British Journal of Educational Psychology最新文献

Background: Learning to write the complex academic language (AL) associated with a discipline (like science) is a critical task in education, with middle school being a key developmental period. However, we need more research to guide how we assess students' learning to write AL, especially if we want to create assessment that guides more effective instruction.

Aims: We evaluated middle school students' informational writing for six different measures of AL to determine which ones were most strongly related to writing quality and were most indicative of the unique features of informational writing. We also examined which metrics were sensitive to growth across middle school.

Sample: Our sample consists of informational compositions from 285 students in Grade 5 (n = 175) and Grade 8 (n = 110) in a Midwestern state in the United States.

Methods: Path modelling was used to determine the degree to which the AL metrics are associated with writing quality and narrativity in each grade.

Results: Overall, the six measures of AL explained 70% of the variance in students' writing quality. We found that a new measure, number of long words, outperformed other more established measures at the word level and should be used in assessment of informational writing quality. We also found that automated scores at the sentence level better detected development across middle school grade levels than typical rubrics of writing quality.

Conclusion: Results provide promising avenues for the assessment of malleable aspects of AL in middle school informational writing.

Background and aims: The hypothesis that study strategies can compensate for less study time in predicting learning outcomes has often been proposed but rarely tested empirically.

Methods: In the present study, 231 university students reported their daily perceived time spent on self-study, study strategies (planning, monitoring, concentration and procrastination) and goal achievement over a 30 days period.

Results and conclusion: Results showed that both more overall perceived study time and better study strategies (better planning, monitoring, and concentration, less procrastination) predicted higher goal achievement at the end of the day. In addition, perceived study time and study strategies interactively predicted goal achievement. When students reported better planning, monitoring and concentration as well as lower procrastination, less time was needed to achieve a high goal level compared to days on which they studied less strategically. In other words, when students studied less strategically, they had to invest more time to reach a higher goal level. In addition, perceived study time and study strategies were related to students' negative affect. Negative affect was particularly high when students studied for many hours with low concentration, and it was particularly low when students studied for only a few hours and procrastinated less. Taken together, the results suggest a compensatory effect of study time and study strategies on daily goal achievement and affect, highlighting the need to teach students effective study strategies.

Background and aims: There is currently a dearth of tools to assess parents' use of effective interactive strategies for supporting early mathematics learning. One potential such strategy is sustained shared thinking. This study therefore constructed and validated a scale for measuring parents' use of sustained shared thinking during joint mathematics activities with young children, and examined its antecedents and outcomes.

Methods: Four hundred and sixty-six parents completed a questionnaire about their conceptions of mathematics teaching and learning, home practices, as well as their kindergarten children's approach and avoidance motivation to learn mathematics. Additionally, the children were tested on numeration skills.

Results and conclusion: Results showed that our new scale has three factors: exchanging ideas with children about mathematical problem-solving processes, creating a child-centred atmosphere for mathematics learning, and engaging children in mathematical thinking. Parents' uses of these three strategies were predicted by their constructivist conception of mathematics teaching and learning, and were differentially associated with the children's numeration skills, approach, and avoidance motivation to learn mathematics. Potential uses of our new scale in future home mathematics environment research are discussed.

Background: Despite increasing attention on emotional labor in teacher well-being research, person-centered studies are relatively scarce, particularly concerning the emotional labor of online teaching during COVID-19 and its effects on teachers' non-work-related mental health.

Objective: This study aims to address these gaps by examining emotional labor profiles and their consequences on job satisfaction, depression, and anxiety among Chinese teachers involved in either online or offline teaching during October-December 2022.

Methods: Two samples of teachers were analyzed altogether: one engaged in online teaching (N=605) and the other in offline teaching (N=394). Latent profile analysis was used to identify emotional labor profiles based on three strategies: surface acting, deep acting, and expression of naturally felt emotions.

Results: A total of four subgroups of emotional workers were identified: natural expressors, actors, flexible regulators, and authentic regulators. Significant differences were found between online and offline teaching, with a higher proportion of actors and fewer flexible regulators in the online condition, suggesting that the screen acts as a barrier to authentic emotional display. Among the four classes, actors scored lowest on job satisfaction and highest on depression and anxiety, whereas authentic regulators were the most adaptive, especially in online settings.

Conclusions: The findings highlight the impact of online teaching on teachers' emotional labor profiles and mental health, with practical implications for optimizing online teaching environments and supporting teacher well-being.

Background: Teachers' and parents' judgements of pupils' cognitive abilities influence pupils' daily learning opportunities and experiences, as these judgements affect the difficulty level of materials and instruction that teachers and parents provide. Over time, these judgements thus significantly shape educational success. However, pupils' characteristics, such as special educational needs (SEN), giftedness and socioeconomic status (SES) can influence and bias judgement accuracy.

Aims: The present study aimed to investigate the relation between pupils' cognitive abilities and their teachers' and parents' judgements of these abilities, and potential bias in these judgements related to SEN, giftedness, and SES.

Sample: The sample consisted of 1073 primary school pupils from grades 4-6 from 77 classes in 16 schools, and their teachers and parents.

Methods: Teachers and parents rated their pupils' cognitive abilities. Pupils completed the COVAT-3, a cognitive ability test.

Results: Multilevel analyses revealed that parent judgements were significantly higher than teacher judgements, but both informants' judgements were equally strong related to the cognitive ability scores. When controlling for pupils' assessed cognitive abilities, the results revealed small judgement biases: negative for SEN, positive for giftedness, and finally positive for high SES, but only in teachers.

Conclusions: Overall, the results indicated that teachers and parents can judge their pupils abilities to a moderate degree, but they also hold judgement biases related to SEN, giftedness and SES. As these biases can affect pupils' opportunities, it is important to increase teachers' and parents' awareness.

Background and aims: Although errors and failures are indispensable parts of the learning process, the current theoretical models and empirical research remain inadequate to provide a comprehensive perspective for learning from errors, considering the roles of different agents, settings, and support mechanisms. Addressing these gaps in the literature, this special issue collects 11 research papers related to learning from errors and failure in educational contexts. In this commentary, we synthesize the findings of these papers with previous work, address conceptual and methodological challenges based on these papers and their implications, and provide suggestions to enhance educational practices.

Results: The special issue papers varying in regard to research design, subject domain, participants, and learning setting presented findings about four main themes: (1) contextual factors (e.g. organization and error climate) as an enabler and barrier, (2) individual factors (e.g. motivational beliefs and emotions) in learners' processing of errors, (3) error- or failure-related learning processes, and (4) instructional strategies (e.g. feedback and prompts) to support learning from errors. Critical evaluation of these papers also revealed conceptual (e.g. error vs. failure) and methodological (e.g. generic vs. error-specific measures and instruments) challenges, which also paved the way for directions for future research.

Conclusion: Overall, 11 papers in this special issue provide significant empirical evidence about learning from errors and failure in educational contexts. Synthesizing the findings of both these papers and prior research, we also present suggestions to construct an educational environment conducive to learning from errors.