Schools can improve motivational quality: Profile transitions across early foreign language learning experiences

Elementary school is as much about developing attitudes as competence. With this fact in mind, the Japanese national government established a plan to enhance elementary school students’ motivation for learning English. The success of this program has, however, not been empirically tested. This study aimed to assess the longitudinal, discrete development of Japanese elementary school students’ motivation for learning English as a foreign language. A cohort of 513 Japanese elementary students participated in the study across 2 years of school. Students responded to surveys regarding the quality of their motivation at three time points, and their engagement at two time points. Latent profile analysis followed by latent profile transition analysis was used to assess the sample for latent subgroups. With subgroups established at three time points, a Mover–Stayer model was tested to estimate the movement of students among the subgroups across three time points and 2 years of elementary school education. Three theoretically consistent latent subgroups were observed at each of the time points. Based on theory and past empirical research, the subgroups (presented from least to most adaptive) were labeled: Poor Quality, High Quantity, and Good Quality. Across the three measurements, an overall shift of students to higher quantity and quality motivational subgroups was observed. This study provides evidence that the low-stakes, high-interest approach currently undertaken may have the desired effect of improving students’ motivation to learn across 2 years of schooling. Implications for both practice and national policy are discussed.     

‘Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is!’: Effects of Streaks on Confidence and Betting in a Binary Choice Task

Human choice under uncertainty is influenced by erroneous beliefs about randomness. In simple binary choice tasks, such as red/black predictions in roulette, long outcome runs (e.g. red, red, red) typically increase the tendency to predict the other outcome (i.e. black), an effect labeled the “gambler's fallacy.” In these settings, participants may also attend to streaks in their predictive performance. Winning and losing streaks are thought to affect decision confidence, although prior work indicates conflicting directions. Over three laboratory experiments involving red/black predictions in a sequential roulette task, we sought to identify the effects of outcome runs and winning/losing streaks upon color predictions, decision confidence and betting behavior. Experiments 1 (n = 40) and 3 (n = 40) obtained trial‐by‐trial confidence ratings, with a win/no win payoff and a no loss/loss payoff, respectively. Experiment 2 (n = 39) obtained a trial‐by‐trial bet amount on an equivalent scale. In each experiment, the gambler's fallacy was observed on choice behavior after color runs and, in experiment 2, on betting behavior after color runs. Feedback streaks exerted no reliable influence on confidence ratings, in either payoff condition. Betting behavior, on the other hand, increased as a function of losing streaks. The increase in betting on losing streaks is interpreted as a manifestation of loss chasing; these data help clarify the psychological mechanisms underlying loss chasing and caution against the use of betting measures (“post‐decision wagering”) as a straightforward index of decision confidence. © 2014 The Authors. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

Epidemiology of nonfatal deliberate self-harm in the United States as described in three medical databases

The absence of validated U.S. rates of nonfatal suicidal behavior places risk management and injury prevention programs at danger of being poorly informed and inadequately conceptualized. In this study we compare estimated rates of intentional self-harm from two ongoing surveys (National Electronic Injury Surveillance System-All Injury Program-NEISS-AIP; National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey-NHAMCS) to data from the Toxic Exposure Surveillance System. Results suggest that, for every 2002-2003 suicide, there were 12 (NEISSAIP) or 15 (NHAMCS) self-harm-related emergency department visits, and for every intentional self-poisoning death there were 33 intentional overdoses reported to poison control centers, of which two ultimately went untreated.     

The age prospective memory paradox: young adults may not give their best outside of the lab

Previous research has identified the age prospective memory paradox of age-related declines in laboratory settings in contrast to age benefits in naturalistic settings. Various factors are assumed to account for this paradox, yet empirical evidence on this issue is scarce. In 2 experiments, the present study examined the effect of task setting in a laboratory task and the effect of motivation in a naturalistic task on prospective memory performance in young and older adults. For the laboratory task (Experiment 1, n = 40), we used a board game to simulate a week of daily activities and varied features of the prospective memory task (e.g., task regularity). For the naturalistic task (Experiment 2, n = 80), we instructed participants to try to remember to contact the experimenter repeatedly over the course of 1 week. Results from the laboratory prospective memory tasks indicated significant age-related decline for irregular tasks (p = .006) but not for regular and focal tasks. In addition, in the naturalistic task, the age benefit was eliminated when young adults were motivated by incentives (F < 1). In conclusion, the present results indicate that the variability of age differences in laboratory prospective memory tasks may be due in part to differences in the features of the prospective memory task. Furthermore, increases in motivation to perform the prospective task seem to help remedy prospective memory deficits in young adults in the naturalistic setting.