Science self-schemas are students' cognitive generalizations of their selves in learning science. Students who hold contrasting science self-schemas are hypothesized to learn consistently with their ...salient self-conception in science. A survey and an experiment provided complementary evidence supporting the self-congruent engagement hypothesis. Study 1 surveyed 329 Year 9 Australian students and classified them into three schematic groups based on their responses to questionnaire items assessing self-knowledge defining the science-self- schema concept. The results showed that positive, average and negative schematics held contrasting goals, strategies, and grade aspiration congruent with their self-conceptions when dealing with challenging science tasks. Due to the presence of a valued self, positive schematics compared to the other two groups had stronger intention to further their studies in science and follow a science career in the future. Study 2 used an experimental design to compare positive, negative and average schematics' coping responses when dealing with a difficult test in science. One hundred and one students who had completed the survey study joined Study 2. The findings confirmed the differences between these three groups. Positive and negative schematics completed the test in a way congruent to their self-conceptions. In the absence of an elaborated self in science, average schematics had less extreme responses compared to the polarized schematic students. The results derived from two studies indicate that science self-schemas are important identity-based conceptions for understanding students' science aspiration and coping responses to challenge science. Author abstract
This article reviews motivation research published in Distance Education since 1980, highlighting the major foci of investigation and reflecting on past findings. A major trend was that past research ...has focused predominantly on learners' motivational attributes using sociocognitive models of motivation. We therefore have developed a good understanding of motivating variables such as self-efficacy and their power in engaging learners. However, this can be problematic because sociocognitive research situates motivation within an individualistic paradigm with limited attention given to examining whether learning supports and instructional designs in open and distance learning mediate and motivate learning engagement. Building on the review, this article seeks to shift the research attention from whether learners are motivated to crafting an open and distance learning system that is motivating and engaging by tapping into multiple motivation sources available beyond the confines of an individualistic frame.
Outcome-focused career goals are concerned about studying for tangible career benefits. To what extent do these goals motivate distance learners to learn? Using a mixed-method design, Study 1 found ...that career-focused learners, when compared with noncareer-focused counterparts, had a propensity to endorse outcome-focused career goals, use surface strategies, value their learning, and achieve better course results. Interview findings showed that career-focused learners used a strategic approach to ensure the timely completion of tasks and examination preparation. Study 2 located two groups of career-focused learners (autonomous and controlled) who endorsed outcome-focused career goals, alongside a noncareer-focused group. MANOVA analyses found that autonomous and noncareer-focused learners had engaged learning patterns. Although controlled learners were less engaged in learning, they achieved better results. It was concluded that outcome-focused career goals are significant sources of motivation for distance learners, despite being extrinsic to learning.
Promoting in-service teachers' continuous professional learning is indispensable to educational reforms that demand knowledge acquisition and practice innovation. Addressing this issue, this ...mixed-method study examined the relationship between teachers' professional selves and continuous professional learning. Two hundred and nighty-one practicing teachers completed a questionnaire that assessed their current and future professional selves, learning motives, strategy use, self-efficacy, control beliefs, learning interests and intentions. Cluster analyses found that strongly-committed teachers who held strong professional selves had the most engaged patterns of learning followed by teachers who had moderate and weak levels of professional selves. Study two was a follow-up interview study with eight selected teachers who held contrasting professional selves. Strongly-committed teachers discussed their hoped-for selves while weakly-committed teachers expressed concerns about heavy workload and the selves that they feared. These two groups of interviewees differed in the strategies they employed to complete course assignments. Author abstract
Can mastery and performance-approach goals predict distance learners' learning and achievement in different learning situations over an academic year? Using a prospective longitudinal design, the ...current study examined this research question using a cohort of distance learners in Hong Kong. Two hundred and seventy-two distance learners completed three survey questionnaires at the beginning, in the middle and towards the end of an academic year. Regression analyses found that distance learners' mastery and performance-approach goals at the beginning of the academic year predicted learning interest and the use of regulatory strategies in subsequent surveyed points after controlling for the effects of the age factor and self-efficacy levels.
This meta-analysis examined if students ' writing performance is improved by reading interventions in studies (k = 54 experiments; 5,018 students) where students were taught how to read and studies ...(k = 36 investigations; 3,060 students) where students ' interaction with words or text was increased through reading or observing others read. Studies included in this review involved true- or quasi-experiments (with pretests) written in English that tested the impact of a reading intervention on the writing performance of students in preschool to Grade 12. Studies were not included if the control condition was a writing intervention, treatment students received writing instruction as part of the reading intervention (unless control students received equivalent writing instruction), control students received a reading intervention (unless treatment students received more reading instruction than controls), study attrition exceeded 20%, less than 10 students were included in any experimental condition, and students attended a special school for students with disabilities. As predicted, teaching reading strengthened writing, resulting in statistically significant effects for an overall measure of writing (effect size ES = 0.57) and specific measures of writing quality (ES = 0.63), words written (ES = 0.37), or spelling (ES = 0.56). The impact of teaching reading on writing was maintained over time (ES = 0.37). Having students read text or observe others interact with text also enhanced writing performance, producing a statistically significant impact on an overall measure of writing (ES = 0.35) and specific measures of writing quality (ES = 0.44) or spelling (ES = 0.28). These findings provide support that reading interventions can enhance students' writing performance.
What motivates high school students to persist with challenging mathematics? The current investigation examined this important question using the concept of mathematics self-schema, that is, ...students' cognitive generalizations of their selves in learning mathematics. Mathematics self-schemas are important sources of motivation. It was hypothesized that students who hold contrasting mathematics self-schemas would learn challenging mathematics and formulate their subject choice intention differently. Study 1 surveyed 373 Year 10 Australian students and classified them into 3 schematic groups based on their survey responses. The results showed that positive, average, and negative schematics held contrasting goals, strategies, and performance expectation when dealing with challenging mathematics. More positive schematics compared with the other groups intended to take advanced mathematics in senior high school. Study 2 used an experimental design to compare positive and negative schematics' contrasting responses when dealing with difficult tests. Seventy-one students drawn from Study 1 joined Study 2. The findings confirmed the differences between these 2 groups. Study 3 randomly assigned 106 average schematics located in Study 1 to positive schematic, negative schematic, and control conditions. Students in the positive and negative conditions were primed to think and act like a schematic corresponding to their assigned condition before completing a challenging test. The results showed that average schematics in the induced conditions acted and responded to the challenging test in a way similar to corresponding positive and negative schematics. The article discusses mathematics self-schemas as a source of motivation for understanding students' engagement in and subject choice intention for challenging mathematics.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
The current investigation advances our understanding of high school students' mathematics self-schemas, which are important sources of motivation for learning mathematics. Convergent findings derived from three studies showed that mathematics self-schemas, as chronically accessible identities, guide students' engagement in challenging mathematics and their subject choice plans. Based on these findings, mathematics teachers should create a supportive learning environment to bring online high school students' positive self-knowledge about mathematics learning in order to promote the development of positive schematic conceptions.
Growth in the international school sector continues, with significant expansion of the sector in Asia. Whilst substantial research has been conducted on the adjustment experience of tertiary-aged ...students, limited research attention
has been given to school-aged students in international schools. The environment, conditions and challenges experienced by school-aged international students can differ considerably from those of tertiary-aged international students.
This can be heightened during early-adolescence with adjustment from school mobility linked to many negative developmental outcomes. The present study investigates wellbeing, engagement and resilience of 178 early-adolescent
international school students (aged 10-14) from an international school in Singapore that offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma and the national curriculum of England. Results reported a positive significant association between
wellbeing, engagement and resilience constructs. The study also identified demographic and mobility characteristics that were associated with lower levels of wellbeing, behavioural engagement and resilience. Findings of the study
highlight a potential cohort of early-adolescent international students who could benefit from additional support. Author abstract
Using a sample of 310 Year 10 Chinese students from Hong Kong, this survey study examined the effects of multiple goals in learning mathematics. Independent variables were mastery, ...performance-approach, performance-avoidance, and pro-social goals. Dependent variables included perceived classroom goal structures, teacher’s support, learning motives and strategies, attitudes, and grade aspiration. Based on regression and cluster analyses, this study found convergent evidence supporting the benefits of adopting additional adaptive goals alongside mastery goals. Regression analyses located significant interaction between pro-social goals and mastery goals in predicting higher levels of positive learning attitudes and lower levels of surface learning motives. Cluster analyses confirmed that students endorsing pro-social goals, performance-approach goals and mastery goals in their goal profiles had an adaptive pattern of perceptions, use of strategies, learning motives and grade aspiration in mathematics.
This prospective study adopted Vygotsky’s concept of perezhivanie to examine students’ lived experiences in learning mathematics and how they were related to subject choice plans and actual ...decisions. Most research has considered students’ mathematics subject choice as a decision predictable using important cognitive and social variables. Due attention has not been given to examining how students’ lived experiences in learning mathematics relate and contribute to their subject choice plans and decisions over time. Perezhivanie is a psychological structure for understanding dynamic influences derived from personal and contextual sources. In this study, two case studies were crafted using multiple data sources including interviews, observations, surveys and fieldnotes collected over three years on two achieving students who had studied in the same class. Despite this shared context, their perezhivanija differed, revealing complex dynamic interplay between factors derived from personal and external realms. This study described the identified perezhivanija of these two students and explained how they were related to their subject choice plans and their eventual subject choice decisions. The findings revealed that perezhivanija, including both heightened experiences and meta-experiences, were vital personal sources informing subject choice plans and decisions.
