British Journal of Educational Psychology最新文献

Background

Previous evidence has suggested a strong association between school exclusion and health outcomes. However, as health risks are themselves related to the risk of experiencing a school exclusion, it has been challenging to determine the extent to which school exclusion impacts later health outcomes, as opposed to reflecting a marker for pre-existing risks.

Aim

The aim of the current study was to address this challenge in estimating the medium-to-long-term impact of school exclusion of health and well-being outcomes.

Methods

To this end, we used an inverse propensity weighting approach in the Next Steps data set (N = 6534, from wave 1, 2014, to wave 8, 2015).

Results

We found that after weighting for propensity of treatment scores estimated based on a wide range of factors, including previous health indicators, there was a significant effect of school exclusion on a wide range of health and well-being outcomes.

Discussion

These results provide some of the most robust evidence to date that school exclusion harms long-term health outcomes.

Conclusion

The findings suggest that policies should aim to reduce exclusion and ensure access to preventative health support for those who experience a school exclusion.

Background

Although research clearly demonstrates the importance of motivation in mathematics learning, relatively little is known about the developmental dynamics between different facets of mathematics motivation and performance, especially in the early years of schooling.

Aims

In a longitudinal setting, we examined (1) how children's ability self-concept and intrinsic value in mathematics change over time during their first 3 years in school, (2) how those changes relate to each other and (3) how they connect with mathematics performance.

Sample

The participants were 285 Finnish school-beginners (52.7% girls).

Methods

Latent growth curve modelling was used to examine the developmental trajectories of children's ability self-concept and intrinsic value, and how those trajectories predicted later mathematics achievement (both mathematics test performance and teacher-rated grades), while controlling for previous mathematics performance and gender.

Results

The results showed significant decreases in children's ability self-concept and intrinsic value, but also significant individual differences in the trajectories. The strong dependency between the levels and changes in self-concept and intrinsic value led us to specify a factor-of-curves latent growth curve model, thus merging the trajectories of ability self-concept and intrinsic value into one common model. Subsequent results showed prior mathematics performance to predict change in children's mathematics motivation, and both the level and change in mathematics motivation to predict third-grade performance and teacher-rated grade.

Conclusions

Our findings provide evidence for a developmental link between children's ability self-concept, intrinsic value and achievement. Achievement seems to enhance mathematics motivation, and positive motivation appears to support the further development of mathematics skills.

Background

Life satisfaction is a key component of students' subjective well-being due to its impact on academic achievement and lifelong health. Although previous studies have investigated life satisfaction through different lenses, few of them employed machine learning (ML) approaches.

Objective

Using ML algorithms, the current study predicts secondary students' life satisfaction from individual-level variables.

Method

Two supervised ML models, random forest (RF) and k-nearest neighbours (KNN), were developed based on the UK data and the Japan data in PISA 2018.

Results

Findings show that (1) both models yielded better performance on the UK data than on the Japanese data; (2) the RF model outperformed the KNN model in predicting students' life satisfaction; (3) meaning in life, student competition, teacher support, exposure to bullying and ICT resources at home and at school played important roles in predicting students' life satisfaction.

Conclusions

Theoretically, this study highlights the multi-dimensional nature of life satisfaction and identifies several key predictors. Methodologically, this study is the first to use ML to explore the predictors of life satisfaction. Practically, it serves as a reference for improving secondary students' life satisfaction.

Background

Well-being is a key aspect of children's education, yet measurement issues have limited studies in early primary school.

Aims

The current 12-month longitudinal study assesses the temporal stability of child- and parent-reported school well-being and examines developmental links with academic self-concept and parent-rated prosocial behaviour.

Sample(s)

We tracked a sample of 206 children across the transition from the first (T1) to the second (T2) year of primary school (T1 child M_age = 5.3, SD = .46, 54.3% girls) and gathered ratings of well-being, prosocial behaviour and academic self-concept at both timepoints.

Methods

We used cross-lagged analyses to investigate developmental links between these three constructs.

Results

Parent and child reports of children's well-being showed similar temporal stability and converged over time, such that informants' reports showed a modest but significant correlation at T2. Girls reported greater well-being than boys at both timepoints and received higher parental ratings of well-being than boys at T2. For both girls and boys, associations between the constructs were asymmetric: early well-being predicted later self-concept and prosocial behaviour, but the reciprocal associations were not significant.

Conclusions

These findings support the validity of young children's self-reported well-being, highlight the early onset of gender differences in school well-being and demonstrate that early well-being heralds later prosocial behaviour and positive academic self-concepts.

Background

When second-career teachers (SCTs) learn to teach, they need to cope with the tension-evoking moments they encounter. Little is known about the coping strategies SCTs use to manage tensions.

Aim

The purpose of this study was to investigate the coping strategies SCTs use during the first 1.5 years of teacher training. The SCTs' own perceptions about the usefulness, evolution and specificity of these coping strategies were also studied.

Sample

Twenty-four SCTs in the alternative teacher training programme (ATTP) at the University of Amsterdam participated in this study. These SCTs aspired to become teachers of mathematics, physics, economics, computer science or chemistry.

Method

For each participant, written logbook fragments and interviews were analysed in Atlas-ti.

Results

The SCTs used in decreasing order: intrapersonal approaching (e.g., resolving problems autonomously), interpersonal approaching (e.g., consulting others) and intrapersonal avoiding strategies (e.g., ignoring an undesired situation). Interpersonal avoiding strategies were not mentioned at all.

While the SCTs reported approaching strategies (inter- and intrapersonal) as being useful for their development, we also found disadvantages to intrapersonal approaching strategies and advantageous uses of avoiding strategies. The SCTs noted several inter- and intrapersonal approaching coping strategies that they considered typical for SCTs.

Conclusion

Intrapersonal approaching coping strategies can be a risk because of the invisibility of these strategies. Interpersonal strategies should be stimulated because SCTs benefit from the social network in school. Avoiding strategies may serve a purpose for managing the complexity of the teaching profession.

Background

Problem-solving in early and middle childhood is of high relevance for cognitive developmental research and educational support. Previous research on science problem-solving has focussed on the process and strategies of children handling challenging tasks, but less on providing insights into the cognitive network that enables science problem-solving.

Aims

In this study, we aimed to investigate whether performance in science problem-solving is mainly determined by domain-specific rule knowledge, by domain-general cognitive abilities or both.

Methods

In our study, 215 6- to 8-year-old children completed a set of three domain-specific rule knowledge tasks and three corresponding problem-solving tasks that were content-coherent, as well as a vocabulary task, and a reasoning task.

Results

Correlational and regression analyses revealed a negligible impact of domain-specific rule knowledge on corresponding problem-solving tasks. In contrast, the associations between problem-solving performance in different domains and the associations between problem-solving performance and domain-general abilities (vocabulary and reasoning) were comparably strong.

Conclusions

The findings suggest that science problem-solving in primary school children primarily relies on domain-general cognitive abilities. Implications of these findings are discussed with regard to cognitive theories and early science education.

Background

A volitional help sheet (VHS) is an intervention for promoting implementation intentions. This study was the first to test the effectiveness of a VHS for increasing university students' lecture attendance.

Aims

To develop a VHS to increase university students’ lecture attendance and test its effectiveness at increasing the proportion of lectures attended, and promoting the maintenance of lecture attendance, over an 11-week teaching semester.

Sample and Method

One hundred and seventy-eight undergraduate students enrolled in a psychology degree programme were allocated at random to a VHS or active control condition. Prior to intervention, measures of goal intention to attend lectures and trait conscientiousness were collected using self-report, online questionnaires. Over the following 11-week teaching semester, attendance at synchronous (live) online lectures was measured.

Results

The VHS condition attended a greater proportion of lectures and maintained their lecture attendance for longer than did the active control condition. These effects were not sensitive to underlying goal intentions, although the sample means on the measures of goal intention were approaching ceiling. Trait conscientiousness increased the effects of the VHS on the proportion of lectures attended.

Conclusions

VHSs constitute useful interventions for increasing and maintaining university students' lecture attendance.

Background

Mastery and performance goals are typically measured as trait-like abstract goals. However, in their daily academic pursuits, students pursue more concrete goals. The pursuit of these goals is replete with obstacles that can lead to an action crisis.

Aims

We examined how mastery and performance goals affect progress, effort and well-being during academic goal pursuit. We also asked whether these goals moderated relations between an action crisis and goal pursuit.

Sample

154 Israeli students (average age = 23.59 years, SD = 2.17; 62% female) preparing for an exam.

Methods

In this daily diary study, participants first reported the date of their most stressful exam, two related goals, and their trait-like achievement goals (mastery, performance). They then completed daily questionnaires assessing their progress, effort, well-being and action crisis on the 10 days leading up to the exam.

Results

Multilevel modelling showed mastery goals positively predicted daily goal effort and progress and negatively predicted daily action crises, while performance goals positively predicted daily negative affect and action crises. An action crisis was negatively correlated with next-day goal progress and positive affect among students with high-performance goals. In students with low-performance goals, an action crisis positively predicted next-day positive affect. Finally, for students high on mastery goals, an action crisis was unrelated to negative affect on the same day.

Conclusions

Different trait-like achievement goals can be mapped onto a common personal goal and affect its pursuit differently. Mastery goals predict optimal goal pursuit, and performance goals are associated with non-optimal goal pursuit.