British Journal of Educational Psychology最新文献

Background: Preparing preservice teachers for teaching placements and future careers is crucial. However, their motivation often fluctuates as they gain experience and receive feedback from influential sources. While previous studies have examined changes in preservice teachers' motivation over time, there has been little research on how this motivation varies in relation to performance during simulations.

Aims: We explored how performance on a series of classroom simulation sessions predicts preservice teachers' self-efficacy, career intentions, and perceived fit with the profession, after controlling for the baseline levels.

Sample: Participants were 1411 preservice teachers from an undergraduate teacher education programme in Australia (M = 20.27 years, SD = 4.54).

Methods: Data were collected from students enrolled in an introduction to teaching course in a 4-year teacher education programme. Participants completed three classroom simulation sessions spaced over a 3-week period. We used latent change structural equation modelling to test the effects of performance on classroom simulations on preservice teachers' self-efficacy, career intentions and perceived person-vocation fit.

Results: The level of performance on classroom simulations significantly predicted changes in self-efficacy and person-vocation fit (but not career intentions), even after controlling for baseline levels of the constructs, as well as gender and age. Moreover, the change in teaching self-efficacy was progressively more pronounced after the second and third classroom simulation sessions. Finally, both age and gender were found to be associated with preservice teachers' motivation to teach.

Conclusions: The implications for practice are that preservice teacher motivation may respond well to regular, repeated teaching-related simulations.

Background: Students with learning disabilities often struggle to achieve expected academic performance despite average or above-average intelligence. Reading comprehension, a cognitive process involving multiple mental skills, is particularly challenging for these students, with approximately 80% experiencing difficulties.

Aims: This study investigates the relationship between academic self-concept and reading comprehension among middle school students with learning disabilities, focusing on the serial mediating roles of reading anxiety and reading motivation.

Sample(s): The sample consists of 302 middle school students (165 males, 137 females) diagnosed with learning disabilities. The participants included 77 fifth graders, 80 sixth graders, 75 seventh graders and 70 eighth graders.

Methods: Structural equation modelling (SEM) was employed to analyse the data, with reading anxiety and reading motivation considered as mediators.

Results: The SEM results indicated that reading motivation partially mediated the relationship between academic self-concept and reading comprehension, while reading anxiety and reading motivation together fully mediated this relationship.

Conclusions: The findings highlight the importance of addressing both reading anxiety and motivation to improve reading comprehension in students with learning disabilities. Enhancing academic self-concept and reducing reading anxiety can significantly boost reading motivation and comprehension skills.

Background: Math anxiety (MA) is recognized as a heterogeneous and dynamic construct, significantly affecting students' academic performance. Despite its importance, longitudinal studies examining the profiles of MA from multiple dimensions and their transitions remain limited.

Aims: The study identified distinct MA profiles, controlling for general anxiety, test anxiety and math achievement. It also examined how teacher support, peer support and math attitudes predict changes in MA profile membership, alongside potential gender differences.

Samples: The sample included 1025 Chinese third graders (M_age = 8.39, SD = .56; 411 girls), assessed four times from third to sixth grade via questionnaires.

Methods: MA, perceived teacher support, peer support and math attitudes were measured at four time points. Latent transition analysis was used to examine MA profiles while controlling for general anxiety, test anxiety and math achievement, with teacher support, peer support and math attitudes as predictors.

Results: Three MA profiles were identified: Low MA profile (LMA), Moderate math evaluation anxiety profile (MMEA) and High math learning, problem solving and teacher anxiety profile (HLPTMA). Higher perceived teacher and peer support increased the likelihood of transitioning from MMEA and HLPTMA to LMA. Positive math attitudes facilitated the shift from MMEA and HLPTMA to LMA. Boys were more likely to shift from MMEA to HLPTMA than girls.

Conclusions: The study sheds light on MA profile stability and highlights the crucial role of teacher and peer support and math attitudes in MA changes. These findings underscore the importance of early intervention strategies for managing MA in children.

Background: Past studies on mindsets have mostly examined them as an individual difference variable. However, the mindset-by-context framework argues that mindsets do not occur within a vacuum, and their successful implementation depends on the social context. One of the most important social contexts for students is the socioeconomic conditions of their families, schools and countries.

Aims: This study aimed to examine whether growth mindsets were associated with focal learning-related outcomes and whether socioeconomic conditions moderated the association between growth mindsets and focal outcomes.

Methods: Multilevel moderated analyses were conducted to analyse the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 database with 612,004 students from 80 countries.

Results: Having a growth mindset was positively associated with academic achievement, intrinsic motivation and academic engagement. Furthermore, students from affluent families, schools, and countries benefited more from the growth mindset, supporting the 'rich get richer' hypothesis. We did not find any support for the compensatory hypothesis, which assumes that growth mindsets would be more advantageous for disadvantaged students.

Conclusion: This study extends mindset research by emphasizing the role of social context, particularly socioeconomic conditions at the family, school and country levels.

Background: Previous national and international research has investigated potential patterns of SEN identification, in which there may be overrepresentation of males, individuals from lower socio-economic backgrounds, and pupils attending schools in economically disadvantaged areas.

Aims: The aim of the current study is to link administrative education data for the academic year 2011/12 to data from the UK 2011 Census to explore which individual, family and school characteristics are associated with SEN identification.

Sample(s): The analysis sample consists of 284,010 pupils attending schools in Wales in 2011/12 linked to household data from the UK 2011 Census.

Methods: Multilevel models were used to estimate the association between individual, family and school characteristics with SEN identification. Further models examined how these factors influence four areas of SEN needs: cognition and learning; communication and interaction; physical and/or sensory; and behavioural, emotional and social development.

Results: Results suggest that aspects of a child's individual and family environment are associated with SEN identification. In particular, males, pupils reported as White ethnicity, pupils who were persistently absent, pupils from households with lower parental education, parental economic inactivity, and lower household social grades have an increased likelihood of SEN identification.

Conclusions: This study emphasizes the importance of considering the environmental context (family and school) of the child in addition to child characteristics for a more accurate and holistic understanding of a child's needs. This research can inform the development of more inclusive and effective support strategies under the new Additional Learning Needs framework in Wales.

Background: Individual achievement goals are influenced by the learning context, such as the classroom. In this social space, social norms emerge and shape motivation and behaviour. Classroom goal structures reflect injunctive norms (what is considered acceptable) and influence individual achievement goals. The role that descriptive norms (what others typically do or think) play in individual achievement goals is unclear. We propose that peer achievement goals reflect descriptive norms and additionally influence individual achievement goals.

Aims: We aim to better understand contextual influences on individual student motivation by applying a social norms framework to study changes in individual achievement goals and acknowledge the role of peers.

Sample and methods: We used longitudinal data from 4189 students from 169 classes at two time points after the transition to secondary school.

Results: We calculated multilevel models to predict changes in individual mastery-, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals. As Level-2 predictors, class-level classroom goal structures represented injunctive norms, while peer achievement goals represented descriptive norms. Individual achievement goals and individual-level classroom goal structures were added on Level 1. Class-level classroom goal structures related to changes in individual achievement goals only if peer achievement goals were not added. If added on the classroom level, peer achievement goals remained as a single Level-2 predictor of changes in individual achievement goals.

Conclusion: We demonstrated the key role that descriptive norms (reflected by peer achievement goals) play in individual achievement goals. The role of injunctive norms needs to be investigated further to enhance our understanding of how social norms shape individual student motivation.

Aim: This study employed a three-wave random intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) to investigate whether a reciprocal relationship exists between perceived peer relationships (intimacy and conflict) and achievement motivation in math and English in the Chinese context.

Samples: A total of 4040 high school students were tracked with their perceived intimacy and conflict with peers and achievement motivation levels in math and English over three academic years since Grade 10.

Results: A reciprocal association was found between perceived peer intimacy and achievement motivation in English, and the predictive effect of intimacy on achievement motivation in English was the same as the reverse association. Only a unidirectional association between perceived peer intimacy and achievement motivation in math could be found. Perceived peer conflict change could not be significantly related to the change in achievement motivation in either math or English.

Conclusions: This study emphasizes that the influence of peer intimacy on achievement motivation is more pronounced compared to that of peer conflict. Moreover, the effect of peer intimacy varies across subject areas. Notably, there is no need for motivational intervention approaches based on gender in math and English.

Background: Learning interest is an intrinsic motivation that dynamically interacts with friendships. Students alter their learning interests to assimilate with their friends and actively establish friendships on the basis of similar interests. These processes do not operate in isolation but rather in the broader peer context. Class-level social-emotional competency (SEC) is a contextual characteristic that influences students' social and learning processes.

Aims: This study used reading and mathematics as examples to examine the moderating role of class-level SEC in the friendship influence process on learning interest and the friendship selection process based on learning interest.

Sample: A total of 2252 students (48.7% female) were surveyed in grades 4 and 6.

Methods: The friendship influence effect on reading/mathematics interest and the reading/mathematics interest-based selection effect were estimated with stochastic actor-based models. Parameter differences were tested between the low- and high-SEC classes.

Results: The friendship processes related to learning interest were strengthened in high-SEC classes. Students in high-SEC classes chose friends according to having similar reading/mathematics interests, and their reading/mathematics interests tended to assimilate with those of their friends over time. However, students in low-SEC classes chose friends more randomly, and the friendship influence effects were much weaker.

Conclusions: In reading and mathematics, friendship selection and influence processes contribute to similarities in learning interests among friends. Increasing students' early learning interests is important for constructing a virtuous circle of friendship establishment and learning interest development. This mutual promotion relationship can be reinforced by improving class-level SEC.

Background: Social support is assumed to play a key role in motivation at university, particularly for disadvantaged students, such as first-generation and community college transfer students. However, longitudinal research investigating reciprocal associations between social support and motivation is lacking.

Aims: We examined such associations between confidence in getting support from faculty and peers and students' expectancies and subjective task values in their most difficult and most important course.

Sample: Data stemmed from two cohorts of undergraduate students (n = 320/417 in Fall 2019/2020) at a diverse Southern Californian university.

Methods: Students reported on their confidence in getting support and their expectancies and subjective task values at the beginning, in the middle and (only for motivation) at the end of the academic term.

Results: Results indicated no differences in confidence in getting support based on university generation or transfer student status. Cross-lagged panel models provided some evidence for reciprocal associations between students' confidence in getting support and their expectancies and subjective task values. Findings were similar across the Fall 2019 and Fall 2020 cohorts, providing support for the generalizability across in-person vs. remote learning settings. Longitudinal associations tended to be stronger for first-generation and transfer students.

Conclusions: Future research should, therefore, examine whether university programmes targeting social support are especially effective for disadvantaged students.

Background: The achievement composition effect (ACE) posits that students' academic performance is influenced by the collective achievement level of their classmates. While ACE has been demonstrated across various learning domains, its role in second language (L2) learning and motivational moderators of this effect remain underexplored.

Aims: This longitudinal study examines ACE in the context of L2 learning, with a particular focus on the moderating roles of students' intrinsic motivation and engagement.

Methods: A sample of 766 secondary school L2 learners from 30 classrooms was analysed using linear mixed-effects models to investigate the relationship between students' relative achievement at Time 1 and their subsequent achievement at Time 2, as well as the moderating effects of intrinsic motivation (to know, to accomplish and to experience stimulation) and engagement (behavioural and emotional).

Results: Results indicate that students' relative achievement significantly predicts subsequent achievement, supporting the presence of ACE in L2 classrooms. Moreover, intrinsic motivation to experience stimulation, behavioural engagement and emotional engagement significantly moderated this relationship in that ACE was stronger among students with higher levels of these motivational and engagement factors.

Conclusion: The findings highlight the interplay between peer achievement and individual motivational factors in shaping learning outcomes. The discussion situates these results within the broader literature on peer influence, motivation and engagement, exploring their theoretical and practical implications for L2 learning. The study underscores the importance of considering social, motivational, affective and behavioural factors in understanding and fostering optimal L2 learning environments.