Showing papers in "Educational Psychology in 2015"

Abstract: We gratefully acknowledge the insightful suggestions provided by three anonymous reviewers on the previous version of this manuscript. This research was supported by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain (EDU2010-16231).

Abstract: The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between theories of intelligence and goal orientations, and their joint connections to students’ academic achievement in the Chinese cultural context. A total of 418 university students in Hong Kong participated in the present study. The survey was administered to collect information on students’ beliefs about their goal orientations, theories of intelligence and their college grade point averages. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling. The results suggest that beliefs in the incremental theory of intelligence contribute to students’ academic achievements by facilitating their endorsement of mastery goals and performance-approach goals. Students’ performance-avoidance goals have a negative association with academic success. Cultural factors and considerations are addressed to clarify further the culture-specific findings.

Abstract: Despite ample research on commitment in industrial settings, there has been no systematic attempt to investigate outcomes associated with teacher commitment. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the relationship between teacher commitment and psychological well-being in the work place using questionnaires. Hong Kong teachers (N = 857) participated. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to investigate how the three aspects of commitment pertaining to the organisation and occupation predicted relevant outcomes. Results showed that affective and normative commitment positively predicted psychological well-being in the work place: interpersonal fit at work, thriving at work, feeling of competency, perceived recognition at work, desire for involvement at work and job satisfaction. Continuance commitment was a negative predictor of some outcomes. Results of the current study provide support to Meyer’s 3 × 2 factor model of commitment. Findings are discussed in relation to the situation of teache...

Abstract: Teaching entails many demands of an emotional and interpersonal kind. For the current study, emotional job demands were conceptualised as comprising three components: exposure to emotionally demanding situations, emotional labour (use of deep and surface acting) and work focused on the emotional well-being of others. Both emotional job demands and ‘non-emotional’ job demands (that is, general demands such as those pertaining to workload, time constraints and curriculum issues) were hypothesised to predict emotional exhaustion. Two resources, social support and confidence in one’s own teaching practices (teaching self-efficacy [TSE]), were expected to have main and buffering effects. Primary school teachers (N = 556) completed an electronic questionnaire measuring all study variables. Consistent with hypotheses, general (non-emotional) job demands, emotional demands, social support and TSE, each uniquely predicted exhaustion. In addition, TSE buffered the negative effect of deep acting on emotional exhaust...

Abstract: Mental toughness has frequently been associated with successful performance in sport; however, recent research suggests that it may also be related to academic performance in Higher Education. In a series of three exploratory studies, we examined the relationship between mental toughness and different aspects of educational performance in adolescents aged 11–16, focusing on academic attainment, school attendance, classroom behaviour and peer relationships. Study 1 revealed significant associations between several aspects of mental toughness (but particularly control of life) and academic attainment and attendance. Study 2 revealed significant associations between several aspects of mental toughness (but again particularly control of life) and counterproductive classroom behaviour. Finally, Study 3 demonstrated significant associations between aspects of mental toughness (confidence in abilities and interpersonal confidence) and peer relationships. The results are discussed in terms of the potential value of mental toughness as a useful concept in education.

Abstract: This study examined undergraduate students’ reports of emotions and emotion regulation during studying from a self-regulated learning (SRL) perspective. Participants were 111 university students enrolled in a first-year course designed to teach skills in SRL. Students reflected on their emotional experiences during goal-directed studying episodes at three times over the semester. Measures included self-evaluations of goal attainment, emotion intensity ratings and open-ended descriptions of emotion regulation strategies. Findings generally revealed that positive emotions were positive predictors and negative emotions were negative predictors of self-evaluations of goal attainment, although positive emotions were associated with larger changes in self-evaluations. Boredom was analysed separately and was found to be a positive predictor at the between-person level but not a predictor at the within-person level. Finally, students reported (a) enacting a variety of strategies to regulate their emotions and (b)...

Abstract: We tested a theoretical model of college students’ ratings of messengers of resilience and models of resilience, students’ own perceived resilience, regulatory strategy use and achievement. A total of 116 undergraduates participated in this study. The results of a path analysis indicated that ratings of models of resilience had a direct effect on students’ perceived resilience and that perceived resilience directly influenced regulatory strategy use (i.e. effort regulation, self-regulation and time management), which influenced academic achievement (as measured by grade point average). The implications of our findings are further discussed, along with avenues for future research.

Abstract: The relationship lying between critical thinking and creative thinking is opposite or complementary, results of previous relevant researches have not yet concluded. However, most of researches put the effort to compare the respective effect of the thinking methods, either the teaching of creative thinking or that of critical thinking. Less of them showed the interest to investigate the combined effect of these two thinking skills teaching, especially its synergy. Therefore, present study aimed to discuss the synergy of critical thinking and creative thinking, and investigated the joined effect of these two methods of thinking in the courses of ‘Integrated Activity courses’. Not only the separate influence but also the synergy would be our interests. Moreover, the outcome would also be compared with the learning result of single creative thinking skill teaching. Participants were 147 male students and 118 female students of ninth grade from 8 intact classes in a public middle school in Taiwan, the number o...

Abstract: Given their ubiquitous presence as witnesses to school-yard bullying, the role of the ‘bystander’ has been studied extensively. The prevalence and behaviour of bystanders to cyberbullying, however, is less understood. In an anonymous, school-based questionnaire, 716 secondary school students from South-East Queensland reported whether they had witnessed traditional and/or cyberbullying, and how they responded to each type. Overlap in bystander roles between online and offline environments was examined, as was their relationship to age and gender. Students who witnessed traditional bullying were more likely to have witnessed cyberbullying. Bystanders’ behaviour was sometimes similar in both contexts of traditional and cyberbullying, mainly if they were outsiders but half of the 256 students who reported witnessing both traditional and cyberbullying, acted in different roles across the two environments. The implications of the findings are discussed in the context of previous research on cyberbullying and t...

Abstract: This study was an attempt to investigate the relationships among stressors, contextual variables, self-efficacy and teacher burnout in Iran as an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) context. A battery of questionnaires was administered to 216 English language teachers of private language institutes. Using Amos version 20, structural equation modelling was run to examine the proposed model of the study. The findings showed that contextual variables could directly cause teacher burnout. They could also do so indirectly by giving rise to stressors, which would in turn increase burnout. The results also highlighted the possible direct and indirect role of self-efficacy in reducing teacher burnout. We argue that self-efficacy could function as a mediator or moderator variable which would reduce the negative effects of contextual variables and stressors on teacher burnout. The results of the present study have important implications for various stakeholders in pedagogy.

Abstract: Research has shown that autonomy support has positive effects on academic development, but no study has examined how systemising cognitive orientation is related to important outcomes for science students, and how it may interact with autonomy support. This prospective investigation considered how systemising and support from teachers and parents influence motivation, self-efficacy and science performance of science students. Totally, two hundred and eighty eight high school students (143 females and 145 males) completed surveys at two times and records of their achievements were collected. Teachers’ autonomy support and systemising were significantly positively related to motivation, self-efficacy and achievement over time, while parental support for autonomy was not directly related to the outcomes. Finally, two significant interaction effects showed that the relation of parental autonomy support to motivation and self-efficacy was moderated by systemising. This is the first study to demonstrate that au...

Abstract: Student engagement has been identified as an influential mediator between classroom interactional quality and adolescent learning outcomes. This study examined the relationship between classroom quality and student behavioural engagement in secondary school classrooms. Three dimensions of classroom quality (emotional, organisational and instructional support) and the dimension of student engagement were observed in nine classrooms using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System. Self-ratings of behavioural engagement were provided by 181 Finnish secondary school students along with their teachers’ ratings of classroom-level student engagement. The results showed, first, that there was variation in both classroom quality and student behavioural engagement between the classrooms. Second, classroom organisational support was associated with observed and with teacher- and student-rated engagement, and instructional support was associated with student-rated and observed engagement. Third, emotional support did n...

Abstract: This study investigated to what extent primary school teachers’ perceptions of their students’ ability and effort predict developmental changes in children’s self-concepts of ability in math and reading after controlling for students’ academic performance and general intelligence. Three cohorts (N = 849) of elementary school children and their teachers were followed for four years. Children’s self-concepts and performance ability in math and reading were measured annually during Waves 2–4. Teachers rated the children’s ability and effort at each of the four waves. Domain-specific differences and developmental changes could be identified in the associations between teachers’ perceptions and children’s ability self-concepts. Teachers’ ability perceptions predicted children’s concurrent and subsequent ability self-concepts in math and reading, whereas teachers’ effort perceptions predicted children’s math ability self-concept only at Wave 4. Analyses with multi-sample procedure showed that these models were ...

Abstract: The study explores the relationships between students’ experiences of the teaching–learning environment and their approaches to learning, and the effects of these variables on academic achievement. Two three-stage models were tested with structural equation modelling techniques. The Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST) and the Experiences of Teaching and Learning Questionnaire (ETLQ) were used to assess approaches to learning and student’s experiences of the teaching–learning environment, respectively. These two constructs were then used as either first- or second-stage variables within the path analysis. The model using approaches to learning as a mediating variable showed the best fit with our data; variations in our students’ experiences of the teaching–learning environment appear to give rise to their approaches to studying, which subsequently affect their achievement. The deep approach shows no detectable influence on academic achievement in this sample, neither there are any d...

Abstract: Reading or literacy development has persistently captured most literacy experts, educators, psychologists and researchers’ devoted explorations to seek better understanding for informed services fo...

Abstract: Adopting a deep approach to learning is associated with positive academic outcomes. In the current paper, we extend this analysis in a university context by recognising that learners are not isolated individuals, but share important social identifications with others. Using online surveys at an Australian university, we examine the effects of discipline social identification and educational norms on the adoption of learning approaches. Students from a range of academic disciplines indicated their social identification with their discipline, their perceptions of peer norms within their discipline of study, and what their own learning approaches were. Results demonstrate a significant role of discipline-related social identification in predicting learning approaches, even after controlling for personal factors and quality of teaching. Moreover, perceived norms moderated this effect. Students’ approaches to learning are affected not simply by their salient self-concepts, but by their salient discipline-relat...

Abstract: This study investigated the conceptions about writing and writing self-efficacy beliefs held by high school students in relation to the students’ gender as well as their associations with writing achievement. The results show that female students have more sophisticated writing conceptions than their male counterparts but no gender differences were found in writing self-efficacy beliefs. In addition, results reveal that writing self-efficacy beliefs and gender play an important role in predicting writing performance and that writing performance is moderated by students’ writing conceptions. Educational implications and further research are discussed.

Abstract: It is well known that teachers frequently observe a decline in the scholastic motivation of many adolescent students, which in turn is often associated with a decline in students’ individual school self-concept. In contrast, less is known about the association between students’ individual school self-concept and school engagement, or the related concepts of school belonging and helplessness in school. The current study explored social relationships as mediators in the association between individual school self-concept and adolescents’ school engagement, belonging to school and helplessness in school in a large sample of 7th and 8th grade students (N = 1088; MAge = 13.7) in secondary schools in Brandenburg, Germany. The results of two structural equation models showed that the teacher–student relationship mediated the association between individual school self-concept and school engagement, belonging to school and helplessness in school, respectively. In contrast, the student–student relationship did not m...

Abstract: This work was supported by a grant awarded to the first author by the Conselleria de Economia e Industria (Xunta de Galicia) [Council of Economics and Industry of Galicia] (10 PXIB 106 293 PR) and a grant awarded to the second author by the Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia de Espana [Science and Education Ministry of Spain] (EDU2010-16231).

Abstract: The aim of the study was to investigate the relationships between elementary students’ reported use of self-regulatory strategies in mathematics and their motivational and affective determinants. Participants of the study were 344 fifth- and sixth-grade Greek students. Students were asked to complete self-reported measures regarding the strategies they use to self-regulate mathematics learning, their achievement goals in relation to mathematics, their self-efficacy concerning mathematics learning and achievement, the value they attribute to mathematics as a subject domain and their enjoyment of mathematics learning. Structural equation modelling confirmed a mediation model, that is, students’ mathematics self-efficacy, value beliefs about mathematics and enjoyment mediated the effects of achievement goals on reported strategy use. Results are discussed in terms of implications for elementary students’ self-regulated learning skills.

Abstract: During the past decade, research on the constructive learning process has been conducted mainly from two perspectives: student approaches to learning (SAL) and self-regulated learning (SRL). The SAL perspective has highlighted the role of learning conceptions with respect to other topics involved in constructive learning processes, whereas recently the SAL perspective has emphasised the effects of the future time perspective (FTP) and self-efficacy beliefs about these topics. Based on these two lines of research (SRL and SAL), using path analysis, we explored the direct and indirect effects of FTP and learning conceptions on self-efficacy, metacognitive strategies, effort and academic performance. Likewise, we identified some patterns that combine specific factors related to these variables. Participants in the present study were 100 (84% females, 16% males) Spanish fourth year university students enrolled in the Social Sciences Degree Programme. The ages of the students ranged from 18 to 49 (M = 22.02; S...

Abstract: Perfectionism consists of personal predispositions and attitudes toward performance. Although there is some disagreement in the field regarding how to best define and measure perfectionism, most studies have supported a distinction between adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism. The current study examines a model in which students’ perceptions of parents’ standards and criticism are proposed as antecedents of multidimensional perfectionism, which in turn are hypothesised to be associated with types of academic achievement goal orientations. The sample consisted of 256 high school students who completed questionnaires assessing adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism, perceptions of their parents and personal achievement goals. Structural equation modelling supported the hypotheses suggesting that high parental standards are positively associated with the adaptive perfectionist characteristic of self-organised perception, which in turn are associated with a mastery goal orientation. Parental criticism predi...

Abstract: The present study investigated gender differences in adolescents’ academic motivation and classroom behaviour and gender differences in the extent to which motivation was associated with, and predicted, classroom behaviour. Seven hundred and fifty students (384 boys and 366 girls) aged 11–16 (M age = 14.0, 1.59 SD) completed a questionnaire examining academic motivation and teachers completed assessments of their classroom behaviour. Girls generally reported higher levels of academic motivation, whilst teacher reports of behaviour were poorer for boys. Interestingly, boys’ reported levels of academic motivation were significantly more closely associated with teacher reports of their classroom behaviour. Furthermore, cognitive aspects of boys’ motivation were better predictors of their classroom behaviour than behavioural aspects. On the other hand, behavioural aspects of girls’ motivation were better predictors of their behaviour. Implications for understanding the relationship between motivation and beha...

Abstract: Recent second/foreign language (L2) research has witnessed the application of sociocultural tenets to L2 classrooms. This study aimed to probe whether Iranian L2 learners’ engagement in ZPD-activated collaborative dialogue, or ‘languaging’, mediates their learning process and, specifically, their appropriate use of metadiscourse to address content, organisation and audience issues in writing. English-as-a-foreign-language-writing classes at two universities were assigned to four different instructional conditions, namely, ZPD-activated collaborative, ZPD-free collaborative, fine-tuned L2-input provision and prevalent teacher-fronted approaches. The data comprised metadiscourse-oriented writing test scores, weekly writings and audio-recorded in-class collaborative dialogues of the ZPD groups. The results demonstrated the ZPD-activated collaborative writing approach significantly facilitated the learners’ appropriate use of metadiscourse. Complementary interpretative analysis of the ZPD participants’ metadi...

Abstract: In this study, work ethic was examined as a predictor of academic motivation and performance. A total of 440 undergraduate students completed measures of work ethic and academic motivation, and reported their cumulative grade point average. Results indicated that several dimensions of work ethic were related to academic motivation and academic performance. Differences between correlations were examined, and work ethic dimensions were more strongly related to hypothesised dimensions of motivation than other dimensions of motivation. In addition, structural equation modelling was used to examine the mediating effect of academic motivation. These findings provide additional evidence for the importance of work ethic in academic settings, as well as important construct-related validity evidence for work ethic. Implications of these study findings, limitations and future directions are discussed.

Abstract: Language learning failure is often directly related to demotivation. The purpose of this study is to examine the process of demotivation and identify its sources within four years of an undergraduate degree programme. To this end, based on the complex dynamic systems perspective of the dynamic systems theories (DSTs), the demotivation test battery was developed and administered to 308 English major students. The results identified three salient demotivating constructs: (1) Institution related, (2) Significant others related and (3) Self-related, from among which the Institution related was the most influential and progressive through years. While MANOVA results confirmed the same pattern, it revealed stronger impact for the 3rd- and 4th-year students. In sum, the present findings provide support for the DSTs and indicate that the wider social context and prevailing discourses of the society are in constant interaction with the functions and attitudes of the others existing within that context.

Abstract: The present study aimed at assessing Hong Kong young children’s gains in creativity and their teachers’ application of arts education after a one-year artists-teachers collaborative arts education project that involves various art forms (i.e. drama, visual arts and integrated). Participants included 790 young children, 217 parents and 65 teachers in seven kindergartens and nurseries. Measures included the Test for Creative Thinking–Drawing Production, Story-Telling Test (STT), the subscales of parent-rated creativity, communication and motivational characteristics, and the adapted Scale of Application of Arts in the Classroom. Among the three art forms, children in the visual arts group demonstrated highest gains in verbal creativity as evaluated by the STT. Based on parents’ report, there were significant differences in children’s communication characteristics across the three art forms. Significant differences across art forms were also found in teachers’ confidence in teaching arts to 3–4 years old and...

Abstract: The present study examined the quality of teacher–child relationships in a collectivist and individualist country, specifically, Portugal and Belgium. Two relationship dimensions were examined the following: conflict and closeness. Participants were 158 Portuguese and 197 Belgian children and their teachers. In both countries, teachers completed the Student–Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS). Measurement invariance was tested through multiple-group analysis. The results supported configural and metric invariance across countries, but not full scalar equivalence, suggesting that the STRS is robust across countries. Some associations differed between the samples. Specifically, teachers’ perceptions of closeness were negatively related to conflict in Belgium, but not in Portugal. Teachers described boys and girls as having similar levels of both conflict and closeness in Portugal, while in Belgium girls are likely to have closer relationships with their teachers. Moreover, observed emotional climate was posit...

Abstract: University students often report high stress levels, and studies even suggest a recent increase. However, there is a lack of theoretically based research on the structural conditions that influence students’ perceived stress. The current study compared the effects of Karasek’s demand–control dimensions with the influence of neuroticism to address environmental and individual characteristics related to stress. Two points of measurement were included: T1 in the middle of the term and T2 during the examination period. Participants were 146 psychology students at two German universities (Mage = 22.6 years). We applied an adapted version of Karasek’s Job Content Questionnaire, a self-developed stress scale, and the 21-item Big-Five-Inventory. At T1, both neuroticism and demands significantly predicted stress (total adjusted R² = .40), although relative weights analyses indicated that the contribution of demands was more pronounced (relative importance: 63%). Longitudinally, controlling for stress at T1, the de...

Abstract: Central to equation solving is the maintenance of equivalence on both sides of the equation. However, when the process involves an interaction of multiple elements, solving an equation can impose a high cognitive load. The balance method requires operations on both sides of the equation, whereas the inverse method involves operations on one side only. In an experiment, middle school students (N = 71) were randomly assigned to the balance and inverse methods to complete a pre-test, an acquisition phase and a post-test. Pre-test and post-test comparisons found that the inverse group outperformed the balance group for those equations that involved high element interactivity. Instructional efficiency measures further confirmed that the balance method imposed higher cognitive load. The inverse method was capable of reducing cognitive load due to the interacting elements.