Intellectual ability, learning style, personality, achievement motivation and academic success of psychology students in higher education

This study is directed towards an integration of intellectual ability, learning style, personality and achievement motivation as predictors of academic success in higher education. Correlational analyses partly confirmed and partly disconfirmed our expectations in a sample of 409 first-year psychology students. Consistent with the literature, intellectual ability and achievement motivation were associated positively with academic success. For the meaning directed, reproduction directed and application directed learning style, no positive association with academic success could be detected. The undirected learning style, however, appeared to be a consistent negative predictor. For the Big Five personality factors (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to experience), a consistent, positive association for conscientiousness with academic success was found. The very first examination at the university came out as the most important predictor for academic success, even after two and three years of study. The implications of the results are discussed in relation to the literature and the policy of the Dutch Ministry of Education.     

Community-Based Arts Initiatives: Exploring the Science of the Arts

In this introduction to the special issue, we describe some of the rewards and challenges of community‐based arts initiatives for our discipline. We explore the inherent tensions between art and science that are reflected in community‐based arts activities. We pose larger questions about researching community‐based arts activities and defining the arts as a means of promoting social change. The diversity of populations, settings, and issues represented by the papers in the special issue are described and a common set of values, methods of inquiry and action are discussed.     

Grouping students for instruction: effects of learning style on achievement and attitudes

The present study examined the effects of matching and mismatching American middle-school students with a preference for learning alone or learning with peers with selected instructional treatments in order to determine the impact upon their attitudes and achievement in social studies. Analysis revealed that the learning-alone preference performed significantly better in the learning-alone condition and that the learning-with-peers preference performed significantly better in the learning-with-peers condition. However, no-preference students also performed significantly better in the learning-alone condition than with peers. In addition, data revealed that the learning-alone and the learning-with-peers students had significantly more positive attitudes when matched with their preferred learning style; the nopreference students had more positive attitudes in the learning-alone condition.     

Problem-solving style,achievement motivation,psychological distress and response to a simulated emergency

The relationship between problem-solving style, achievement motivation, psychological distress and effectiveness in an emergency situation was investigated in 107 volunteers in a simulated aircraft disaster. Effectiveness was measured in terms of the speed of egress averaged across four trials and the total number of bonuses earned. The best predictor of speed of egress was problem-solving confidence, while those who earned most bonuses tended to score higher on problem-solving creativity, dominance and status aspiration. The implications for the training of emergency service personnel are discussed.     

Study of Spiritual Intelligence and Adjustment Among Arts and Science College Students

A study to evaluate the relationship between the spiritual intelligence and adjustment among the college students was conducted on a sample of 250 students in six various colleges of Tuticorin district, Tamil Nadu, India. Gender, religion, community, major subject, educational qualification of father and mother, student locality, college type, father and mother’s occupation and monthly family income (n = 11 variables) were chosen for the study. Test of significance for spiritual intelligence and adjustment was studied and found them nonsignificant except student locality, found to be significant. Two valid and reliable instruments were used to assess student’s spiritual intelligence and adjustment. Correlation and Chi-square analysis using structural equation model were used to analyze these data. Correlation analysis showed significant relationship between the variables among the college students (n = 250). Chi-square analysis of association between adjustments of college students showed that most variables are nonsignificant unlike father’s educational qualification and mother’s occupation. The results disclosed the significant positive relationship with spiritual intelligence and adjustment among adolescents.     

Learned helplessness in children: a longitudinal study of depression, achievement, and explanatory style

In this longitudinal study, the depressive symptoms, life events, and explanatory styles of 168 school children were measured five times during the course of 1 year. Measures of school achievement were obtained once during the year. Depressive symptoms and explanatory styles were found to be quite stable over the year. As predicted by the reformulated learned helplessness theory, explanatory style both correlated with concurrent levels of depression and school achievement and predicted later changes in depression during the year. Depression also predicted later explanatory styles. The implications of these results for intervention with children with depressive symptoms or school achievement problems are discussed.     

Examining the link between adult attachment style,employment and academic achievement in first semester higher education

Although previous research indicates that both employment and adult attachment style have an influence on academic achievement, the interaction of these two factors has not been clarified. The purpose of this study was to investigate the moderating effect of adult attachment style on the relationship between employment status and first semester academic achievement in higher education. A sample of 378 freshman college students answered a series of questionnaires (Academic Amotivation Inventory, the Relationship Questionnaire and demographic), and their high school averages and first semester academic results were obtained from the Registrar’s office. The Analysis of covariance showed that employment status (having employment vs. no employment) and adult attachment style of students (secure vs. dismissing) strongly interacted in predicting academic achievement (first semester average adjusted for high school average, perceived financial burden, and amotivation). More specifically, the first semester averages of secure students with or without employment, and that of dismissing students without employment was indistinguishable. However, dismissing students with employment had significantly lower first semester averages than the secure students. This study showed that dismissing students entering postsecondary education who also have employment are at greater risk of academic difficulties than students with a secure attachment style.     

文理科大学生不同阅读特点的实验研究

20世纪80年代以来,心理学界对影响文章阅读的因素进行了一系列的研究,并取得了许多有启发意义的结论。Britton等人从文章的维度将影响阅读理解的因素确定为两个,即文章的内容因素和结构因素,认为文章的语义内容越丰富,结构内容越复杂,则分配的认知容量就越多。而张金桥、莫雷等人的研究进一步表明,文章问结构类似促进的是目标文章主要信息的保持迁移,而对细节性信息迁移作用不     

College students' role models, learning style preferences, and academic achievement in collaborative teaching: absolute versus relativistic thinking

Based on the perspective of postformal operations, this study investigated whether college students' role models (technical teachers vs. lecturing teachers) and preferred learning styles (experience-driven mode vs. theory-driven mode) in collaborative teaching courses would be moderated by their cognitive development (absolute thinking vs. relativistic thinking) and examine whether academic achievement of students would be contingent upon their preferred learning styles. Two hundred forty-four college students who have taken the technical courses with collaborative teaching participated in this study. The results showed that those participants with absolute thinking perceived the modeling advantage of technical teachers was greater than that of lecturing teachers, preferred the experience-driven mode over the theory-driven mode, and displayed differential academic achievement between technical courses and general courses. On the other hand, the students with relativistic thinking revealed no difference in perceived modeling advantage of role models, learning styles preferences, and academic achievement between two categories of courses. In addition, this research indicates that college students' preferred learning styles would interact with course category (technical courses vs. general courses) to display differential academic achievement. Implications and future directions are discussed.     

Love: American style,Russian style,and Japanese style

This study was undertaken to examine young women's and men's orientations toward love in three very different cultures: Japan (N = 223), Russia (N = 401), and the United States (N = 1,043). The love variables examined were: frequency of lore experiences, attachment types, love styles, love as a basis for marriage, romantic attitudes, and predictors of falling in love. Many cultural differences were found in the love variables, but the effect of culture was not always in the expected direction. We also examined how the pattern of gender differences in love variables differed across the three societies. Some of the gender differences and similarities found in previous love research and also in the U.S. sample of this study were not replicated in the Japanese and/or Russian samples. We discuss the importance of studying love and other aspects of close relationships with data collected from more than one culture.     

Art and achievement

Philosophical Studies - An increasingly popular view in the philosophy of art is that some artworks are good artworks at least partly because they are achievements. This view was introduced to...     

Assessing child-rearing style in ecological settings: its relation to culture, social class, early age intervention and scholastic achievement

Middle- and lower-class black and white adolescents were observed interacting with their mothers during a discussion of seven child-rearing problems. Maternal references to a range of disciplinary measures were identified, analyzed, and related to the subjects' scholastic performances concurrently. A factor analysis of process measures confirmed earlier findings based on self-report data concerning parental disciplinary style. Low SES mothers who participated in an early-age intervention and upper middle-class mothers tended to be less punitive than those in the low SES untreated group. Black mothers were less permissive than those in the white group. Parental disciplinary style was found to be significantly related to school performance. The results are discussed in terms of the development of methodological procedures for interaction analysis in semi-structured, ecological research, for the evaluation of process variables in early-age intervention follow-ups and theory relating disciplinary style to intellectual development.     

Sociocultural antecedents of academic motivation and achievement: Role of values and achievement motives in achievement goals and academic performance

With a view to understand the influence of culture on achievement motivation, the study aimed to test the hypothesized mediating role of individual‐oriented and social‐oriented achievement motives in linking value orientations (e.g. achievement, security, conformity, hedonism) to achievement goals (i.e. mastery‐approach, mastery‐avoidance, performance‐approach, and performance‐avoidance goals) as predictors of English and mathematics achievements. These hypothesized relationships were tested in the one‐path analytic model with a sample of Indonesian high‐school students (n = 356; 46% girls, M age = 16.20 years). The findings showed that security and conformity values positively predicted social‐oriented achievement motive; self‐direction values positively predicted individual‐oriented achievement motive; and hedonism values negatively predicted both achievement motive orientations. Both individual‐oriented and social‐oriented achievement motives positively predicted mastery‐approach and performance‐approach goals. Interestingly, social‐oriented achievement motive also positively predicted mastery‐avoidance and performance‐avoidance goals, which in turn, negatively predicted English and mathematic achievement. There was also some evidence for the direct effects of values on performance‐approach goals and achievement. Taken together, the findings evinced the relevance of achievement goal constructs to Indonesian students and the psychometric properties of the Indonesian version of the Achievement Goals Questionnaire for further use in Indonesia. The study concludes that the meanings of academic motivation and achievement should be seen from a sociocultural perspective relevant to the context in which they are being studied.     

The indirect effects of emotion regulation on the association between attachment style,depression, and meaning made among undergraduates who experienced stressful events

Undergraduates frequently report exposure to stressful life events which may negatively impact mental health. The current study examined associations among attachment style, depression, and meaning made, and tested both direct effects and indirect effects through emotion regulation difficulties. Undergraduates (N?=?336) who reported having experienced stressful and/or potentially traumatic events completed measures through an online survey. More than half of participants (64%) were female, with a mean age of 19.26 years. In both models, higher attachment anxiety and higher attachment avoidance were significantly associated with greater difficulties with accessing emotion regulation strategies, which in turn were related to higher depression symptom severity and lower meaning made. Lack of emotional awareness also partially explained the associations between attachment avoidance and outcomes in both models. Difficulties in engaging in goal-directed behavior partially explained the associations between attachment anxiety and meaning made, but not depression symptom severity. Our results suggest certain emotion regulation strategies may be key mechanisms through which individuals with high attachment anxiety or avoidance may reduce the potential negative mental health impact that stressful life events may have.     

Independent effects of achievement motivation and overt attribution on achievement behavior

The cognitive attribution theory of achievement motivation was examined in a series of three studies. The persistence of performance under failure feedback was investigated, with improvement over trials on a digit-symbol substitution task constituting the measure of persistence. Although evidence was obtained relating overt causal attributions of failure to persistence, partial correlation statistics indicated that this relationship was independent of achievement motivation. Partial correlation statistics also revealed that the relationship between achievement motivation and persistence was independent of attributional variables. In addition, greater persistence was exhibited by high- than by low-achievement subjects in the absence of attribution differences between these groups. Additional evidence was collected suggesting that the act of overt attribution was an ego-involving operation that led to these achievement differences in improvement. In general, achievement classification and overt causal attributions had separate effects on persistence, precluding the interpretation of achievement-related behavior in terms of attribution theory. Overt causal attributions were found to be, in part, a function of the ego-involving character of the task instructions, as was improvement.Portions of this research were conducted while L. A. White was supported by a Purdue University David Ross Research Fellowship; Kay Deaux, principal investigator.     

Attractiveness and school achievement

Facial attractiveness has been shown to have powerfully biasing effects in hypothetical investigations of teacher attitudes. The purpose of this study was to ascertain the relationship between rated attractiveness and two measures of school performance. Attractive children received significantly higher report cards and, to some degree, higher achievement test scores than their unattractive peers. The results are discussed and implications for further research are considered.     

Counselling and academic achievement

The possible relationship between emotional difficulty and under-achievement and wastage is examined. Psychometric data is presented from a recent longitudinal study on university students which suggests that psychological and academic difficulty may be different presentations of similar core problems. Particular attention is paid to the interaction between the individual and the institution, and clinical illustrations are provided. It is concluded that psychotherapy and counselling may be the appropriate response to a proportion of students in academic difficulty.