Personal and social-contextual factors in K-12 academic performance: An integrative perspective on student learning

Lee, J., & Shute, V. J.Educational Testing Service, Florida State University

Our extensive literature review in the fields of educational, social, and cognitive psychology has led us to identify about a dozen variables that demonstrate direct empirical links to academic achievement at the K–12 level. Those variables are grouped into four major categories: student engagement, learning strategies, school climate, and social-familial influences. We then categorize the first two variables as personal factors and the latter two as social-contextual factors. We document empirical findings that have shown particular relationships between the reviewed personal and social-contextual factors and academic achievement, mainly in the areas of reading and mathematics. Based on our conceptualization, we propose an integrated perspective that students’ personal factors in the domains of behavior, affect, attitude, and cognition as well as their social-contextual environment have to work in concert to produce optimal school performance. We conclude with a discussion on educational implications and future research to be addressed.

Predicting intraindividual changes in teacher burnout: The role of perceived school environment and motivational factors

Fernet, C., Guay, F., Senécal, C., & Austin, S.Université Laval

Based on self-determination theory, this study proposes and tests a motivational model of intraindividual changes in teacher burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment). Participants were 806 French-Canadian teachers in public elementary and high schools. Results show that changes in teachers’ perceptions of classroom overload and students’ disruptive behavior are negatively related to changes in autonomous motivation, which in turn negatively predict changes in emotional exhaustion. Results also indicate that changes in teachers’ perceptions of students’ disruptive behaviors and school principal’s leadership behaviors are related to changes in self-efficacy, which in turn negatively predict changes in three burnout components.

Changes in teacher efficacy during the early years of teaching: A comparison of four measures

Anita Woolfolk Hoy, Rhonda Burke SperoThe Ohio State University, University of Miami

Some of the most powerful influences on the development of teacher efficacy are mastery experiences during student teaching and the induction year. Bandura's theory of self-efficacy suggests that efficacy may be most malleable early in learning, thus the first years of teaching could be critical to the long-term development of teacher efficacy. Yet few longitudinal studies exist that track efficacy across these early years. This study reports changes in teacher efficacy from entry into a teacher preparation program through the induction year. Multiple quantitative assessments of efficacy were used including Gibson and Dembo's Teacher Efficacy Scale, Bandura's assessment of Instructional Efficacy, and an instrument designed to reflect the specific context and goals of the preparation program studied. Results indicated significant increases in efficacy during student teaching, but significant declines during the first year of teaching. Changes in efficacy during the first year of teaching were related to the level of support received.

Teacher and Classroom Context Effects on Student Achievement: Implications for Teacher Evaluation

William L. Sanders, S. Paul Wright & Sandra P. HornUniversity of Tennessee

The Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS) has been designed to use statistical mixed-model methodologies to conduct multivariate, longitudinal analyses of student achievement to make estimates of school, class size, teacher, and other effects. This study used samples from 2nd–8th grade Tennessee classrooms to examine the relative magnitude of teacher effects on student achievement while simultaneously considering the influences of intra-classroom heterogeneity, student achievement level, and class size on academic growth. Results show that teacher effects are dominant factors affecting student academic gain and that the classroom context variables of heterogeneity among students and class sizes have relatively little influence on academic gain. Thus, a major conclusion is that teachers make a difference. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Single-Case Experimental Designs in Educational Research: A Methodology for Causal Analyses in Teaching and Learning

Joshua B. Plavnick & Summer J. FerreriMichigan State University

Current legislation requires educational practices be informed by science. The effort to establish educational practices supported by science has, to date, emphasized experiments with large numbers of participants who are randomly assigned to an intervention or control condition. A potential limitation of such an emphasis at the expense of other research methods is that evidence-based practices in education will derive only from science in the hypothetico-deductive tradition. Such a process omits practices originating from and tested through an inductive approach to understanding phenomena. Single-case experimental designs, developed by experimental and applied behavior analysts, offer an inductive process to identify and alter the lawful relations between the behavior of individual organisms and the environmental variables that are causally related to the occurrence or nonoccurrence of the behavior. Such designs have been essential in the development of effective instructional practices for students with disabilities and have much to offer the broader educational population as well. The purpose of the present paper is to provide an overview of single-case research methodology and the process by which this methodology can contribute to the identification of evidence-based instructional practices.

Development During Early and Middle Adolescence

Wigfield, A., Byrnes, J. P., & Eccles, J. S.University of Maryland

In this chapter we discuss development during the early and middle adolescent years (approximately ages 10 to 20), updating the chapter on this topic from the first edition of this Handbook. Because this Handbook is for the educational psychology audience, we focus primarily on changes in adolescents' cognition and motivation, and how these changes influence adolescents' achievement. We also consider briefly the important biological changes that occur at adolescence. We take an interactionist approach in this chapter, as we believe adolescent development reflects changes within the individual, as well as changes in the environments and relationships adolescents experience. Thus we discuss changes in the major contexts and relationships in adolescents' lives, including the peer group, the family, and school. Within many of the sections we discuss gender and ethnic differences in the psychological constructs and contexts discussed. It is important to acknowledge at the outset that adolescence is very much a cultural phenomenon, and the experiences adolescents have vary greatly across different cultures. We focus in this chapter primarily on adolescent development in the United States.

Decision making in children and adolescents: impaired Iowa Gambling Task performance in early adolescence

Smith, Dana G. Xiao, Lin Bechara, AntoineUniversity of Southern California

Disadvantageous decision making is cited as one of the premier problems in childhood development, underlying risky behavior and causing adolescents to make poor choices that could prove detrimental later in life. However, there are relatively few studies looking at the development of decision making in children and adolescents, and fewer still comparing it with the performance trajectories of more typically developing cognitive functions. In the current study, we measured the affective decision-making abilities of children and adolescents 8- to 17-years-old using the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT; Bechara, 2007) in conjunction with a battery of established cognitive neuropsychological assessments. In contrast to the typical linear development of executive functions, affective decision-making abilities progressed in a J-shaped curve. Younger, more developmentally naive children performed better on the IGT than older, early-adolescent individuals, with performance becoming advantageous again toward the end of the teenage years. This trajectory is thought to coincide with asymmetric neural development in early adolescents, with relatively overactive striatal regions creating impulsive reward-driven responses that may go unchecked by the slower developing inhibitive frontal cortex. This trajectory is in stark contrast with the linear development of memory, speed of processing, and other cognitive abilities over the ages.