Lecture 8: Achievement, Motivation, and Schools

Question 1

Stipek et al. (1992) [8]

(hint: evaluating self-performance)

Answer 1

• 3 stages for evaluating self-performance; reactions to successes and failures throughout life
• 1) Joy in mastery (< 2 y.o.) → babies get happy when they can master small challenges (e.g. holding onto a toy)
  
  • Not interested in gaining approval (i.e. not externally oriented)
  • Not very bothered if they can’t master something
• 2) Approval Seeking (2-3 y.o.) → toddlers look to parents for recognition + approval
  
  • Recognize positive/negative faces as approval/disapproval
  • Expect negative reactions towards failures
• 3) Use of own standards based on previous experiences with caregivers (3+ y.o.) + react more independently towards success+failure

Question 2

need for achievement (n Ach) [3]

Answer 2

• Learned motivation to compete/strive for success, used when an ideal standard already exists for comparison (around 3 y.o.)
• High in n Ach: sense of pride and self-fulfillment about own achievements → set higher and higher standards, want to work harder, be more successful
• Comes from the idea that the need to achieve is a drive that needs to be satisfied

Question 3

Thematic Apperception Test [3]

Answer 3

• Presents emotionally ambiguous pictures for 30s + asks Ps to describe what’s happening in 4mins
• Underlying motivations and drives can be found in narratives
• However, assumes that child is projecting themselves into the situation

Question 4

self-determination theory (SDT) [5]

Answer 4

• Compiles striving for success vs. avoiding negative consequences on a scale
• Intrinsic motivation, satisfying personal needs; vs. extrinsic motivation, earning external rewards
• external/extrinsic → identified → introjected → internalized
• Children with intrinsic motivations tend to work harder + better
• Embodied through willingness to accept challenges and continually set higher standards

Question 5

Eccles’ expectancy value theory [11]

Answer 5

• Cultural milleu + socializers’ beliefs/behaviours + attitudes, temperaments, talents + previous achievement-related experiences → how child feels about self/what they think others feel about them + how they interpret society’s messages, effort to achieve goals
• Main endpoints: expectations of success, achievement-related choices
• Subjective task value:
  
  • Attainment value → immediate reward
  • Utility value → how useful will the skill be at helping me achieve intermediate/long term goals
  • (Cost) → how much will I have to give up to participate in this activity?
  • Free Time Spent; higher intrinsic value for having a skill is related to having high-value, low-cost decisions
• Expectations of success tend to have:
  
  • Multifaceted influences; different kinds of socializers’ + cultural beliefs → values
  • e.g. Boy’s physical play more important than girls’ physical play
  • Role of stereotypes? → previous example

Question 6

attribution theory: attributions [8]

Answer 6

• Attribution → a construction of reality
• Internal/external attributions to success/failure influenced by:
  
  • Ability* → if you think you’re really good at doing something
  • Effort* → how much effort you’re going to put in
  • Task difficulty → how difficult was the task in the first place? How well do other people generally do on this task?
  • Luck? Bad weather?
  • Also social information, feedback, etc. from Eccles’ model
  • *Found consistently across cultures to influence attribution

Question 7

attribution theory: classifications [7]

Answer 7

• Attributions classified along (and also affect associated):
• Locus of control – external / internal (more self esteem/pride for more internal attributions for success)
• Stability / Globality of the experience – over time and situations (hopelessness if these two factors are low)
  
  • If you’ve consistently experienced something, you’ll feel like it’s a stable aspect of your being, and it’s global in the domain
  • e.g. You’ve always done well in psychology courses, so you expect to do well in future psychology courses, and probably do well in school overall
• Controllability – (guilt, anger, gratitude, pity if you can’t control the situation)
  
  • More controllability probably increases effort + perceived ability

Question 8

mindset theory [3]

Answer 8

• Implicit theory → conception of ability or intelligence
• Entity/Fixed vs. Incremental/Growth orientations

Question 9

learned helplessness theory: mastery orientation [4]

Answer 9

• Mastery orientation (incremental/growth mindsets)
• Greater persistence, achievement
• Failure → process-focused (not focussing on failure itself, but how they got to that failure), effort based: change how they approach in future
• Constructive learning behaviours → positive self-assessments over time

Question 10

learned helplessness theory: helplessness orientation [4]

Answer 10

• Learned helplessness orientation (extrinsic focus)
• Negative affect, goal-oriented, dysfunctional learning strategies
• Avoidance, less effort, self-handicapping
• Failure → decreasing performance over time; ability-based interpretation (fixed ability over time, “I’m just like this”)

Question 11

Aunola et al. (2000) [3]

(hint: parenting + mastery)

Answer 11

• Parenting and mastery orientation
• Measured failure expectations; task-irrelevant behaviour (doing something else after failure); passivity (lack of active attempts to succeed); self-enhancing attributions
• Mastery orientation: less failure expectations, less task-irrelevant behaviours, less passitivity, more internal attributions for success and not failure (why they have more positive affect)

Question 12

praise and learned helpnessness orientation (LHO) [13]

Answer 12

• Praise highly correlated with LHO
• Person praise*: trait-based global assessment for successes
  
  • e.g. Good girl; You’re so smart
  • Leads to helpless reaction to setbacks b/c fixed mindset
• Process praise*: effort based specific assessment, strategy on task
  
  • e.g. You’re doing a good job; Good work
  • Mastery reaction to setbacks; incremental mindset
• *Largest predictors of mastery/helplessness during setbacks
• Outcome praise: outcome based, product of action
  
  • e.g. That’s a great picture; There you go
• Other praise (not looked at a lot): general positive valence
  
  • e.g. Nice; Wow
  • Generally demonstrated by parents

Question 13

Gunderson et al. [11]

(hint: praise + motivation)

Answer 13

• Large longitudinal study over 15 years, measuring many factors
• As children got older (14 mo/s to 38 mo/s): process praise > person praise
• Boys were given more process praise than girls in general
  
  • Boys and girls given same amount of person + other praise
• What’s the impact of the praise on childrens’ motivation? Cumulative score of:
  
  • Social moral value domains (idea of being good), fixed or malleable?
  • Intelligence; how well they’re doing and how much they’re trying
  • When process praise is used → higher tendency to believe in incremental values/growth mindsets for both social-moral values + intelligence
  • Less process praise → fixed beliefs
• Tie this back to Eccles’ theory → boys given more process praise + process praise leads to growth mindsets → boys are more likely to have a belief that they should try for more and achieve more
  
  • If we raise kids like this, it’s going to influence how they view society and how they parent and continue to perpetuate these cultural stereotypes

Question 14

Kamins & Dweck [6]

(hint: person praise)

Answer 14

• Criticism (same kinds as praise)
• Focussed on kindergarteners, did different tasks in a lab
• Told to work hard on something and given feedback by other children
• Generally speaking, person criticism was lowest while process criticism is highest
• More likely to have positive self-assessments and persist
• Person praise + criticism not conducive to promoting highest level of motivation

Question 15

role of teachers on motivation [13]

Answer 15

• 5 teacher attributes for teacher quality
  
  • 1. Experience
  • 2. Preparation programs, degrees
  • 3. Type of certification
  • 4. Specific coursework (e.g. how teachers make tests)
  • 5. Teachers’ test scores; higher literacy + verbal test scores → higher student test scores (but not in math)
• Lots of mixed effects with ethnic comparisons
  
  • Attributes of teachers that impact their teaching quality tend to focus on Caucasian + mid-to-high SES children
  • Black + Latino children → suffer more regardless of whether children has high test scores, more certifications and qualifications
    
    • i.e. No matter how much teachers are taught to repress knowledge of stereotypes, it’s hard for them to suppress it enough to provide equitable learning environments
• Zone of proximal development (for parents) related to autonomy support (for teachers)
• Teacher quality and peer quality – linked?
  
  • Generally, higher teacher quality → higher peer quality, + vice versa

Question 16

role of peers on motivation [7]

Answer 16

• Peer ability heterogeneity → lower achievement for whole class (especially for math)
  
  • B/c it’s difficult for teacher to create assignments that appropriately address the individual abilities of everyone in the class (appropriately challenging, etc.)
• Peer achievement beneficial (but conditional)
  
  • e.g. If 60% of kids in a class are high achieving, tend to bring up grades of the other 40%; so long as ratio of high achieving kids is high
• Confirmed: good peer relationships → (++)corr. w/ achievement, especially math
  
  • Peer pressure? Or motivation?
  • (talking about kids with non-delinquent behaviour)

Question 17

peers + motivation: co-ed vs. single-sex schools [11]

Answer 17

• Girls in math classes with boys tend to do worse than girls who are in single-sex math classes, and can even surpass boys’ performance
  
  • Goes back to Eccles’ theory
• Young Women’s Leadership School, built in Harlem under the No Child Left Behind policy of the Obama administration
  
  • Attended by 95% black and Latino girls
  • Delinquent behaviours tended to disappear
  • Usually single-sex schools are high SES, but this one was underprivileged
  • Children tended to be more likely to get into universities than Hispanic/Black students in other public schools
• Single-sex schools, something about presence of females that help children perform well (for both girls mainly)
  
  • When you have 50%+ girls in a classroom, the class tends to do better at both math and languages
  • Benefits not always seen for boys
• Recent large-scale study on peer quality by gender interaction: high achieving, non-delinquent females → whole class does better; low achieving, delinquent females → doesn’t help anybody

Question 18

role of schools on motivation [5]

Answer 18

• Class size (<20): small classes → benefit all kinds of children in all locations of schools
• Location / SES: Low SES → low quality of instruction + achievement due to low levels of resources and larger structure of society
• School climate – safe and orderly → better achievement
  
  • How do students perceive their wellbeing at school?
• School cohesion (related to school climate): based on social environment that the children are going to school in; e.g. school spirit, no cliques → more cohesion

Question 19

schools + motivation: alternative schooling [7]

Answer 19

• Alternative schools (Montessori) – mixed reports
  
  • Tend to have higher school cohesion + climate
  • Tend to test higher on intrinsic motivation
• Homeschooling (vs. unschooling: being educated as human beings, emotional and social learning, rather than traditional education/books learning; children do what they want; arts-focussed)
  
  • Unschooling → lower levels of achievement but higher levels of motivation
  • Homeschooling → perform better on social + emotional outcomes vs. kids in public schools; less psychopathological problems; better academically (but this depends on the parents)
    
    • As adults → civic + community engagement

Question 20

Duncan & Brooks-Gunn (2000) [6]

(hint: welfare + children)

Answer 20

• Pathways through which income may affect children
• Home environment → learning activities inside home mediate link between income + child achievement vs. activities outside home (museums, libraries)
• Quality of child care → high-quality + developmentally appropriate child care in toddler + preschool years (+)corr. w/ social, emotional, linguistic competence for low + middle-class children
• Perceived economic pressure → job stability, increased stress + conflict
• Parental mental health + parent-child relationships→ lower income (+)corr. w/ irritability, depressive symptoms + impaired parent-child interactions, fewer home learning experiences
• Neighborhood residence → poorer neighborhoods (+)corr. w/ crime, lack of community cohesion + fewer resources for child development