European Journal of Psychology of Education最新文献

The COVID-19 pandemic, and the associated confinement, imposed a novel personal and social context for university students; nevertheless, few studies have addressed the effects of this on distance university students. Indeed, defining the needs of these students under such unique circumstances will allow them to receive the support necessary to effectively reduce their perceived stress and improve their academic achievement. A predictive model was designed to examine the direct effects of the variables’ age and perceived study time on stress and academic achievement in students in an online learning context, as well as to assess the indirect effects through the mediating role of academic self-efficacy. Using path analysis, the model was tested on a sample of 1030 undergraduate students between 18 and 60 years old enrolled on a psychology degree course at the UNED (National Distance Learning University of Spain). The model provides a good fit to the data, confirming the mediating role of academic self-efficacy. Perceived study time is a factor negatively associated with stress and positively with academic achievement. However, it appeared that age was not related to academic achievement, indicating that academic self-efficacy had no mediating effect on these two variables. Academic self-efficacy is a mediator and protective factor in challenging times like the COVID-19 pandemic. These results may contribute to the design of educational and clinical interventions for students at an online learning university over an extended age range.

Socio-emotional school behavior and learning are both fundamental aspects of children’s development influenced by cognitive control processes named Executive Functions (EF). Yet, research on school-age children has often focused on the relationship between EF and learning skills overlooking that of EF and school behavior, which has usually been examined among preschoolers. The current study investigated the contribution of EF in both school behavior and learning in school-age children. One hundred forty-six III–V graders were assessed using text comprehension and EF tasks and evaluated by teachers-rated inventories on behavioral difficulties and EF within the school context. The results suggested a different involvement of direct and indirect EF measures in the two domains considered: controlling for socioeconomic level and age, an EF direct measure, predicted reading comprehension whereas teacher-reported EF related to both behavior and text comprehension. The results contribute to defining the role of cognitive control processes on school behavior and learning in school-age children.

Conversation circles in kindergartens can foster discursive abilities such as argumentation. This paper analyzes argumentation in conversation circles in a kindergarten with respect to the function of narrative argumentation. We focus on second stories as a specific narrative form that is characterized by relating in content and form to a before told narrative thereby displaying similarity and alignment. In this paper, we will analyze videographed conversation circles in a kindergarten. Our methodological approach is interactional and qualitative, informed by conversation analysis and narrative analysis. We will argue that preschool children use second stories for argumentative purposes in cooperative argumentative exchanges and through them produce interactional alignment.

We report on a study bearing implications for ethical learning in schoolchildren during social interaction. The study was conducted as part of a project aimed at promoting ethical learning of socially-oriented values within the context of dialogic education. 172 fourth graders from 7 classes participated in an 8-session series designed to foster empathy, inclusion, and tolerance. Two of these sessions (3 and 8) were pre-selected for analysis. We investigated (1) whether students’ discussion of ethical issues and the ethical aspects of their actual in-class interaction with each other can be reliably measured, and (2) what relation holds between students’ ethical thinking during classroom discussions and the ethical aspects of their behavior. We thus developed an analytical framework comprising two tools for appraising ethical thinking and behavior in in-class interaction: dialogue on ethics (DoE) and ethics of dialogue (EoD). This framework was applied to the dialogues taken from the two sessions. The DoE and EoD tools proved reliable, as inter-rater agreement was substantial. Moreover, the relation between children’s DoE and their EoD was positive where the topic posed for discussion presented a dilemma and students’ interaction proceeded under moderate teacher guidance. In contrast, it was negative when the discussion was conceptual, and the teacher was dominant. We conclude that (1) DoE/EoD is a suitable framework for studying children’s ethical learning and development in social interaction, and (2) ethical learning, in its epistemological and behavioral dimensions, can be boosted or inhibited in a context of dialogic education, depending on design principles.

The home math environment is vital for early math development. Yet, there is limited understanding of how parents translated their attitudes towards helping children learn math (HCLM) into actions to influence their young children’s math-related outcomes. Thus, the present study examined whether parents’ perceived competence, value, and pressure about HCLM contributed to young children’s math competence through parents’ interest in HCLM, home math activities, and children’s interest in math. One hundred forty-seven parents were surveyed about their attitudes, practices, and their children’s math interest. Meanwhile, their children were individually tested on applied math problem solving. Results showed that parents’ perceived competence and value about HCLM predicted their interest in HCLM, while parents’ pressure about HCLM predicted children’s math interest. Parents’ interest in HCLM is positively linked to children’s applied math problem solving via children’s math interest. This study shed light on the importance of promoting parents’ positive attitudes towards HCLM.

Previous research suggests that peer support is an essential component of adolescents’ sense of relatedness in peer relationships and correlates with study engagement and life satisfaction. However, what the underlying mechanisms of these relationships are, has remained unclear. This study examined 1) whether the sense of relatedness or study engagement mediate the effect of peer support on students’ life satisfaction, and 2) whether sense of relatedness mediates the effects of peer support on students’ study engagement. The data were analysed with the structural equation modelling (SEM), using a cross-sectional sample of Finnish upper secondary education students (n = 293) (63% female, 31% male). The results showed that the relationship between peer support and the student life satisfaction beyond the school was fully mediated by students’ experiences of study engagement and sense of relatedness. This suggests that peer support for studying by itself is not sufficient for cultivating student life satisfaction, but its effectiveness depends on whether it positively impacts their study engagement and sense of relatedness. To improve the life satisfaction of upper secondary education students, study-related peer support needs to be cultivated so that it triggers students’ sense of relatedness and study engagement.

Student academic procrastination has been established as a strong predictor of several unfavorable consequences such as poor academic performance, low academic self-efficacy, and negative emotional experience. Increasing knowledge on what variables affect academic procrastination can assist nurturers and educators in minimizing student academic procrastination in the primary school setting. Based on the temporal decision model, this study examined the link between self-control and academic procrastination via the mediational role of task aversiveness and outcome value. The model was tested using structural equation modeling and cross-sectional data from 3028 primary school students (50.8% boys) in grades 3–6. The results showed a positive association between the impulse system and academic procrastination, and a negative association between the control system and academic procrastination among primary school students. Moreover, both task aversiveness and outcome value were found to mediate the link between self-control and academic procrastination among primary school students. These findings suggest that encouraging and guiding students to think more about the positive outcome and less about the negative engagement of tasks may be an effective strategy to reduce their academic procrastination.

Values education within the school context is, among other elements, shaped by a value-related school climate as well as teachers’ value-related educational goals. This longitudinal study investigated the interplay between these two elements over fifteen months, starting in March 2021, and including four points of measurement (t1 − t4). The sample consisted of 118 primary school teachers (years 1 and 2) from primary schools in Switzerland. Teachers’ value-related educational goals were measured with the Portrait Values Questionnaire, and teachers’ perception of their school climate was measured with the 12-Item School Climate Measure Scale. Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Models along with Multiple Imputation for missing data were used to investigate the reciprocal relationships along the four dimensions of value-related educational goals represented by Schwartz’s Higher-Order Value Types: Openness to Change, Conservation, Self-Enhancement, and Self-Transcendence and their corresponding dimensions of a perceived value-related school climate of Innovation, Stability, Performance, and Support. For the dimensions “Innovation and Openness to Change,” the analyses revealed that the perceived value-related school climate of Innovation predicted teachers’ value-related educational goals of Openness to Change significantly from t1 to t2, while an effect in the opposite direction from t2 to t3 and from t3 to t4 was found. For the dimension “Stability and Conservation,” the analyses revealed that the perceived value-related school climate of Stability predicted teachers’ value-related educational goals of Conservation from t3 to t4. These findings are discussed in light of the dynamic processes of values education within the school environment as well as in the context of environmental and societal developments.