Showing papers on "Academic achievement published in 1979"

Identifying Distinctive Approaches to Studying.

Abstract: Dimensions which have been used to describe various aspects of studying are reviewed. These draw attention to three distinctive approaches to studying which contain elements of both study processes and motivation. The development of an inventory of approaches to studying is reported which confirmed the importance of these three dimensions, but also drew attention to the importance of characteristic styles of learning in describing the processes through which students arrive at different levels of under-standing.

Pygmalion Grows Up: A Model for Teacher Expectation Communication and Performance Influence

Abstract: Much research has examined the effects teacher expectations have on student performance. While evidence indicating that expectations bias student performance is scant, a substantial literature suggests expectations can sustain performance at undesirable levels. Classroom observation reveals consistent patterns of differential teacher behavior toward high-and low-expectation students. No model has yet emerged, however, which integrates particular treatment findings into an influence sequence. Such a model is presented, outlining the cognitive processes through which teacher expectations can sustain a given level of achievement. The model suggests that teachers frequently give affectively valanced feedback to low-expectation students as a mechanism for interaction control. High-expectation students more frequently receive feedback based on their effort expenditure. These different evaluation contingencies may lead lows to believe less strongly than highs that effort will influence academic outcomes. Differe...

Jigsaw Groups and the Desegregated Classroom: In Pursuit of Common Goals

Abstract: The desegregated classroom has not produced many of the positive results initially expected by social scientists some 25 years ago. It is argued that one of the major reasons for this failure is the over-emphasis on competitiveness at the expense of interdependence in the classroom. In short, students in most classrooms very rarely cooperate with each other in pursuit of common goals. In this article, we describe a program of research in wihich elementary school students are "forced" to spend part of their classroom time mastering material in an interdependent structure. The results indicate that such structured interdependence increases the self-esteem, the morale, the interpersonal attraction, and the empathy of students across ethnic and racial divisions, and also improves the academic performance of minority students without hampering the performance of the ethnic majority.

Experiments Relating Teachers’ Use of Higher Cognitive Questions to Student Achievement

Abstract: There is much professional consensus that teacher questions have a major impact on the quality and quantity of student achievement. Indeed, in an earlier review of the research on teacher questions, Gall (1970) labeled this belief a truism. Also, textbooks on teaching methods extol questioning techniques as a central element in teaching (e.g., Hoover, 1976). Indeed, some authors (e.g., Hunkins, 1972; Cunningham, 1971) imply to their readers that research has demonstrated relatively conclusively that particular kinds of questions and questioning strategies are more effective than others for promoting particular kinds of student achievement such as "thinking." Over the last two decades, efforts have been made to test assumptions and claims about the effects of teaching practices such as using more higher cognitive questions. Rosenshine (1971), and Dunkin and Biddle (1974) already have reviewed much research in the general area of teacher effects (see also Journal of Teacher Education, Summer, 1976),

Motivation and Achievement: A Quantitative Synthesis:

Abstract: To estimate the typical correlation between motivation and educational achievement, the correlations from a calibration sample of 22 studies and a validation sample of 18 studies were analyzed using analysis of variance and regression techniques. Motivation factors were restricted to general, academic, or mathematics self-concept, locus of control, and achievement motivation; achievement outcome measures included achievement and ability tests and grade point indices. For grades 1–12, 232 uncorrected observed correlations showed a mean of .338 indicating 11.4 percent of the variance accounted for in achievement by motivation. Eight variables in a regression model accounted for 39% of the variance in the magnitude of the correlations. Grade level emerged as the only significant student characteristic; motivation and achievement were more highly correlated in students in later grades.

Increasing Educational Achievement Via Self Concept Change

Abstract: s do not always include full details on some aspects of the study, the overall results are usually reported. Dissertations are included here which contained measurements of both self concept and academic achievement variables, after an attempted educational innovation. Each dissertation also had to include comparison between one or more groups of students who received the intervention program, and other students who did not, although these groups were not always randomly selected. With these criteria, a total of eighteen dissertations were located which evaluated programs ranging from "activity centered" education for first-graders to Personal Growth Groups as a compensatory education component for college freshmen (Beckum, 1973; Bradford, 1973; Hale, 1973; Hopke, 1975; Jones, 1975; Kalunian, 1975; Kenemuth, 1975; Kosensky, 1975; Lawson, 1974; McGinnis, 1972; Mendenhall, 1974; Mynatt, 1973; Pine, 1975; Pokipala, 1975; Poudrier, 1976; J.A. Smith, 1975; M. Smith, 1971; Zirkel, 1972). The effects reported by these studies are strikingly simple to summarize: in no case were changes in achievement unambiguously associated with changes in self concept. None of these educational programs showed measurable effects on all target groups' self concept scores while at the same time increasing academic achievement. Only two studies found positive changes on both variables for even part of their target population. Lawson's (1974) study of "non-graded" versus "graded" schools for pupils in their first, third, or fifth year of schooling found higher reading achievement for the non-graded schools at all three levels and higher self concept scores in the same schools only for the fifth year students. Self concept change here appears to be an outcome of reading success rather than an intervening variable. Bradford (1973), comparing one school with an Individually Guided Education program with a "control" school having self contained structure, found significantly greater gain scores in the experimental school on both self concept and arithmetic achievement, but not reading achievement. Few details are available for this study, but the use of only one school for each type of program confounds the potential program effects with other possible differences between the schools. The questionably positive results from these two studies thus do not overcome the main thrust of the pattern of negative results in all other studies. Further, a close examination of the results reveals that most interventions produced some effects on either self concept or achievement, but not both. Ten studies (Bradford, 1973; Hopke, 1975; Jones, 1975; Kalunian, 1975; Kosensky, 1975; Lawson, 1974; McGinnis, 1972; Pine, 1975; M. Smith, 1971; Zirkel, 1972) found significant effects on their self concept measures. Not surprisingly, these studies were mainly those emphasizing an activity or child-centered program, along with several vocational education programs for teenagers, which may also be more "activity" centered. Seven studies (Beckum, 1973; Hopke, 1975; Kenemuth, 1975; Lawson, 1974; Mynatt, 1973; Poudrier, 1976; J. A. Smith, 1975) produced effects on achievement variables. In several of these, the differences favored "control" groups with "traditional" or academic oriented programs, (Hopke, 1975; Poudrier, 1976), or resulted from tutoring programs (Beckum, 1973; Kenemuth, 1975). Thus, the lack of evidence in these dissertations for a connection between self concept 139 SCHEIRER & KRAUT This content downloaded from 157.55.39.111 on Sat, 17 Sep 2016 06:00:58 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms REVIEW OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH and achievement should not be attributed to totally inadequate measuring instruments, nor to failure to implement the intended programs, since the programs did produce some measurable results. Discussion: Analysis by Self Concept Theories As has become evident, these evaluations of educational interventions have generally failed to find an association between self concept change and academic achievement. Reasons for the lack of such association can be grouped into four categories: 1) methodological problems with the study design and types of data collected, 2) practical implementation problems such that the intended intervention was not actually taking place, 3) theoretical problems with the specification of the processes by which enhanced self concept might influence academic achievement, and 4) an erroneous basic theory, such that self concept is not a viable mechanism for enhancing academic achievement. Each of these will be considered briefly in this section. Methodological Problems Criticisms of social action evaluations that have failed to find effects often focus on the methodological weakness of a specific study, such as the barrage of commentary which followed the Westinghouse-Ohio University Head Start evaluation (Campbell & Erlebacher, 1970; Smith & Bissell, 1970). As this paper has frequently noted, methodological problems are endemic in this type of research and frequently contribute to the difficulty of interpreting each individual study. Adequate control groups were not always available, particularly in the larger scale programs, although randomized assignment was often present in the dissertation research. Outcome measures were sometimes inappropriate for the treatment undertaken, as when IQ tests, usually viewed as assessing underlying academic abilities, were used in programs emphasizing increasing the child's motivations for academic achievement. Further, Wylie's (1974) recent review of self concept measures concluded that no well-constructed, well-validated measuring instruments are yet available, particularly for self concept in young children. The failure to find self concept changes in the programs reviewed here was often attributed by their analysts to inadequate measurement in this affec-

Conceptualization of enquiry-based or open classroom learning environments

Abstract: (1979). Conceptualization of Enquiry‐Based or Open Classroom Learning Environments. Journal of Curriculum Studies: Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 233-245.

Academic drift: Some views from Europe

Abstract: (1979). Academic drift: Some views from Europe. Studies in Higher Education: Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 143-159.

Male-Female Differences in Economic Education: a Survey

Abstract: Many researchers have found that males and females perform differently on economics tests, with the females often achieving lower scores. This phenomenon has puzzled and troubled economic education specialists for well over a decade. In this article Siegfried summarizes many studies that have included student gender as a variable. This in itself would be a valuable contribution to the literature, but Siegfired goes further and deals with questions of the adequacy of research designs and other factors that must be taken into account. Thus, this piece should provide useful guidance to researchers who wish to include the gender variable in their designs.

Exemplary Schools and the Search for Effectiveness.

Abstract: The Department of Justice initiated this survey apparently so that they could document willful dis crimination in education. This is one of the few ex amples in our country's history of a specific request made by Congress for social research that might pro vide a basis for policy. The Office of Education asked James S. Coleman of Johns Hopkins University and Ernest Q. Campbell of Vanderbilt University to direct the $1.5 million project. These were its main conclusions:

The Motivational Relevance of Educational Plans: Questioning the Conventional Wisdom.

Abstract: Employing two complementary data sets, the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 and the Study of Academic Prediction and Growth, we question the conventional interpretation of educational plans as motives, and thereby as determinants of educational attainment. We find that when questioned about their educational plans: (1) perhaps as many as 20% of youth supply extemporaneous responses; (2) another 20% report goals of quite recent formulation; and (3) the remainder report long-term commitments (at least 2-5 years). The last are so longstanding as to make suspect the causal ordering employed in most models of adolescent attainment. That is, such plans are not properly considered as the products of high school experiences. We also document that senior year measures of educational goals often are quite contaminated by prior knowledge of one's actual prospects for college. Finally, our analyses make suspect the assumptions, first, that educational plans are homogeneous in their information across students and assessments and second, that they reflect exclusively, or even primarily, underlying motivation or achievement orientation. Without these assumptions, it is difficult to sustain the customary interpretation of plans' "influences."

Teacher Behavior and Student Learning.

Abstract: In recent years, several large scale field correla tional studies have been conducted at various elemen tary grade levels (Stallings and Kaskowitz, 1974; Soar and Soar, 1972; McDonald and Elias, 1976; Tikunoff, Berliner, and Rist, 1975; Brophy and Evertson, 1976; Good and Grouws, 1977). These studies varied in the types of teachers and students included and the kinds of variables addressed and methods used, but there was sufficient overlap and replication to provide de pendable knowledge about relationships between teacher behavior and student learning of basic skills in the elementary grades (see reviews by Rosenshine, 1976; Medley, 1977; Borich and Fenton, 1977; and Good, 1979). The data from these studies support what Rosenshine (1979) calls "direct instruction" as effective for producing student learning of basic skills? Critical aspects include: (1) teachers focus on academic goals; (2) promote extensive content coverage and high levels of student involvement; (3) select instructional goals and materials and actively monitor student progress; (4) structure learning activities and include immediate, academically oriented feedback; (5) create an environment that is task oriented but relaxed. Taken together, these studies provide strong support for the following generalizations:

Geographic constraints on women's careers in academia

Abstract: Male and female academics have very different residence patterns. Women are more concentrated in our largest urban centers; also, wherever they reside, women are less likely than men to change communities when changing institutions. Much of this sex difference is attributable to the constraints under which married academic women must manage their careers, in particular the requirements of two-career households. The authors argue that the status difference between men and women in academia is attributable, in part, to the geographic limitations on the locations of married women, as these prevent making strategic job changes to advance career prospects.

Teacher Expectations and Student Achievement.

Abstract: The title of the TESA program says it all. That people will rise to the expectations that others have of them has been known for centuries. Thus, whatever expectations teachers have of their students will influence student achievement. If a teacher perceives a student to be a high achiever and asks that student a high-level question, then that student will achieve at a higher level. If a teacher perceives a student to be a lower achieving student, the teacher will subconsciously ask an easier question, resulting in that student achieving at a lower level.

Parental expectations for their epileptic children.

Abstract: SUMMARY Parental expectations for their epileptic children were compared with those held for their non-epileptic children. Parents were found to be less optimistic about their epileptic child's future achievements. These findings were linked with greater restrictiveness on the parents’ part, and the epileptic child's lower self-esteem and academic achievement. The disparity between parent and teacher ratings of behaviour was discussed.