Showing papers in "Social Psychology of Education in 2004"

Resilient teachers: resisting stress and burnout

Abstract: In Australia, the incidence of teacher stress and burnout has caused serious concern. Many studies of teacher stress have focused on the dysfunctional strategies of individual teachers – in other words they have adopted a deficit approach to the problem with the focus firmly fixed on ‘what’s going wrong’. From this perspective, the failure of some teachers to cope has generally been defined as a personal rather than an institutional weakness and the solutions that have been promoted have been largely palliative or therapeutic. The study reported in this paper adopted a different approach to the question of teacher stress and burnout. Instead of asking ‘what’s going wrong’ we asked why are some teachers able to cope successfully with the same kinds of stressors that appear to defeat others – in other words, we looked at ‘what’s going right’.

Emotional regulation goals and strategies of teachers

Abstract: This study addresses two questions: what goals do teachers have for their own emotional regulation, and what strategies do teachers report they use to regulate their own emotions. Data were collected from middle school teachers in North East Ohio, USA through a semi-structured interview. All but one of the teachers reported regulating their emotions and there were no gender or experience differences in spontaneously discussing emotional regulation. Teachers believed that regulating their emotions helped their teaching effectiveness goals and/or conformed to their idealized emotion image of a teacher. Teachers used a variety of preventative and responsive emotional regulation strategies to help them regulate their emotions. Future research on teachers’ emotional regulation goals and strategies should examine the role of culture and the relationship of emotional regulation goals with teachers’ other goals, stress, and coping.

High school outreach and family involvement

Abstract: This study addressed the question: when high schools reach out to involve parents, are parents more likely to be involved in their teenagers'; education? Guided by the microinteractionst theory of symbolic interaction, this study analyzed individual-level reports from parents about their perceptions of school outreach and of their own involvement. Data were analyzed from over 11,000 parents of high school seniors participating in the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988. Findings revealed that, regardless of students' background and achievement, high schools' outreach positively and significantly predicted parents' involvement in a range of parenting, volunteering, and learning at home activities. The data suggest that high schools have the capacity to conduct activities that encourage families' involvement in teenagers' learning and development.

Bullying and Victimization: Cause for Concern for both Families and Schools

Abstract: This study examines the roles of family variables (authoritarian and authoritative parenting, family disharmony) and school variables (liking school, perceived control of bullying and school hassles) in discriminating non-bully/non-victims, victims and bullies. Participants were parents and their children aged 9–12 years (N = 610). Data were analyzed using ANOVA and discriminant function analysis (DFA). Two significant functions emerged, both of which appeared important in discriminating children according to their bullying status. Together they allowed for the correct classification of 76% of the non-bully/non-victims, 57% of victims, and 61% of bullies. The main conclusion is that family and school systems working together may provide the most effective means of intervention for bullying problems.

The Change in Middle School Students’ Achievement Goals in Mathematics Over Time

Abstract: Through the use of longitudinal survey data the change of achievement goal orientations was tested in a sample of middle school students in mathematics as they moved from sixth to seventh grade. Achievement goals include task goals and performance goals, with the partitioning of performance goals into approach and avoidance components. Results indicate that all goal orientations were moderately stable over time. Task goals in sixth grade positively predicted academic efficacy in seventh grade. Performance-approach goals in sixth grade positively predicted performance-avoid goals in seventh grade. Multiple regression and multi-sample analyses revealed that the path from performance-approach goals to performance-avoid goals was significant only among students reporting high academic efficacy before the transition. The results suggest that individuals who feel efficacious in math while endorsing a performance-approach goal orientation may be particularly vulnerable to adopting maladaptive performance-avoid goals over time and with change in circumstances.

Early Adolescents' Achievement Goals, Social Status, and Attitudes Towards Cooperation with Peers

Abstract: This qualitative study used a semi-structured interview with 50 fifth grade Israeli students to investigate the relations among achievement goals and social identity processes that concern orientation towards social structure and status in the classroom, and preference and willingness to cooperate with peers from different social groups. Mastery-oriented students were found to evaluate cooperation with respect to its contribution to learning, friendship, and class cohesion, and to be willing to cooperate with peers regardless of their social group membership. Performance-approach and performance-avoidance oriented students were found to evaluate cooperation with regard to its implications for social status, and to prefer to cooperate with peers of the in-group and with high status peers. Performance-avoidance oriented students with low social status were found to also adopt a defensive avoidant orientation in the social domain.

Are Teachers Tracked? On what Basis and with what Consequences

Abstract: In this analysis I consider Finley's (1984) model of the teacher track assignment process using the 1990–1991 Schools and Staffing Survey, a large national database with a unique measure of teacher course assignments. I test the hypothesis that rather than being random, or based on ascriptive characteristics, teachers are sorted into classrooms based on a combination of legitimate criteria, including seniority, educational credentials, and motivation. I find that this is largely the case, with the exception that low track teachers often have more training in teaching methods than high track teachers. These findings suggest that teacher tracking contributes to two phenomena, institutional resistance to core changes in the structure of student tracking, and the magnification of inequalities in opportunity to learn produced by tracking.

Nonverbal Encouragement of Participation in a Course: the Effect of Touching

Abstract: Previous studies have shown that touching leads to positive behavior, particularly in an educational context. A new experiment was carried out in which students were encouraged to inter- vene in a course by demonstrating the solution of a statistical exercise on the blackboard. According to the experiment, students were or were not briefly touched on the forearm by the teacher during the corrective exercise. After that, the teacher asked his students to demonstrate the exercise on the blackboard. The results showed that touching increases the volunteers' rate. Various explanations (familiarity, status and mood) were suggested to explain such results.

Predictors of absenteeism among primary school teachers

Abstract: The present study was designed in order to examine the contribution of personal attributes, teachers’ organizational commitment, and two organizational attributes, school climate and culture of absence at, school, vis-a-vis two different types of teacher absences from work, namely voluntary and involuntary absence. For that purpose, 200 teachers (74% answered) from Jerusalem (Israel), were required to complete the following scales: the Organization commitment scale, the primary school climate scale and the culture of absence scale. Results indicated that the correlations between attitudes and voluntary measures differ from the same correlations involving the involuntary measures. None of the biographical (gender, age and seniority, education) and/or attitudinal variables can explain the variance for any of the involuntary indices. Lower teachers’ commitment to school, principal’s restrictive behavior and absentee school culture offer a better explanation of variances in teacher absenteeism than any of the biographical variables.

Gender Differences in the Use of the Internet by English Secondary School Children

Abstract: Access to the Internet is an important issue in terms of equity and the UK government has stated ‘Our goal is to ensure that everyone who wants it has access to the Internet by 2005.’ (UK Online Annual Report, 2002). This survey of Internet use by 1340 secondary school students from four schools in the Teesside area of England was carried out in order to assess whether the government is realising its ambition of Internet access amongst 11–16 year-olds, and also to determine whether or not gender differences exist in Internet use. Furthermore, the data supplied are intended to inform later studies of more specific aspects of children's Internet use. Generally, it was found that most children used the Internet, were quite comfortable with it, and used it for a variety of applications. However, a considerable minority of respondents also considered themselves non-users of the Internet. There were also some gender differences found in the data which in general suggested something of a male bias towards Internet use. It was concluded that these are issues that need to be addressed for the purposes of equity and if the government is to achieve its goal of Internet access for all by 2005. A number of suggestions for further research into Internet use by children are also suggested in this paper.

Prediction of Students' Evaluations from Brief Instances of Professors' Nonverbal Behavior in Defined Instructional Situations

Abstract: This study examined the power of judges' ratings of professors' nonverbal (NV) classroom behavior in content-free brief instances (nine seconds) to predict actual end-of-course students' ratings of teaching (SRT) Professors in 67 courses were videotaped in 4 instructional situations: First class session; Lecturing; Interacting with students; and Talking about the course The overall finding was that thin slices of professors' content-free NV behavior could indeed predict SRT, but different patterns were found for defined instructional situations Positive judgments of brief instances of NV lecturing behavior predicted positive post-course SRT components pertaining to the instructor Positive judgments of NV behavior while interacting with students were negatively related to favorable SRTs This counter-intuitive finding was tentatively explained by the fact that SRTs were negatively related to course difficulty, and professors presumably might have made greater efforts in their interaction with students in difficult courses, but these courses received lower ratings anyway Micro-analyses of 44 molecular variables illuminated the NV profile of effective lecturing, and showed distinctions between NV profiles of effective professors and effective TV interviewers from a previous study Social-educational implications of the findings for the SRT literature and for the NV literature were discussed

Understanding choice behaviours: Pathways from school to university with changing aspirations and opportunities

Abstract: A socio-ecological approach to explain choice behaviour highlights salient personal and social factors in the context of changing aspirations and opportunities. The population databases are five cohorts of all school leaver applicants for university places in a state of Australia and a survey for one cohort. Results highlight common behaviour patterns across cohorts, with diverse outcomes for specific social groups. Offers of university places relate course preferences and school achievement. In addition, decisions to apply, accept and enrol vary with social experience by socio-economic indicators, geographic location and school type. Student explanations for their decisions to defer or let the offer lapse entail particular social factors as well as personal factors of self concepts, interests and financial needs. Findings contribute to a better understanding of choice behaviour, with a general model of the personal and social factors that explain diverse pathways to higher education.

Quality of college students' experiences during cooperative learning

Abstract: This study examined the quality of college students' experiences during cooperative learning (CL) tasks. Undergraduate educational psychology students were assigned to small groups to discuss how they could apply important psychological principles to teaching—learning projects. In addition to responding to questionnaires measuring goal orientations, attitudes toward CL, and perceived ability in educational psychology, they were interrupted during a small-group discussion using Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde, and Whalen's (1993) experience sampling method to measure their quality of experience. Results indicated that quality of experience was predicted by perceived skill for the task, as well as importance of the task. Measures of pre-existing individual differences were not predictive.

Mapping variables related to social identity, distress and perceived health in an undergraduate student population

Abstract: The relationship between students’ levels of self-categorisation or identification with their university, their problem-solving style, perceived social support, psychological distress and self-reported illness was investigated in a sample of 269 students (181 females and 88 males). Structural equation modelling shows that problem-solving style, perceived social support, and strength of identity, are the best predictors of both distress and illness, while sex, sex-type, age and year of study also account for small, but significant percentages of the variance.

Ineffective Schools as Organizational Reactions to Stress

Abstract: Educational research has identified effective schools in terms of characteristics associated with high student achievement, and conversely, schools lacking these characteristics are often conceived as ineffective schools. In this article, I propose that organizational stress responses create the conditions that make schools effective or ineffective. In other words, low achievement does not make schools ineffective but rather organizational behavior associated with stress creates and perpetuates school ineffectiveness, including low achievement. Drawing on the threat-rigidity thesis and open systems theory, hypotheses regarding how groups and organizations respond to stress were tested using demographic and achievement data for students attending elementary schools, in addition to survey data obtained from students (N= 18,189), principals (N= 75), and parents (N= 13,768). Using cluster analysis, schools were grouped and described in terms of the school’s stress level (student populations requiring more resources for learning), school adaptations to stress (emphases on varied school internal processes), and school output (student achievement). To lessen input from the external environment, schools experiencing more stress had less permeable bound- aries, as indicated by parent reports of less school involvement and less positive school climate. Schools experiencing more stress also had more internal disruption, as indicated by less consensus among parents and students regarding school internal processes and by more principal changes. However, in such schools, there was little evidence of more control over school internal processes in terms of principals’ self-reported behavior and student and parent perceptions of school order and discipline, and teacher support of learning. Results call for a better understanding of school ineffectiveness in terms of organizational adaptations to stress and points at which to intervene for more effective school adaptation and functioning.

Evaluation of Grade Distributions: a Comparison of Jewish and Druze Students in Israel

Abstract: This study examines how students' evaluations of grade distribution in school are differentially shaped by socio-cultural conditions. Specifically, it investigates the extent to which Druze and Jewish students in Israel differ in their evaluations of the types of distribution rules that are actually and ideally preferred by teachers when they assign grades. Findings revealed that in both Jewish and Druze groups the achievement rules were ranked highest in terms of the actual and ideal ways of determining their grades. These were followed by the personality rules, and lastly by the ascriptive/particularistic rules. Thus, students in these groups share to a large extent their view about the actual and ideal grading practices. At the same time, Jewish students, who live in a market-driven society characterized by individual and competitive relations, ascribe stronger importance to meritocratic rules. In contrast, Druze students, who live in a highly homogeneous environment based on ascriptive status and solidarity relations, have a greater tendency than Jews to think that grading should be guided by particularistic/ascriptive types of rules. A structural analysis of grade distribution rule preferences revealed that they were similarly measured across groups.

Parents’ satisfaction with their child’s first year of school

Abstract: A group of university and vocationally educated parents (n=486) were requested to evaluate their satisfaction with their child’s first school year, and they were also asked to recall the positive and negative events from their child’s academic year. Both structured and open-ended measures consistently revealed that parents were quite satisfied with the functioning of their child’s school. Parents’ social–psychological distance from the school, as measured by their social positions in the education hierarchy, tended to structure parental satisfaction: the mothers, and especially the university-educated parents, indicated the highest level of satisfaction, and these groups emphasized both positive and negative recollections; the group farthest from the school turned out be the vocationally educated fathers. Our results highlighted the teacher: the recollections concerning the teachers were evenly distributed into positive and negative accounts, and negative recollections regarding teachers and home-school cooperation in particular affected parents’ overall satisfaction. The findings were discussed in terms of their implications for educational policy.

Understanding Place-bound Students: Correlates and Consequences of Limited Educational Opportunities

Abstract: This study explores the concept of the ‘place-bound’ student, defined as perceived difficulty in leaving the immediate geographic area to attend school. Based on the literature, it was hypothesized that students who perceived greater difficulty would have fewer financial resources, higher external control orientation, greater attachment to family and romantic partners, and greater attachment to place. Finally, those who perceived greater difficulty were expected to be less successful academically, have lower adjustment to college scores, and have less satisfactory relationships with their parents. Availability of financial resources was not related to perceived difficulty in leaving the area. Attachment to persons and place were not related to being place-bound, except for women. For women, attachment to a romantic partner lead to greater perceived difficulty in leaving the area. However, another aspect of attachment to place, ‘rootedness,’ had highly significant effects. Women who were higher on external control were also more likely to have a greater perception of difficulty in leaving the area. More place-bound students were not found to be at a disadvantage in terms of academic performance or adjustment to the university. The findings regarding students’ relationships with their parents were interesting and contrary to prediction. Men who perceived greater difficulty reported much more satisfactory relationships with their mothers and fathers. It is suggested that these men might have chosen to stay in the area to attend school in order to remain near their families.

Group Reward Contingencies and Cooperative Learning: Immediate and Delayed Effects on Academic Performance, Self-esteem, and Sociometric Ratings

Abstract: While cooperative learning methods have been reported to have positive effects on a range of personal and social student outcomes, research into their academic benefits has produced mixed results. This study evaluated the effects of one cooperative learning method (cooperative reading and integrated composition, or CIRC) on the reading achievement, sociometric ratings, and self-esteem of 83 third-graders under three reward conditions (group rewards, individual rewards, and no rewards). Although students in the group rewards condition achieved significantly (p < 0.05) higher rate and accuracy scores on weekly reading quizzes than those in the individual and no rewards conditions, this effect was not reflected in overall pre–post reading test scores. There were also no significant effects for condition on the sociometric questionnaire. There was, however, a significant condition by sex interaction effect on total self-esteem scores, which indicated higher scores in the group rewards condition than in the other two conditions for girls. Results are interpreted in light of their practical implications for the application of the CIRC method in school settings, and their theoretical implications for research on the impact of group reward contingencies in cooperative learning methods.

Reading Problems in School Children and Adults: Experiences, Self-Perceptions and Strategies

Abstract: Three adults, one male and two females, with moderate to severe reading problems were interviewed about their reading problems, self-perceptions, experiences in education and at the workplace, self-presentation concerns, and their coping strategies in situations involving reading requirements. The informants were selected in order to vary age, level of education, and type of occupation. Despite these variations the results revealed striking similarities in their self-perceptions, motivational and emotional responses, and strategies in school years and later in life. Self-presentation concerns were salient in all informants and all informants reported various indications of negative affect. All informants also reported using self-defensive strategies, particularly emphasizing that they were hiding their reading and writing problems. The results are discussed in terms of self-worth theory as well as goal theory. Practical implications are also discussed.

Organizational expectations of the novice teacher

Abstract: The study focuses on the teacher as an “organization person”, that is, a professional working in an organizational setting, and forms part of its administrative and human fabric. The purpose of the article is to describe the novice teacher’s expectations from teaching as a profession and from the school as a work organization. The novice teachers who participated in trainee programs at five large teacher training colleges in Israel, completed a self-report questionnaire. The questionnaire items expressed teachers’ expectations of their work at the outset of their professional career. Facet Theory was the methodological approach used for the study. It was found that novice teachers’ expectations focus on the following areas of interest and activity expectations of professional and social recognition; expectations of responsive conduct on the part of students; of involvement and support from parents, and of collegiality from other staff, parents and the principal; and expectations that teaching and those associated with it will contribute to strengthening the teacher’s professional sense of self. The findings were also examined based on self-psychology perspectives. The article discusses the implications of these expectations pertaining to teacher training.