Theoretical approaches and empirical research suggest a decline in the levels of motivational variables and self-esteem among students during the school career. However, precise statements about the ...magnitude of the change remain elusive. Conducting a meta-analysis of 107 independent longitudinal studies with 912 effect sizes, we found an overall decrease of Glass's Δ = -.108 over an average duration of 1.654 years. Change significantly differed by construct with the largest decreases in intrinsic motivation, math and language academic self-concepts, mastery achievement goals, and performance-approach achievement goals. There were no significant mean-level changes in self-esteem, general academic self-concept, academic self-efficacy, and performance avoidance achievement goals. School stage and transition to middle school or high school were not significantly associated with the change. Findings generalized over academic domain and questionnaire used for all constructs except for academic self-concept. The decline was larger in Europe than in North America or Asia.
Perfectionism is a multidimensional personality trait whose facets differentially relate to indicators of psychological functioning, such as global self-esteem. There has been some theoretical ...disagreement whether perfectionism affects global self-esteem, or vice versa. This question merits renewed attention due to increasing efforts to prevent the development of maladaptive perfectionism facets in adolescents. In addition, recent research has indicated a role of self-esteem for predicting personality development. This study aimed to clarify the longitudinal relations of multidimensional perfectionism and global self-esteem. A sample of 707 early adolescents participated in two measurement points two years apart. Global self-esteem positively predicted personal standards, negatively predicted doubts about actions, and did not predict concern over mistakes beyond baseline. Perfectionism facets did not longitudinally predict global self-esteem. These findings provide the first evidence for a role of global self-esteem in perfectionism development. Addressing early adolescents’ self-esteem may aid in preventing the development of maladaptive perfectionism facets.
The structure of academic self-concept (ASC) is assumed to be multidimensional and hierarchical. This methodological review considers the most central models depicting the structure of ASC: a ...higher-order factor model, the Marsh/Shavelson model, the nested Marsh/Shavelson model, a bifactor representation based on exploratory structural equation modeling, and a first-order factor model. We elaborate on how these models represent the theoretical assumptions on the structure of ASC and outline their inherent psychometric properties. We analyzed these models using a data set of German 10th-grade students (N = 1,232) including a wide range of domain-specific ASCs as well as general ASC. The correlations among ASCs and between ASCs and academic achievement varied depending on the structural model used. We conclude with discussing recommendations for research purposes and advantages and limitations of each ASC model. Our approach may also guide research on other affective or motivational constructs (e.g., academic anxiety or interest).
There are different views on whether perfectionism is a characteristic of intellectually gifted students. Over the last decades, comparative studies of intellectually gifted and non-gifted students ...have produced inconsistent results. This heterogeneity in findings might be explained by underpowered studies and the multidimensional nature of perfectionism, comprising two broader dimensions: perfectionistic concerns and perfectionistic strivings. Whereas perfectionistic concerns are clearly maladaptive, perfectionistic strivings frequently positively relate to academic and psychological adjustment. We meta-analytically aggregated 32 effect sizes from 10 comparative studies (
N
=4340) to investigate to what extent intellectually gifted and non-gifted students differ in perfectionistic concerns and perfectionistic strivings. Intellectually gifted students displayed equal levels of perfectionistic concerns compared to non-gifted students (
g
=−0.117, 95% CI −0.337, 0.103,
p
=.252) but displayed elevated levels of perfectionistic strivings (
g
=0.332, 95% CI 0.092, 0.572,
p
=.012). The magnitude of the effect sizes indicates that perfectionism is not a core characteristic of giftedness. In particular, giftedness is not related to inherently maladaptive forms of perfectionism.
The last 2 decades witnessed a surge in empirical studies on the variables associated with achievement in higher education. A number of meta-analyses synthesized these findings. In our systematic ...literature review, we included 38 meta-analyses investigating 105 correlates of achievement, based on 3,330 effect sizes from almost 2 million students. We provide a list of the 105 variables, ordered by the effect size, and summary statistics for central research topics. The results highlight the close relation between social interaction in courses and achievement. Achievement is also strongly associated with the stimulation of meaningful learning by presenting information in a clear way, relating it to the students, and using conceptually demanding learning tasks. Instruction and communication technology has comparably weak effect sizes, which did not increase over time. Strong moderator effects are found for almost all instructional methods, indicating that how a method is implemented in detail strongly affects achievement. Teachers with high-achieving students invest time and effort in designing the microstructure of their courses, establish clear learning goals, and employ feedback practices. This emphasizes the importance of teacher training in higher education. Students with high achievement are characterized by high self-efficacy, high prior achievement and intelligence, conscientiousness, and the goal-directed use of learning strategies. Barring the paucity of controlled experiments and the lack of meta-analyses on recent educational innovations, the variables associated with achievement in higher education are generally well investigated and well understood. By using these findings, teachers, university administrators, and policymakers can increase the effectivity of higher education.
Ability self-concept (SC) and self-efficacy (SE) are central competence-related self-perceptions that affect students' success in educational settings. Both constructs show conceptual differences but ...their empirical differentiation in higher education has not been sufficiently demonstrated. In the present study, we investigated the empirical differentiation of SC and SE in higher education with N = 1,243 German psychology students (81% female; age M = 23.62 years), taking into account central methodological requirements that, in part, have been neglected in prior studies. SC and SE were assessed at the same level of specificity, only cognitive SC items were used, and multiple academic domains were considered. We modeled the structure of SC and SE taking into account a multidimensional and/or hierarchical structure and investigated the empirical differentiation of both constructs on different levels of generality (i.e., domain-specific and domain-general). Results supported the empirical differentiation of SC and SE with medium-sized positive latent correlations (range r = .57 - .68) between SC and SE on different levels of generality. The knowledge about the internal structure of students' SC and SE and the differentiation of both constructs can help us to develop construct-specific and domain-specific intervention strategies. Future empirical comparisons of the predictive power of SC and SE can provide further evidence that both represent empirical different constructs.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Self-Control can be defined as the self-initiated effortful process that enables individuals to resist temptation impulses. It is relevant for conducting a healthy and successful life. For university ...students, Grass et al. found that Need for Cognition as the tendency to engage in and enjoy thinking, and Action Orientation as the flexible recruitment of control resources in cognitively demanding situations, predict Self-Control. Further, Action Orientation partially mediated the relation between Need for Cognition and Self-Control. In the present conceptual replication study, we investigated the relations between Self-Control, Need for Cognition, and Action Orientation in adolescence (N = 892 9th graders) as a pivotal period for the development of self-control. We replicated the findings that Need for Cognition and Action Orientation predict Self-Control and that Action Orientation partially mediates the relation between Need for Cognition and Self-Control. In addition, Action Orientation moderates the relation between Need for Cognition and Self-Control. This result implies that in more action-oriented students Need for Cognition more strongly predicted Self-Control than in less action-oriented students. Our findings strengthen theoretical assumptions that Need for Cognition and Action Orientation are important cognitive and behavioral mechanisms that contribute to the successful exertion of Self-Control.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This study explores relations between measures of individuals' circadian preferences and the Big Five. To this end, we compared a model of circadian preferences that acknowledges morningness (M) and ...eveningness (E) as separate dimensions to that of a model that places M and E on a single continuum (M-E). Analyses of 620 correlations from 44 independent samples (N = 16,647) revealed weak to modest relations between both dimensions of circadian preferences and the Big Five personality traits. The strongest observed relation was found between Conscientiousness and M (ρ = .37). In the next step, regression analyses revealed that personality traits accounted for between 10.9% and 16.4% of the variance in circadian preferences. Of all the Big Five dimensions, Conscientiousness exhibited the strongest unique relation with M (β = .32), E (β = −.26), and M-E (β = .32). Extraversion and Openness exhibited moderate unique relations with E (β = .23 and β = .17, respectively), whereas relations with M (β = .00 and β = .04), and M-E (β = −.05 and β = −.06) were relatively weak. Neuroticism exhibited a modest unique and negative relation with M (β = −.16), and Agreeableness was largely unrelated to all circadian preference variables. To determine whether these findings translated into anything of applied significance, we explored relations between circadian preference and academic performance. M and E incremented slightly over the Big Five factors in predicting grade-point average. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
Achievement in different domains, such as academics, music, or visual arts, plays a central role in all modern societies. Different psychological models aim to describe and explain achievement and ...its development in different domains. However, there remains a need for a framework that guides empirical research within and across different domains. With the talent-development-in-achievement-domains (TAD) framework, we provide a general talent-development framework applicable to a wide range of achievement domains. The overarching aim of this framework is to support empirical research by focusing on measurable psychological constructs and their meaning at different levels of talent development. Furthermore, the TAD framework can be used for constructing domain-specific talent-development models. With examples for the application of the TAD framework to the domains of mathematics, music, and visual arts, the review provided supports the suitability of the TAD framework for domain-specific model construction and indicates numerous research gaps and open questions that should be addressed in future research.
The threshold hypothesis and the necessary-but-not-sufficient hypothesis represent popular views on the relationship between intelligence and creativity. However, most studies investigating these ...hypotheses used suboptimal or even inappropriate statistical methods, calling into question the robustness of the available evidence. The ability differentiation hypothesis presents a third theoretical view on the relationship, but ability differentiation studies including creativity measures are scarce. In this study, the relationship between fluid intelligence as a core element of intelligence and divergent thinking as an important indicator of creativity was investigated in two large samples of secondary school students in Germany (N = 1,328, Mage = 14.47; N = 524, Mage = 13.77). Four different statistical approaches were applied (i.e., test for heteroscedasticity, segmented regression analysis, local structural equation modeling, and necessary-but-not-sufficient condition analysis). The results did not support the threshold hypothesis or a nonlinear relationship as predicted by ability differentiation hypothesis and only partially supported the necessary-but-not-sufficient hypothesis.
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