Showing papers in "American Educational Research Journal in 1992"

Self-Motivation for Academic Attainment: The Role of Self-Efficacy Beliefs and Personal Goal Setting

Abstract: The causal role of students’ self-efficacy beliefs and academic goals in self-motivated academic attainment was studied using path analysis procedures. Parental goal setting and students’ self-efficacy and personal goals at the beginning of the semester served as predictors of students’ final course grades in social studies. In addition, their grades in a prior course in social studies were included in the analyses. A path model of four self-motivation variables and prior grades predicted students ‘final grades in social studies, R = .56. Students’ beliefs in their efficacy for self-regulated learning affected their perceived self-efficacy for academic achievement, which in turn influenced the academic goals they set for themselves and their final academic achievement. Students’ prior grades were predictive of their parents’ grade goals for them, which in turn were linked to the grade goals students set for themselves. These findings were interpreted in terms of the social cognitive theory of academic sel...

Qualitative Analysis as a Public Event: The Documentation of Category Development Procedures:

Abstract: Although the use of qualitative methods has increased greatly in popularity, many still question the defensibility of the qualitative orientation It is argued here that questions concerning the credibility and status of qualitative inquiry are related to the privatization of qualitative analysis The particular area of qualitative analysis I focus on is the process of category development It is my argument that qualitative researchers must make all aspects of their analysis open to public inspection In order to achieve this objective, I propose a two-dimensional model designed to facilitate the documentation of procedures used to generate categories The domain representing the first dimension specifies the various components or actions associated with the development of categories The second domain addresses the temporal aspects of category development The intersection of these two analytical domains forms a two-dimensional table that may be used to document the nature of the analytical actions empl

Personal History-Based Beliefs as Relevant Prior Knowledge in Course Work

Abstract: This study explores the relationship between the personal history-based beliefs preservice teachers brought to their study of teaching and the principles of reading, writing, and discussing to learn that one professor advocated. This analysis represents an effort to look closely at how preservice teachers use the knowledge they bring with them from their lives as students to make decisions while engaged in course work about the value of ideas they hear there. This study documents (a) the lay theories and beliefs that participants had developed out of their personal history-based experiences, (b) the decisions that participants made about the potential value of the principles of good instruction encountered as part of their course work, and (c) the relationship between their personal history-based beliefs and those decisions as explained by each preservice teacher.

Family and High School Experience Influences on the Postsecondary Educational Plans of Ninth-Grade Students

Abstract: The objectives of this study were to review the current literature on status attainment and student college choice and to develop and test a structural model of predisposition to attend college. Family and student background characteristics, parents’ educational expectations for students, level of student involvement in school, and student achievement were cited as influences on students’ predisposition toward postsecondary education and were the chief components of the model. Data from 2,497 ninth-grade students and their parents were used to test the model using LISREL. Parents’ expectations exerted the strongest influence throughout the model. Parents’ education, student gender, high school GPA, and high school experiences also contributed significantly in explaining students’ aspirations.

School Matters in the Mexican-American Home: Socializing Children to Education

Abstract: This study describes family interaction, depicting home socialization around education issues in six families in a California community. Departing from the deficit hypothesis applied to Mexican-American families, I assert that the strengths of the family, as portrayed in the tradition of social science theory, have important relevance to education. A close-range examination of the home interactional environment revealed three significant components leading to an understanding of the strengths of the family. These components were physical resources, emotional climate, and interpersonal interactions. Physical resources available to the parents extended beyond space, time, and disciplinary boundaries in the home. The parents’ social linkages outside the home served to facilitate an exchange of information about children’s schooling issues. Parents provided children with the emotional support that encouraged them to value education. The common thread with all parents was that they cared about their children’s...

Characteristics of Classroom Mathematics Traditions: An Interactional Analysis

Abstract: In this paper, we attempt to clarify what it means to teach mathematics for understanding and to learn mathematics with understanding. To this end, we present an interactional analysis of transcribed video recordings of two lessons that occurred in different elementary school classrooms. The lessons, which are representative of a much larger data corpus, were selected because both focus on place value numeration and involve the use of similar manipulative materials. The analysis draws on Much and Shewder’s (1978) identification of five qualitatively distinct types of classroom norms and pays particular attention to the mathematical explanations and justifications that occurred during the lessons. In one classroom, the teacher and students appeared consistently to constitute mathematics as the activity of following procedural instructions in the course of their moment by moment interactions. The analysis of the other classroom indicated that the teacher and students constituted mathematical truths as they ...

Individual Differences in the Effects of Educational Transitions on Young Adolescent’s Perceptions of Competence and Motivational Orientation:

Abstract: We conducted two studies to examine the effects of changing educational environments on children’s academic self-concepts and motivation. In the first study, we examined the effects of transitions to a new grade or a new school on children’s perceptions of their scholastic competence, their motivational orientation, and their anxiety and general affect about school performance. Four groups of children were examined longitudinally as they made the transition to a new grade, some changing schools and some remaining in the same school: (a) fifth to sixth grade, same school; (b) fifth to sixth grade, new school; (c) sixth to seventh grade, same school; and (d) sixth to seventh grade, new school. We hypothesized that many students would reevaluate their scholastic competence after a transition, given new social comparison groups and the possible increased emphasis on grades and competence evaluation in higher grades. Resultant changes in perceived competence, in turn, should impact motivational orientation, an...

Comparison of Self-Questioning, Summarizing, and Notetaking-Review as Strategies for Learning From Lectures

Abstract: Underprepared college students in three conditions viewed a lecture, took notes, and then engaged in their respective study strategies. Those trained in questioning generated (and answered) their own questions based on the lecture, those trained in summarizing wrote original summaries of the lecture, and those in an untrained control group simply reviewed their lecture notes. At immediate testing, summarizers recalled more of the lecture content than did self-questioners, who in turn outperformed notetaking-reviewers. On a retention test of lecture content one week later, the self-questioners performed somewhat better than the summarizers and significantly better than the notetaking-reviewers. Self questioners’ and summarizers’ lecture notes contained more ideas from the lecture than did those of the notetaking-review students. Use of these generative study strategies appears to enhance learning from lectures by improving encoding both during the lecture and following the lecture; and for long-term retent...

Teachers’ Work and the Politics of Reflection

Abstract: There has been a plethora of material written in recent times on reflective approaches to teaching and teacher education, but a dearth of material that looks behind these studies or asks why these reflective approaches are enjoying such popularity. This article tackles what has really become a major policy issue in the literature in four ways. First, it argues that the rhetoric of devolution and practitioner forms of knowledge may not be entirely altruistic and that such calls are occuring in contexts that display significant moves to bolster central control. Second, it proposes that this apparent contradiction is only explainable when we look at wider structural adjustments occurring in Western capitalist systems. Third, it argues that reflective practices, far from being emancipatory for teachers, entrap them within the New Right ideology of radical interventionism. Finally, the article concludes by describing what a more socially, culturally, and politically reflective approach to teaching might look like.

Participation and Withdrawal Among Fourth-Grade Pupils

Abstract: Pupil participation in elementary school classrooms is essential for learning to occur, while nonparticipation in early grades can initiate a cycle that culminates in total withdrawal—dropping out—in later years. This study explores the nature of participation and nonparticipation among fourth-grade students. A sample of 1388 youngsters was rated by their teachers on a questionnaire assessing nonparticipatory behavior, minimal adequate effort, and initiative-taking behavior. Based on the ratings, three groups were formed: active participants, passive participants, and nonparticipating students. The groups were compared on demographic characteristics, attendance, achievement, and self-concept for the the preceding 3 years. Participation groups were clearly distinct on the achievement measures since first grade, and they maintained those distinctions over time. It is concluded that youngsters who withdraw from participation in the classroom should be identified at the earliest possible time to attempt to av...

What Happens to Reforms That Last? The Case of the Junior High School

Abstract: This case study of the origins and development of junior high schools offers an answer to the question: What happens to reforms that get institutionalized? The history of junior high schools reveals that their design as a fundamental change in American schooling was, over time, downsized and revised to become a modest addition to the high school. A latter-day effort to correct the flaws of junior highs through the middle school movement shows little change over the original design. This shrinking of aspirations and adaptation of the reform to the existing social architecture of schooling as it survives is the major finding of this study. Explanations for this phenomenon are found in institutional theories of organizations.

Unraveling Teachers’ Beliefs About Grade Retention

Abstract: A multimethod approach was used to examine teachers’ beliefs about retention in grades K–7. Questionnaire responses indicated that teachers at all grade levels believe retention is an acceptable school practice that prevents students from facing daily failure and motivates them to work harder. Factors including academic performance, maturity, ability, gender, and age influence retention decisions, but the importance of factors differs among teachers. Teachers agreed that retention was not harmful in grades K–3, but they disagreed about the impact on students in grades 4–7. Teachers of grades 4–7 were less likely to retain students and less likely to agree about which characteristics warrant retention. Interviews suggested that teachers’ beliefs about their roles and responsibilities in student success were critical in retention decisions.

Learning to Teach Through Collaborative Conversation: A Feminist Approach

Abstract: As part of a longitudinal research project on learning to teach literacy and as a personal quest to make her work as a teacher educator more supportive, this researcher arranged an ongoing conversation for members of three cohorts of preservice and beginning elementary teachers. The conversation was prompted by an interest in beginning teachers’ critical responses to the personal support for learning to teach that they receive from their teacher education programs. From the social, collaborative, and nonevaluative conversations, personally and contextually relevant issues in learning to teach emerged, as did the processes of identifying and understanding them. The result was not only a clarification of important relational and political issues that seem prerequisite to issues of academic learning, but also the emergence of a feminist consciousness —in both teachers and researcher. The method of studying the group’s learning, then, became an example of feminist praxis: a willingness to risk and examine per...

Restructuring Urban Schools: The New Futures Experience

Abstract: The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s New Futures Initiative is an effort to increase the life chances of disadvantaged youth by promoting institutional change in the schools and other youth-serving agencies in several medium-sized communities. The research reported here was conducted over the first three years of the five-year initiative and focuses only on the educational portion of New Futures. The findings are not conclusions about the effectiveness of New Futures, but rather they offer a mid-point assessment of attempts at restructuring a set of targeted schools to better serve at-risk students. In general, it was found that educational initiatives have not yet stimulated the restructuring of these schools. For the most part, interventions were supplemental and left the basic activities and practices of schools unaltered. Little change could be found in the social relations between educators and students; curriculum and instruction left students unengaged in serious academic work; new roles for teachers an...

An Ethnographic Study of Cross-Cultural Communication With Puerto Rican-American Families in the Special Education System

Abstract: This article uses a subset of data from an ethnographic study to address the challenge of parent-professional interaction in a cross-cultural context. Participants in the study were 12 Spanish-speaking, Puerto Rican-American families from low-income backgrounds whose children were classified as learning disabled or mildly mentally retarded. Parents’ views and experiences were sought through a recursive process of ethnographic interviewing, review of students’ documents, and participant observation of parent-professional conferences and community events. The data revealed that inadequate provision of information regarding the meaning of various events, as well as the school district’s reliance upon formalized, written communication, led to mistrust and withdrawal on the part of parents. A habitual deference to authority, however, tended to disguise parents’ real opinions. The data also showed that changes being implemented in the school district were beginning to have a beneficial effect on parent-professi...

Teacher Under Construction: A Collaborative Case Study of Teacher Change:

Abstract: This article describes a 4-year longitudinal case study of changes in the teaching of reading and writing that were made by an elementary school teacher. The case study documents changes in her teaching beliefs and practices, and the influence of reflective thinking and collaboration promoted by a master’s program and research project. Atypical forms of writing are used in order to reflect the perspectives of both the teacher and the researcher and to represent the historical phases of their collaboration.

Storytelling, Imagination, and Fanciful Elaboration in Children’s Historical Reconstructions

Abstract: Interviews with fourth graders who had not yet received systematic instruction in United States history revealed that these students were interested in the past, concerned about human motives and cause-effect relationships, and able to construct coherent narrative (storytelling) accounts of historical events as they understood them. However, they lacked an experience-based framework for grounding and connecting their historical thinking, so that their accounts often mixed accurate information with naive conceptions and imaginative elaborations. This article provides examples of these historical accounts given by children at this beginning stage of learning about history and discusses them with reference to the work of Dickinson and Lee (1984) and Egan (1989). Also considered are issues involved in teaching history to elementary students and assessing their historical understandings. The discussion identifies both beneficial and problematic aspects of children’s reliance on imagination in constructing hist...

Constructive Activity in Learning From Text

Abstract: This study examined the constructive cognitive activity of children listening to text and assessed the contribution of this activity to learning. Informative statements were read to 109 children (in grades 1 to 6) who were asked to think aloud about each statement. Analysis of the protocols led to a scale identifying five levels of constructive activity, with three subtypes at each level. The five levels were prefactual confabulation, knowledge/detail retelling, assimilation, problem solving, and extrapolation. The three subtypes were declarative, interrogative, and evaluative responses. Measures of prior knowledge and new learning were also obtained. A path analysis suggested that the level of activity identified by the scale exerted a direct effect on learning and mediated the effects of age and prior knowledge on learning.

Immigrants’ Aspirations, High School Process, and Academic Outcomes

Abstract: Previous research on the high school achievement of Mexican Americans has documented substantial under achievement. However, recent immigrants appear to be achieving at a somewhat higher level. In a longitudinal study, we examined the school experience of talented immigrant students to identify the behavioral process by which they became successful. We found that family educational values had an important effect on achievement when these values translated into participation in a math/science enrichment program, which led to substantial gains on related ACT subtests. We also found that scores on ACT-Natural Sciences were strongly related to length of U. S. residence. Length of residence affected reading skills, and poor readers took fewer advanced science courses. The significance of “extra learning” to underachievers is discussed. We concluded that, although immigrant students achieved below their native-born counterparts prior to high school, their strategies for increasing learning during high school en...

Kindergarten Retention: Academic and Behavioral Outcomes Through the End of Second Grade:

Abstract: This study examined the impact of retention at kindergarten on academic achievement and behavior. Subjects were 53 children, retained at kin dergarten, who were matched to a group of 53 promoted peers on demo graphic characteristics, a measure of school readiness, and preacademic achievement in reading and mathematics. The data were analyzed using both same-age and same-grade comparisons. Results indicated an academic advantage of the retained children during their second year in kindergarten. This advantage was not maintained past kindergarten. Although retained children demonstrated a decline in attention problems during their second year of kindergarten, they continued to perform below the norm for their school districts on academic achievement. The data in this report do not suggest that retention is an effective policy for the young at-risk child.

The Limits of Expectations: A Case for Case Knowledge About Teacher Expectancy Effects

Abstract: Two first-grade Hispanic girls in the same classroom were studied for a year by means of qualitative and naturalistic methods. Paradoxically, the child for whom the teacher held low expectancies did extremely well in her reading achievement; in contrast, the child for whom the teacher held high expectancies did poorly. These paradoxical “effects” are understandable if we consider what the teacher thought and did in a broader context, that is, her overall view of each child and her assessment of what was educationally necessary and appropriate for each. These case studies are used to point out the limits of the classic expectancy theory and to argue for a less reductionistc framework and methodology in studying teacher expectancies. The cases are also used to argue that what a teacher expects matters less for a child’s achievement than what a teacher does.

Cases as Shared Inquiry: A Dialogical Model of Teacher Preparation

Abstract: Increasingly, case-based pedagogy is being advocated as an effective method for preparing preservice teachers for the context complexity of classrooms. The specific foci for cases, in both their construction and implementation, are viewed in a variety of ways. In this paper, we propose a dialogical model for connecting theory to practice by conceiving of cases as problems that initiate shared inquiry. Shared inquiry, dialogue, provides us with opportunities to acknowledge and address the theory and value-ladenness of experience; doing so allows us to transcend the limitations of our own experience and to generate better solutions for all of the students in our care.

Reading and Writing of First-Grade Students in a Restructured Chapter 1 Program

Abstract: Studies that demonstrate effective Chapter 1 programs have been few. This project examined the effects of focused Chapter 1 instruction on first-grade students’ literacy. Three perspectives on students’ end-of-the-year reading and writing performances showed that (a) the majority of project students could read a primer text or higher fluently; (b) students in the restructured Chapter 1 program had significantly higher performances than students in the district’s regular Chapter 1 program; and (c) students in the restructured Chapter 1 who had begun first grade with significantly lower readiness scores than all groups of classmates were performing comparable to students in the middle of the class. The discussion raises questions about sustenance of student growth and teacher practices and proposes directions for Chapter 1.

Developing the Potential for Collaborative School Leadership

Abstract: Role interactions among teams from five schools and one university team are discussed within the context of a collaborative project entitled “Time for Reflection: A Project in Collaborative Leadership for Working More Effectively in Multicultural Settings.” Interactions were coded into the categories of role ambiguity; negotiation; conflict; overload; and consensus among teachers, principals, and university staff members. Although no dramatic changes in role definition were documented, a general progression from ambiguity to consensus on the value of teacher participation in school-wide decision making was noted across all five schools. Rate and character of change were affected by district policies, administrative support within each building, and negotiations with the university team.

Are Three Heads Better Than One? Reflections on Doing Collaborative Interdisciplinary Research

Abstract: This paper, coauthored by an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a sociologist, presents reflections on conducting a collaborative and interdisciplinary in-house study of students who left other occupations for teaching. Data for this account include two jointly constructed interview protocols, memos to students and other faculty members, and field notes taken by all three investigators as participant observers in a variety of contexts at the field site. We describe and analyze four dimensions of our qualitative mode of inquiry: initiation of the internal interdisciplinary collaboration, external collaboration with faculty advisors, external collaboration with students, and internal collaboration in the construction of the research narrative. The paper concludes with observations and recommendations on what facilitates and constrains the successful conduct of collaborative interdisciplinary research.

Generative Teaching: An Enhancement Strategy for the Learning of Economics in Cooperative Groups

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to increase the learning of economics among lower socioeconomic level public high school students by teaching them to use generative comprehension procedures in their economics classes’ cooperative learning groups. In a randomly assigned two-treatment design, it was predicted and found that generative learning procedures in cooperative learning classes increased (p < . 0001) the learning of economics by sizable amounts compared with a control procedure that used only cooperative learning methods and that produced smaller increases. Students’ confidence in the correctness of their answers increased (p < . 0001), and the level of misinformation decreased (p < . 0001) as a result of generative teaching procedures. These facilitative effects of generative teaching occurred for both males and females.

Nonconventional Family Life-Styles and School Achievement: A 12-Year Longitudinal Study

Abstract: The life-styles of countercultural, nonconventional families have potential risks as well as benefits for children’s school achievement. The effects on children’s school achievement of nonconventional family organization, parents’ values and commitment to their family life-style, and family stability were examined in a 12-year longitudinal study of 146 nonconventional families and a comparison group of 43 stable, two-parent conventional families. In spite of considerable instability and other potential risk conditions in nonconventional families’ lives (single parent or unmarried couple status, frequent change, stigma, low incomes, and others), most of their children do as well or better in school than a comparison group of conventional families. These effects were still present after adjusting for child WISC-R, gender, and family SES. Those children doing best in school come from families who have a stronger commitment to their nonconventional family life-style while those doing less well have families w...

Liberal Democracy, Equal Educational Opportunity, and the Challenge of Multiculturalism

Abstract: Liberal political theory in general, as well as liberal educational theory in particular, has been largely silent on the challenge posed by multiculturalism. This lacuna results from the tendency to conflate ‘‘cultural” and ‘‘political” communities and to conceive of equality exclusively in terms of the latter. The result is that equality of educational opportunity is potentially rendered a sham for cultural minorities insofar as they are required to confront educational ideals and practices that are ‘‘culturally encumbered” in a way that reflects only the values and interests of the dominant social group. This article argues that “progressive” liberal educational theory can satisfactorily respond to the challenge posed by multicultural education when concepts such as “freedom” and “opportunity” are properly analyzed and when the demand to promote self-respect among citizens is taken seriously.

Higher Order Skills, Job Design, and Incentives: An Analysis and Proposal

Abstract: There is a growing consensus that the curriculum as taught in schools is “out of balance.” Emphasis on basic skills outweighs to a far greater extent than appropriate the emphasis on problem solving and higher order skills. Drawing on ideas about the effects of specialization from behavioral decision theory and on recent work in the economics of organization, this article proposes structural changes in the teaching job to address this problem. The possible limitations as well as advantages of the proposal are discussed.