Academic buoyancy: Towards an understanding of students' everyday academic resilience

Academic buoyancy is developed as a construct reflecting everyday academic resilience within a positive psychology context and is defined as students' ability to successfully deal with academic setbacks and challenges that are typical of the ordinary course of school life (e.g., poor grades, competing deadlines, exam pressure, difficult schoolwork). Data were collected from 598 students in Years 8 and 10 at five Australian high schools. Half-way through the school year and then again at the end of the year, students were asked to rate their academic buoyancy as well as a set of hypothesized predictors (self-efficacy, control, academic engagement, anxiety, teacher-student relationship) in the area of mathematics. Multilevel modeling found that the bulk of variance in academic buoyancy was explained at the student level. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling showed that (a) Time 1 anxiety (negatively), self-efficacy, and academic engagement significantly predict Time 1 academic buoyancy; (b) Time 2 anxiety (negatively), self-efficacy, academic engagement, and teacher-student relationships explain variance in Time 2 academic buoyancy over and above that explained by academic buoyancy at Time 1; and (c) of the significant predictors, anxiety explains the bulk of variance in academic buoyancy.     

Children's perceptions of the classroom environment and social and academic performance: A longitudinal analysis of the contribution of the Responsive Classroom approach

This study examines the contribution of the Responsive Classroom (RC) Approach, a set of teaching practices that integrate social and academic learning, to children's perceptions of their classroom, and children's academic and social performance over time. Three questions emerge: (a) What is the concurrent and cumulative relation between children's perceptions of the classroom and social and academic outcomes over time? (b) What is the contribution of teacher's use of RC practices to children's perceptions and social and academic outcomes? (c) Do children's perceptions of the classroom mediate the relation between RC teacher practices and child outcomes? Cross-lagged autoregressive structural equation models were used to analyze teacher and child-report questionnaire data, along with standardized test scores collected over 3 years from a sample of 520 children in grades 3-5. Results indicate a significant positive relation between RC teacher practices and child perceptions and outcomes over time. Further, children's perceptions partially mediated the relation between RC teacher practices and social competence. However, the models did not demonstrate that child perceptions mediated the relation between RC practices and achievement outcomes. Results are explained in terms of the contribution of teacher practices to children's perceptions and student performance.     

The Sternberg Triarchic Abilities Test (STAT) as a measure of academic achievement and general intelligence

The degree to which practical, creative, and analytical abilities, measured by the Sternberg Triarchic Abilities Test (STAT) (Sternberg, 1993), significantly contribute to the prediction of academic achievement, independent of general intelligence, was investigated. Although Sternberg et al. (2000) claim that the STAT is not related to, nor a measure of, general intelligence, data obtained by Sternberg, Ferrari, Clinkenbeard, and Grigorenko (1996), found that STAT scores were significantly correlated with measures of general intelligence. In the present study, introductory psychology midterm examination grades, STAT scores, and Wonderlic Personnel Test scores (as a measure of general intelligence), were obtained from undergraduate students at the University of Western Ontario (N=150). Total STAT scores and each of the STAT subsection scores were significantly related to Wonderlic test scores, P<0.01, and the STAT subsections were significantly related to each other, P<0.01. The partial correlations between midterm grades and creative, practical, analytical, and total STAT scores, with the variance due to the Wonderlic test removed, were also found to be significant for practical and for total STAT scores, P<0.05, but nonsignificant for creative and analytical STAT scores. A factor analysis including midterm examination grades, the Wonderlic test, and each of the STAT subsections revealed a single general factor. Thus, some results supported Sternberg but others were contrary to his claims.     

学业成就中等生和优良生的成就目标、自我监控与学业成绩关系的比较研究

采用量表法对学业成就中等生的研究发现：与学业优良生相比,学业成就中等生的自我监控水平显著低下;成就目标与学业成绩并无直接关系,但学习目标会通过自我监控间接影响学业成绩;在学业成就中等生中,高学习目标、低成绩目标者表现出更高的自我监控水平。     

Stigma on my mind: Individual differences in the experience of stereotype threat

Stereotyped individuals vary in how chronically self-conscious they are of their stigmatized status, which Pinel (1999) has dubbed stigma consciousness. The current study investigated whether individual differences in stigma consciousness moderate the impact of gender stereotypes on the math performance of women. Results indicated that, under conditions designed to evoke stereotype threat (Steele, 1997), women high in stigma consciousness scored worse than women low in stigma consciousness on a math test. In the control (low threat) condition, stigma consciousness was unrelated to test performance. Possible mechanisms underlying this moderation are discussed.     

Stereotype Lift

When a negative stereotype impugns the ability or worth of an outgroup, people may experience stereotype lift—a performance boost that occurs when downward comparisons are made with a denigrated outgroup. In a meta-analytic review, members of non-stereotyped groups were found to perform better when a negative stereotype about an outgroup was linked to an intellectual test than when it was not (d=.24,p<.0001). Notably, people appear to link negative stereotypes to evaluative tests more or less automatically. Simply presenting a test as diagnostic of ability was thus sufficient to induce stereotype lift. Only when negative stereotypes were explicitly invalidated or rendered irrelevant to the test did the lift effect disappear.     

The relationship between personality, approach to learning and academic performance

This study considers the relationship between students' approaches to learning, as measured by a short-form of Entwistle and Tait's (1995) Revised Approaches to Studying Inventory (RASI), the Big Five personality factors, as measured by Cattell's 16PFi, and the background variables of age, gender and prior educational achievement and academic performance. Subjects were 146 social science undergraduate students at a university in Scotland. Structural equation modelling identifies the Big Five personality factor scores account for between 22.7% and 43.6% of the variance across scores on the three approach to learning dimensions. Four of the Big Five personality factors and the three approach to learning dimensions were found to be poor predictors of academic performance. A linear regression analysis with academic performance as the dependent variable and age, prior educational attainment and conscientiousness as independent variables, accounted for 24.1% of the variance in performance. Our investigation suggests approach to learning is a subset of personality. However, we conclude it makes sense to measure these two groups of variables separately in educational settings.     

初析麦氏类型与考试成绩和学习成绩的关系

本文介绍了麦氏类型理论在美国学生的智力类考试成绩以及学生在校学习成绩的相关性研究中的成果．对麦氏理论在该领域中的几个经典发现进行了讨论和诠释。本文还分析了不同麦氏维度(极性)的学习特征,并介绍了相应的教学建议。最后,本文结合中国的现状,从麦氏理论的角度,对中国学生的学习环境进行了评价,并提出了几点建议。     

Academic Underachievement and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: The Negative Impact of Symptom Severity on School Performance

Many children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) achieve academically at a lower level than would be predicted given their intellectual abilities. However, the extent to which this is due to behavioral problems versus cognitive deficits associated with the disorder is unclear. In the present study, a group of children with ADHD (with average intellectual abilities) performed significantly below prediction in reading, writing, and mathematics skills and demonstrated a greater discrepancy between actual and predicted achievement than did a group of non-ADHD children. Even when controlling for performance on a measure of executive functioning, severity of ADHD symptoms, based on parent report, significantly predicted academic underachievement in reading, writing, and mathematics. These results indicate that the more severe the behavioral symptomatology of children with ADHD is, the more negatively impacted their school performance may be. Results are discussed in terms of diagnostic and intervention implications.     

Identity styles and academic achievement: mediating role of academic self-efficacy

The purpose of this study was to assess the mediating effect of self-efficacy on the relationship between identity styles and academic achievement. Four-hundred high school students (200 male, 200 female) who were selected through cluster random sampling, completed the Revised Identity Styles Inventory (ISI, 6G) and Morgan-Jink Student Efficacy Scales (MJSES). Path analysis was used to analyze the data. In general, the results indicated that informational identity style had a positive direct impact on academic achievement, while diffuse/avoidance identity style had a negative effect on academic achievement. Data also suggested that informational and normative identity style had a positive influence on academic achievement through the mediation of academic self-efficacy.