Schooling Flashcards
Schooling: basics
- Children spend more time in school than any other context outside their home
- Schools impact a child through different levels (ex. Classroom -> school -> school district -> community, country, culture)
Achievement goals
- why students engage in, choose, and persist with learning
- 2 types: mastery/growth goals and performance goals
- Most people have a combination of the 2 types of goals – not mutually exclusive
Mastery/growth goals
- Learning for the sake of learning and improving
- Associated with better outcomes: more engaged in learning, expend more effort, persist for longer, higher self-esteem
- Don’t necessarily perform better academically (similar grades between mastery goals and performance-approach goals)
Performance Goals
- Learning for the sake of performing well and demonstrating competence
- Performance-approach goals: focused on favourable outcomes (ex. “I want to get an A”)
- Performance-avoid goals: focused on avoiding negative outcomes (ex. “I want to avoid failing”)
Classroom factors that influence kids
- teacher beliefs (about students and their own efficacy)
- academic work
- classroom climate (motivational, management, and teacher-student relationships)
Teacher beliefs: beliefs about students
- Teachers’ expectations for students can influence their performance (“Pygmalion Effect”)
- ex. “Bloomers” study:
- – Gave students IQ test, randomly designated certain kids as “bloomers” academically and told the teachers this
- – Gave students another IQ test at the end of the year -> “bloomers” more likely to have IQ increase (teachers subconsciously treated “bloomers” differently)
- This effect generalizes to other beliefs – ex. Beliefs about gender and math/science ability
Classroom climate: Academic Work
- What’s being taught in the classroom; what the student is being asked to learn
- Consideration of global-social realities (whether content represents diverse experiences and minority groups)
- This benefits not only those in minority groups, but those in majority groups as well
- Going beyond the basics (reading, writing, arithmetic) to social-emotional learning (SEL)
Social-Emotional Learning (SEL)
- Students who do SEL learning tend to do better academically as well (likely because SEL skills can carry over to academics – ie. Emotional regulation)
- Ex. Teaching emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, etc.
- Ex. Roots of Empathy program (bring baby into class 1x/mo, watch baby and talk about baby’s emotions, growth, etc. -> ex. “why is baby crying?”)
Classroom climate: motivational climate
- What goals are emphasized in the classroom - mastery goals or performance goals?
- Ex. Public feedback/acknowledgement, rewarding correct answers (performance goals)
- Ex. Report cards with grades for effort, active learning (mastery goals)
Things that emphasize mastery goals
- TARGETS
- T: Task
- A: Authority
- R: Recognition
- G: Grouping
- E: Evaluation
- T: Time
- S: Social
- Practices that emphasize mastery goals lead to greater engagement and motivation
TARGETS: Task
tasks relevant to student life, challenging, interesting, range of options given
TARGETS: Authority
shared authority boosts mastery goals – ie. Collaboration between students and teachers when it comes to evaluation, course content, etc.
TARGETS: Recognition
private recognition of good work rather than public; recognition is not based on social comparison – ie. “You did good work because you did good work” not “You did good work because you did better than everyone else”
TARGETS: Grouping
works best when they’re heterogenous – not grouped based on intelligence/performance, race, gender, etc.
TARGETS: Evaluation
criterion-based – students know what they’re being evaluated on, no public evaluation – ex. Posting grades publicly, includes factors related to effort/achievement
TARGETS: Time
flexible pace, self-pacing
TARGETS: Social
supportive, fostering interpersonal relationships
school factors
- school goals/motivational climate
- ability/academic tracking
- school size
- school start/stop time
- school year
- public vs. private school
- extracurriculars
school goals/motivational climate
- What goals are emphasized by the school?
- Performance goals:
- – Public honour rolls
- – Assemblies/ceremonies recognizing top grades
- – Class rankings on report cards
- Mastery goals:
- – Recognition for effort/improvement
- – Recognition for different abilities (ie. Effort, persistence, improvement)
- – Diverse curriculum offerings (choosing what you want to take makes it more meaningful)
- better student outcomes (ie. well-being, less misconduct) for mastery goal schools
ability/academic tracking: what is it?
Students separated into different classes based on ability level (ex. High-level vs. Middle-level vs. Low-level)
ability tracking: why do schools do it?
- Promoting better student-environment fit -> can tailor courses better to abilities of students
- Reduce self-comparison (ie. If you’re bad at math and in a class where lots of people are great at it, you’ll feel worse about yourself)
ability tracking: what are the effects?
- Positive effects for high-achieving students; negative effects for low-achieving students
- Students in high-levels know they have high ability and feel better about themselves (and vice versa)
- Less experienced teachers tend to teach low-level courses
- Peer influence (students in low-level courses who are surrounded by others who aren’t succeeding in school may not be motivated to do well or care about school)
- Better opportunities offered to high level students
what makes a good school?
- Emphasizes intellectual activities
- Committed, trained teachers who are given autonomy
- Active participation from students
- Well integrated into the community
school size
- Research suggests that school size is a more important factor than classroom size
- Smaller schools -> better outcomes
- K-8: <400 students
- 9-12: 600-900
school start/stop time
- Sleep cycle shifts during adolescence (~2 hours later)
- Developmental mismatch with elementary vs. secondary schools (high school starts earlier in the morning than elementary)
- Research shows that when schools start later, students do better on tests
school year
- Traditional school year with summer break reflects agricultural heritage
- Decrease in academic performance/IQ over summer break
- More so for low-income families (can’t afford to provide enriching experiences during summer)
- Some schools are moving to a Year-Round or “Balanced” calendar (6 weeks on, 2 weeks off rather than big chunks of breaks)
public vs. private school
- Overall, research shows an advantage for private schools
- But this is confounded with SES, school size, etc.
- Religious schools associated with better academic achievement and school conduct, even after controlling for SES
- Particularly beneficial for ethnic minority and low-income students (perhaps due to group cohesiveness, discipline, etc.)
school district factor
- decide when transitions between schools happen
- ex. elementary -> middle school -> high school
outcomes of middle schools
- Middle school largely does not produce positive outcomes for students
- Early adolescence is associated with academic/overall decline that is tied to the transition from elementary to middle/junior high school
- Students who see large decline during transition to middle school are at greater risk for negative outcomes
teacher beliefs: beliefs about their own efficacy
- teacher’s expectations for themselves (their own efficacy) can influence student performance
- teachers with high confidence/efficacy inspire students to have the same)
classroom climate: teacher-student relationships
- teachers who trust, care, and respect students and provide them with academic and socio-emotional scaffolding have students with higher-well-being
- emotional support very important for development
classroom climate: classroom management
- orderliness/predictability: students perform and behave better when teachers establish orderly, efficient procedures for monitoring progress, giving feedback, organizing activities, etc.
- autonomy/control: student independence within structured context important
extracurriculars
- schools with extracurriculars are associated with better educational outcomes (ie. higher GPA) and more positive youth development (ie. less impact in delinquent activities) in their students
- this effect persists even after controlling for class and ability
outcomes of different types of schools
- Boarding school: not many differences, slight benefits for actual boarders, SES big confound
- Homeschool: depends on how structured curriculum is (negative academic outcomes for unstructured curriculum), SES & culture/religion big confounds
- International school & specialized schools for learning disabilities: no research available
why is there a decline associated with middle school?
- May be due to the transition itself, but transitioning to high school only has small decline
- Main theory: middle schools have bad person-environment fit (what pre-teens need is not what middle schools provide) -> “developmental mismatch”
- Typical pre-teen changes: want more control, become more focused on what peers think of you, need close adult relationships
- Typical middle school changes: teacher elicit more control, more focus on performance relative to others (ie. Letter grades, honour roll), teachers not as close to students (because they teach so many)
- Middle schools emphasize performance goals rather than mastery goals (students who perceive their teachers to care more about performance goals experience worse decline)
- Changes in teacher beliefs of support vs. Disclipline (higher support in elem, higher disc. In middle)
- Individual differences
- Social skills (having friends is puts you at lower risk for decline)
- Ethnicity (being an ethnic minority puts you at risk for worse decline)
community factors
- Resources: Availability of adequate resources largely due to community context
- School buildings can communicate value of education (ie. Windows, pictures, plants convey more positive school environment)
- Students in positive buildings show more intrinsic motivation
- Safety: Does school feel safe or somewhere you might experience violence or threats to safety?
country & culture factors
- school attendance
- importance of education/schooling
- role of testing
- use of criticism and praise
- moral aspect of education
- ethnicity
country & culture factors: school attendance
- Large differences across countries in terms of how many students attend high school
- ex. ~90% of students in US attend high school, whereas only ~20% of students in Uganda attend high school)
country & culture factors: importance of education
In some countries, education is prioritized for one gender only
country & culture factors: role of testing
Canada is very low in terms of standardized testing; Asian countries have many more standardized tests that dictate the schools, universities, and careers you can pursue
country & culture factors: use of criticism and praise
- In North America, students respond well to praise and are uncomfortable with criticism
- In Japan, students respond better to criticism and are uncomfortable receiving praise
country & culture factors: moral aspect of education
Some cultures see the importance of education more so as the shaping of a good person, not just learning content
country & culture factors: ethnicity
- Students’ performance in school varies based on ethnicity
- Asian students tend to perform highest, white students second-highest, and black & Hispanic students perform lowest
- True even after controlling for SES
- The goals students have don’t differ, but the outcomes do
- if schools are ethnically diverse, students in both majority and minority groups do better
Why does performance vary by ethnicity?
- Experiences of discrimination
- Decline in performance following event of discrimination & reduced belief in payoff of working hard
- Belief in effort vs. ability
- Asian students more likely to believe that effort is more important in school; this is associated with better academic achievement
- Stereotype threat
- We often live up to stereotypes for our ethnicity
