - October 1, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Lift-the-flap features in “first words” picture books impede word learning in 2-year-olds.
This study tested how lift-the-flap features in a commercial picture book of first words affected 2-year-olds’ (N = 32) learning of a new word for an unfamiliar food. Sixteen children saw the original lift-the-flap book, which depicted photos, and 16 saw the same book except that it was modified to have no flaps. The researcher went through the book with the child, labeling each fruit and vegetable six times. All children were unfamiliar with starfruit and were taught that it was called “carambola.” After they saw the book, children’s learning was tested by asking them to choose the target (i.e., “Show me carambo...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - October 1, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
A learning method for all: The testing effect is independent of cognitive ability.
The testing effect, defined as the positive effect of retrieval practice (i.e., self-testing) on long-term memory retention relative to other ways to support learning, is a robust empirical phenomenon. Despite substantial scientific evidence for the testing effect, less is known about its effectiveness in relation to individual differences in cognitive ability. In the present study, we examine whether the effect of retrieval practice is beneficial independent of cognitive ability using behavioral and brain imaging data. In a within-subject design, upper-secondary students learned Swahili–Swedish word pairs through retrie...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - September 28, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Gender differences in early literacy: Boys’ response to formal instruction.
Research consistently documents that girls outperform boys in literacy achievement, yet, when considering the starting point—early literacy—we do not have consensus on the origin, meaningful nature, or persistence of such differences. In this two-part study analyzing 5,816 Norwegian students (48.1% girls, average age of 6.1 years), we first considered the presence and meaningful nature of gender differences at school entry. Presence of differences, advantaging girls, was found in letter-recognition, phonemic awareness, word reading accuracy, and spelling. We found no differences in vocabulary performance. However, wide...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - September 28, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
"Teacher self-efficacy and burnout: Determining the directions of prediction through an autoregressive cross-lagged panel model": Correction to Kim and Burić (2019).
Reports an error in "Teacher self-efficacy and burnout: Determining the directions of prediction through an autoregressive cross-lagged panel model" by Lisa E. Kim and Irena Burić (Journal of Educational Psychology, Advanced Online Publication, Oct 10, 2019, np). In the original article, one of the studies discussed (Praetorius et al., 2017), was incorrectly interpreted. The longitudinal study findings from Praetorius et al (2017) challenged the assumption that TSE may be an antecedent construct. When teachers’ stable inter-individual differences were taken into account, there were no significant cross-lagged effects fr...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - September 24, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Differential patterns of growth in reading and math skills during elementary school.
This study investigated developmental trajectories of reading and math using latent-growth-curve analyses across multiple academic skills, measures, and multiple time periods within a single sample. Reading-related growth was marked by significant individual differences during the early elementary-school period and nonsignificant individual differences during the late elementary-school period. For math-related skills, nonsignificant individual differences were present for early math growth and significant individual differences were present in late elementary-school. No clear pattern of cumulative, compensatory, or stable ...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - September 17, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Mathematics self-schema, motivation, and subject choice intention: A multiphase investigation.
What motivates high school students to persist with challenging mathematics? The current investigation examined this important question using the concept of mathematics self-schema, that is, students’ cognitive generalizations of their selves in learning mathematics. Mathematics self-schemas are important sources of motivation. It was hypothesized that students who hold contrasting mathematics self-schemas would learn challenging mathematics and formulate their subject choice intention differently. Study 1 surveyed 373 Year 10 Australian students and classified them into 3 schematic groups based on their survey responses...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - September 10, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Scaling up an extracurricular science intervention for elementary school students: It works, and girls benefit more from it than boys.
In this study, we analyzed the effects of a recently developed science intervention program aimed at fostering the understanding of science as well as the motivation of elementary school–aged boys and girls. In prior research, this 10-lesson science course was evaluated with efficacy and effectiveness studies, both of which attested to the positive effects of the program. In this study, we examined the impact of this intervention program after it had been scaled up in educational practice as a continuous element of a STEM enrichment program. In this preregistered trial, we applied a multisite cluster randomized controlle...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - September 10, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
The impacts of a brief middle-school self-affirmation intervention help propel African American and Latino students through high school.
Stereotype threat has been shown to have deleterious impacts on the short- and long-term academic performance and psychological well-being of racial and ethnic minority students. Psychological variables related to this identity threat represent significant sources of achievement and attainment gaps relative to nonstereotyped Asian and white students who do not tend to be subject to performance declines related to such threats. In the current study, we investigate long-term effects of a brief self-affirmation intervention implemented at-scale to mitigate stereotype threat for seventh-grade African American and Latino studen...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - September 10, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
The role of STEM professors’ mindset beliefs on students’ anticipated psychological experiences and course interest.
Two decades of research consistently demonstrates that students’ beliefs about the malleability of intelligence (also known as “mindsets”) influence their motivation and academic outcomes. The current work provides a novel extension to this literature by examining how STEM professors’ mindset beliefs can influence students’—and particularly female students’—anticipated psychological experiences and interest in those professors’ courses. In 3 experiments, college students evaluated STEM courses taught by professors who espoused either fixed or growth mindset beliefs. Students’ anticipated psychological e...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - September 3, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
The reciprocal 2I/E model: An investigation of mutual relations between achievement and self-concept levels and changes in the math and verbal domain across three countries.
Two longitudinal extensions of the classic internal/external frame of reference model (I/EM) have attracted researchers’ attention in recent years: The reciprocal I/EM (RI/EM) describes the reciprocal effects between students’ math and verbal achievements and self-concepts. The 2I/EM describes the effects of students’ math and verbal achievement levels and changes on their math and verbal self-concepts. The present research integrates these 2 approaches into the reciprocal 2I/EM (R2I/EM), which describes the effects of students’ math and verbal achievement levels and changes on their math and verbal self-concepts a...
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology - August 27, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
