Contemporary Educational Psychology最新文献

Academic buoyancy, the capacity to respond to minor academic adversities, is expected to enable students to effectively deal with failure. Prior research, however, has shown negligible relations between buoyancy and coping, but only considered a limited set of coping strategies. In addition, academic buoyancy and effective coping are expected to positively relate to higher academic achievement. However, studies examining how coping could mediate relations from academic buoyancy to achievement are lacking. In the present study (N = 535 upper secondary students, mean age 16.4 years), we examined relations between students’ buoyancy, coping with an examination failure, and academic achievement. We considered an extensive set of nine coping strategies (five adaptive, four maladaptive) and used a novel network analysis, alongside traditional analytic approaches (correlation, structural equation modelling). Buoyancy and coping were assessed with self-report, and achievement from an end-of-year examination. Buoyancy was positively related with adaptive, and negatively with maladaptive, coping strategies both in structural equation modeling and in the network analysis. In addition, structural equation modeling showed positive and negative indirect relations between buoyancy and achievement that were mediated by adaptive coping strategies. Our findings suggest that buoyancy interventions to enhance adaptive, and reduce maladaptive, coping strategies could be suitable ways to help students overcome examination failure.

The spacing effect occurs when learning with rest periods is superior to learning without rest periods. Cognitive load theory has explained this superiority by working memory resource depletion, under which resources are depleted during cognitive activity but restored with rest. In a series of four experiments involving 341 participants, we explored the relationships between the spacing effect, depletion of working memory resources, and mental rehearsal, particularly focusing on how these dynamics are influenced by task complexity as defined by element interactivity. Experiment 1 showed that materials with higher element interactivity had a greater impact on working memory resource depletion. In Experiment 2, using materials low in element interactivity, a spacing effect was obtained with no evidence of working memory resource depletion. Instead, results suggested that the effect might be due to mental rehearsal occurring during rest periods. Experiment 3, using more complex information, obtained both the spacing and working memory resource depletion effects for less knowledgeable learners for whom the information was high in element interactivity. In Experiment 4, testing more knowledgeable learners for whom the same information was lower in element interactivity, both effects disappeared. The results indicated that working memory resource depletion and recovery may be more sensitive to materials high in element interactivity and suggest that it is only one of multiple causes of the spacing effect.

University students studying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) tend to lose motivation, on average, over time. However, detailed understanding of when and how students are most likely to lose motivation, as well as whether motivational trajectories differ across contexts, is lacking. Accordingly, we investigated trajectories of expectancy, task values, and perceived costs in four introductory STEM courses (N = 2,104). Latent change score models revealed nuanced patterns of change, indicating average motivational declines in expectancy and task values and average increases in cost perceptions observed in prior research tend to occur primarily at the beginning of the semester. Motivational trajectories also differed in the shape and timing of mean changes across the four STEM courses, suggesting motivational loss trends may not be universal. Variation in trajectories also related to course performance and major persistence, with different motivational beliefs playing different roles at various times in the semester. Findings highlighted the importance of early course performance in predicting motivational change, as well as the importance of motivational changes for short- and long-term outcomes. Findings underscore the contextualized nature of motivational constructs, as both change patterns and relations to correlates differed across settings, indicating a need for researchers to carefully consider how samples are aggregated and further uncover contextual features that shape motivation. Overall, our study findings add essential understanding of motivational strengths and needs in real-world classroom contexts, with implications for the design and timing of intervention for instructors by examining what developmental patterns are common across settings and which are more particular to specific settings.

Previous research has underscored the importance of understanding the mechanisms that underpin the academic motivation of PhD students. This understanding is crucial for enhancing their educational experience and program completion rates. Based on self-determination theory, this person-centered study first investigated PhD students’ motivation profiles defined on their types of academic motivations. Second, we explored associations between these profiles and various predictors (need satisfaction and support) and educational outcomes (persistence, satisfaction, future intentions, and performance). Third, we systematically tested the similarity of these profiles and their associations with predictors and outcomes across subgroups of students based on sex, field of study, citizenship, and program progression. Using a sample of 1060 Canadian PhD students, four distinct profiles emerged from the latent profile analyses: Low self-determined, Introjected, Identified, and High self-determined. Profile membership was predicted by need satisfaction and perceived support from faculty members. The most desirable outcome levels were associated with the High self-determination profile, followed by the Identified, Introjected and Low self-determined profiles. These profiles and their associations with predictors and outcomes were highly similar across the different subgroups. From a practical perspective, our results allowed us to identify students with less optimal motivation configurations and to propose intervention strategies, particularly focused on students’ need for autonomy, to support more desirable motivational profiles.

Although much has been written about the beneficial effects of the Jigsaw method, little is known about how it affects students' motivation and self-regulation processes. In this study, we tested its effects on students' trajectories of autonomous mathematics motivation and academic self-regulation. We also examined whether these effects could be moderated by the students’ cooperative attitudes and initial mathematics achievement level. 4,698 students from French vocational high schools participated in the study over two years. They were divided into three groups: 1,641 were assigned to a cooperative learning condition with the Jigsaw method, 1,602 to a weakly structured cooperative learning condition, and 1,455 to a business-as-usual learning condition. Self-reported mathematics motivation, academic self-regulation, and cooperative attitudes were collected three times during the study. Overall, the multilevel growth model results indicate a general decline in students’ motivation and self-regulation, and student-reported cooperative attitudes did not moderate these effects. However, the trajectories of motivation and self-regulation differed by condition for low-achieving students. While these trajectories decreased over time amongst low-achieving students in the Jigsaw method condition and in the weakly structured cooperation condition, they were stable in the business-as-usual learning condition. These results provide a new perspective since they seem to question the implementation conditions of the Jigsaw method for low-achieving students.

This study tested how prompting learners to compare their drawings to instructional visuals affects their perceived and actual performance. Undergraduates (n = 116) created two drawings while studying a text on the human circulatory system. Then they made a series of retrospective and prospective judgments of their drawing performance and prospective judgments of their comprehension. In a subsequent restudy phase, students were randomly assigned to either compare their drawings to instructional visuals (compare group; n = 56) or to restudy the text and review their drawings without receiving instructional visuals (control group; n = 60), followed by a series of new judgments of drawing and comprehension. All students then completed drawing and comprehension post-tests. Results indicated that comparing one’s drawings to instructional visuals caused students to become underconfident in the quality of their drawings (lower retrospective accuracy) and overconfident in their future drawing performance (lower prospective accuracy). Exploratory analyses indicated that the compare group tended to make surface-level (rather than conceptual) comparisons when processing the provided visuals, such as attending to the aesthetic style or conventions used in the instructional visuals. Furthermore, despite a strong link between drawing and comprehension performance, comparing drawings to instructional visuals did not significantly affect students’ judgments of comprehension. These findings highlight potential drawbacks of comparing generative drawings to instructional visuals in learning by drawing.

Despite the pertinence of teachers’ buoyancy to ‘everyday work’, existing studies do not investigate buoyancy in close proximity to everyday experiences. Nor does existing research longitudinally investigate teachers’ buoyancy and how it relates to stress. This paper describes two quantitative daily diary studies on this relationship. Study 1 includes a relatively large sample of teachers (N = 151), compared to the number of days that they were followed (T = 15). Study 2 includes relatively few teachers (N = 10), but follows them for an extended period of time (T = 61). Both studies tested hypotheses regarding the extent to which teachers’ stress and buoyancy beliefs vary − and carry over − from day to day and the extent to which teachers’ buoyancy beliefs and stress experiences co-occur and predict each other from day to day and from teacher to teacher. Results showed that both teachers’ buoyancy beliefs and stress experiences varied and carried over significantly from day to day, although carryover effects were small. The relationship between buoyancy beliefs and stress was negative from teacher to teacher and concurrently from day to day. However, cross-lagged effects between both constructs from day to day were not significant. These results imply that both teachers’ buoyancy beliefs and stress are malleable, state-like constructs to a considerable extent, but their dynamics likely occur on a timescale that is smaller than daily.

Previous research is replete with evidence that emotions and self-regulation work together to influence learning performance, but distinct trait and state features of emotions and self-regulation are rarely considered. With an analytic sample comprising 9,501 daily diaries from 280 adolescents participating in a self-driven learning program, this study used multilevel modeling to examine how trait and state positive and negative emotions and self-regulation interact to predict adolescents' perceived daily learning progress. Results suggested that daily perceived learning progress was associated with trait and state positive emotions and self-regulation, as well as trait negative emotions. Furthermore, there was a significant positive interaction between state positive emotions and state self-regulation on perceived daily learning progress, such that when adolescents' state self-regulation was higher than usual, their perceived daily learning progress was more sensitive to state positive emotion. Results underscore the importance of enhancing adolescents' self-regulation and positive emotion, and the feasibility of facilitating adolescents' learning even if they are in a state of greater negative emotion.

Enabling children’s and youth’s well-being is widely valued by families and communities worldwide. However, there is no general agreement about the structure and measurement of well-being in schooling contexts, nor in particular for Indigenous students who comprise some of the most educationally disadvantaged populations in the world. We theorised a multidimensional student well-being model and the Multidimensional Student Well-being (MSW) instrument, grounded on recent research. We investigated its structure, measurement, and relation to correlates of well-being for a matched sample of 1,405 Australian students (Indigenous, N = 764; non-Indigenous, N = 641) at three time-points, 10–12 months apart. Analyses supported an a priori multidimensional model of 6 higher-order domains of well-being, represented by 15 first-order factors. This structure was invariant across Indigenous and non-Indigenous, male and female, and primary and secondary schooling levels. Correlates provided support for convergent and discriminant validity. There was a downward trend in well-being over time, which calls for attention to multidimensional domains of students’ well-being to promote healthy development throughout school life and beyond. The results support a multidimensional model of student well-being appropriate for primary and secondary schooling and both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students.

Test anxiety poses a fundamental educational challenge as it is associated with lower academic performance and well-being. Grounded in the Self-Determination Theory, this study will focus on test anxiety fluctuations in relation to low-stakes assessments and investigates whether fluctuations in students’ experiences of autonomy and competence satisfaction and frustration relate to their test anxiety. For this purpose, 253 secondary school students completed a survey at three different times throughout the second semester. Students' feelings of autonomy and competence in the classroom were administered as well as their test anxiety. Each student completed the same two test anxiety scales at each measurement occasion, with one scale consistently administered to all students and the other two scales randomly assigned between classes. Multilevel analyses revealed that students showed higher test anxiety in weeks in which their need for competence was more frustrated and when they had to take more low-stakes tests. This association was robust across the three test anxiety instruments and after considering important test anxiety covariates (e.g., gender and prior achievement). These findings imply that competence frustration is an important underlying mechanism of test anxiety that should be taken into account when designing anxiety-reducing interventions.