We should be creating awareness of the existence of perpetuated educational psychology misconceptions and the lack of published literature on the effects of the spread of unjustified belief systems in K-12 teaching practices.
Misconceptions Influence Learning
The consequences of the proliferation of false information, a prevalent phenomenon labeled as “post-truths” in this digital age, are severe and profound, perpetuated through ineffective teaching strategies and misinterpretation of the science of learning, influencing pedagogy, learning environments, and curriculum development (Woolfolk Hoy, David and Pape, 2006), and contributing to the societal inability to learn accurate information (Chinn and Malhotra, 2002).
Misconceptions don’t exist due to the lack of exposure to information, but due to the existing fallacious knowledge that needs to be unlearned (Sinatra 2014) brought about by subjective evaluation and erroneous application of empirical data to the field of education.
While some educators question the integrity of evidence-based information, many teachers selectively reject scientific evidence and embrace misconceptions to avoid stress and conflict.
Decreasing Acceptance of Misconceptions With More Advanced Critical Thinking
Researchers Morgan McAfee and Bobby Hoffman reviewed four prominent educational psychology journals and looked into 135 peer-reviewed articles. Primary research sources examined diverse samples consisting of undergraduate psychology students and utilized a true-false response format to identify misconceptions, and a Likert-type scale to measure the intensity of the misconceptions. According to the college samples, differences in the frequency of misconceptions are unable to establish a pattern. However, similarities among those with advanced education revealed a heightened perception of psychology as a science and a decreased acceptance of misconceptions by groups with higher course grades and critical thinking skills.
Mitigating Myths
To eradicate myths and misguided notions, research data and empirical principles must be carefully interpreted and communicated to individuals who lack domain-specific knowledge. Even with the intention of improving and enhancing learning outcomes, concepts can be sensationalized by popular media and misapplied to educational endeavors. Recently, more attention has been given to specific myths related to learning, neuroscience or brain-based education, technology in education, and educational policy.
Appropriate instrumentation should be developed to mitigate pervasive myths and educational psychology misconceptions, and discussion should be encouraged among educators to express dissatisfaction with such errant beliefs and advocate conceptual change efforts (Gregoire, 2003; Muis et al 2018). This can be achieved through teacher training and professional development sessions where these flawed thinking processes can be mediated.
Notable Quotes:
“Individuals discount objective knowledge and evidence because dissonance is perceived as a threat leading to stress and anxiety, feelings that abate when the misconception is embraced” (Gregoire, 2003).
“Educators, educational policymakers and educational researchers should reject educational approaches that lack sufficient scientific support and methodologically sound empirical evidence” (Kirschner and van Merriënboer, 2013).
“Individuals will persistently retain their existing conception while rejecting the new, accurate information to protect their entrenched belief, often satisfying a robust personal or social goal” (Chinn & Brewer, 1993).
Personal Takeaway
It is said that we cannot change people’s minds, but we, as educators, have the capacity to influence and uphold our search for ideals to some extent and enlighten ourselves whenever we possibly can, overcoming one misconception at a time. When we do, we act as educators. This study is about the core and purpose of education. It is about being brave enough to welcome shifts in mindsets, which may eventually effectuate societal changes. As a teacher who wants to see changes happen, it starts off with our beliefs and attitudes toward education. This impacts me personally because even within the walls of the institution where we work, the educators that need to keep young minds open, inquisitive and resilient may themselves be the ones that are resistant to change.
Adrian Pasos
Summarized Article:
McAfee, Morgan and Hoffman, Bobby (2021) “The Morass of Misconceptions: How Unjustified Beliefs Influence Pedagogy and Learning,” International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Vol. 15: No. 1, Article 4.
This study was conducted in order to identify practical ways for teachers to create a socially inclusive environment for children who demonstrate persistent challenging behaviors (PCBs) and/or who have social-emotional delays.
Main Reasons for the Challenging Behavior
The existing research suggests that there are two main reasons why some children demonstrate persistent challenging behaviors:
1) They are enrolled in school before they have developed the social-emotional readiness for the demands of group care, including managing emotions and getting along with peers.
2) They have delays in other developmental areas, such as play skills, speech and language development, and motor development.
Furthermore, there is a growing body of evidence to show that children who demonstrate PCBs are vulnerable to significant long-term effects from exclusionary disciplinary practices such as suspension and expulsion, along with a higher risk of academic difficulties leading to grade retention. Children who engage in PCBs typically find the social-emotional skill gap widening as they progress through school.
Recommendations for Working With Children With Challenging Behavior
This paper puts forth the authors’ recommendations, based on extant research, on the best practices that early childhood teachers can adopt to create an inclusive, prosocial environment for children with PCBs. They describe interventions that can be put into practice immediately, including example “scripts” for how these can be rolled out in the classroom. The authors recommend the following classroom-based supports for working with children who engage in PCBs:
- Ensure equitable and active participation for these children in the social milieu of the classroom through facilitation of the appropriate social interactions. This must be explicitly modeled by the teacher through role play, ideally utilizing the child who struggles with PCB as a partner so that their peers view them as an example of prosocial behavior.
- During any social skills instruction, teaching should take place in three phases: first, the teacher introduces the expected behavior and explains its importance; second, the teacher models the social skill and allows the children to practice it; and third, the teacher provides ongoing corrective feedback and behavior-specific praise.
- Classroom activities should be carefully planned to incorporate a variety of social interaction types and to be inclusive of children who demonstrate PCBs. Considering the background experiences of these children as well as their interests and abilities can make or break participation. Equally important is creating a physically intuitive and well-organized classroom that allows for both large- and small-group activities.
The Benefits of Creating an Inclusive Environment
Teachers who seek to create a socially inclusive environment – meaning one that actively integrates children with PCBs into the classroom community, ensures that they have equitable opportunities to participate in social activities, and promotes positive and reciprocal social relationships with peers and adults alike – can expect to see a decrease in PCB.
With this in mind, researchers and policy-makers would do well to consider the professional development needs of early childhood educators, providing more opportunities for teachers to engage in training specific to the social inclusion of children with PCB.
Notable Quotes:
“As children age, the skill gap related to social-emotional functioning widens for children who engage in PCBs, leaving them at higher risk of being referred to special education and/or retention.”
“Despite the use of exclusionary disciplinary practices with children, there is no evidence to show that they decrease PCBs (Meek et al., 2020). Instead, the consequence of suspension on children who engage in PCBs is decreased time in the classroom (Loson and Gillespie, 2012) which can be detrimental to their social-emotional development (Skiba et al., 2014).”
“Schools and classrooms that promote positive climates report lower rates of PCBs and suspensions, which is important for children to feel welcomed and have an environment where they are able to develop prosocial behaviors (Farmer et al., 2018; Merritt et al., 2012; Skiba et al., 2014).”
Personal Takeaway
The notion that children benefit from discrete and explicit instruction for social skills is not new, but one that truly benefits from repeating. The current paper presents highly practical advice for teachers seeking to implement this type of instruction in their classrooms, with details on when and how such teaching could take place. Early childhood educators may be reassured to know that these techniques, which may be familiar to them already, are backed by rigorous research evidence. I would argue that these strategies can also be applied to older struggling students.
Akane Yoshida
Summarized Article:
McGuire, S. N., & Meadan, H. (2022). Social Inclusion of Children with Persistent Challenging Behaviors. Early Childhood Education Journal, 50(1), 61-69. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-020-01135-4.
Researchers conducted an updated review of the literature on interventions to promote overall self-determination and skills associated with self-determined action in students with disabilities in the school context. Associated skills included choice-making, decision-making, problem-solving, goal setting and attainment, planning, self-management, self-advocacy, self-awareness, and self-knowledge.
The Value of Self-Determination
Self-determination is integral to student achievement of both academic goals and positive post-school employment, community integration, and quality of life outcomes. Emerging definitional frameworks for understanding self-determination highlight the value of developing skills associated with self-determined action (i.e., choice-making, decision-making, problem solving, goal setting and attainment, planning, self-management, self-advocacy, self-awareness, and self-knowledge) in students with disabilities. Given the value of self-determination in the lives of students with disabilities and expansion in theory, research, and practice, an updated review of the literature on interventions to promote self-determination and skills associated with self-determined actions was needed.
Positive Findings in Article Search
Researchers identified 34 articles published between 2000 and 2015 that met the search criteria. Search criteria required that articles: a) be published in an English language, peer-reviewed journal, b) include participants with disabilities between the ages of 3 to 21, c) occur in the school context, and d) report outcomes of an intervention intended to promote overall self-determination or skills associated with self-determined action. Researchers analyzed types of interventions, populations of students with whom they were implemented, outcomes, and rigor of research. “Findings include (a) an increase in the number of participants in self-determination studies, (b) positive outcomes for students with diverse personal characteristics (e.g. disability status, gender), and (c) a need for improved rigor in reporting quality of research.” Results indicated positive outcomes of interventions to promote self-determination across grade levels (primarily middle and high school), disability groups, and setting using a variety of instructional methods.
Increased Focus Needed on Promoting Self-Determination
These findings highlight the need for increased focus on “promoting self-determination within inclusive, general education settings with students with disabilities and of diverse backgrounds.” Incorporating evidence-based self-determination instruction enhances transition planning and access to and participation in the general education curriculum. The most commonly implemented intervention was the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction (SDLMI; Wehmeyer, Palmer, Argan, Mithaug, & Martin), a multi-component intervention targeting multiple skills associated with self-determined action. Given the strong research base supporting SDLMI as well as the availability of materials to support its implementation, teachers should consider this comprehensive intervention for integrating self-determination skills into the instruction. While interventions promoting self-determination proved effective across age ranges, the majority (i.e., 76%) of the studies reviewed included transition-age students. Given the positive outcomes and viable means reported, practitioners can “help students set and achieve education and transition related goals, benefiting students in school and in the real world.”
Notable Quotes:
“Given the value of self-determination in the lives of students with disabilities, it is essential that skills associated with self-determination are integrated into instruction in the school context.”
“It is often assumed that students learn skills associated with self-determined action, such as goal setting, problem solving, and decision-making incidentally; however, more explicit instruction needs to be dedicated to these skills, which are included in almost all state or local education agency content objectives.”
“By continuing to focus on and improve instruction to promote self-determination, it is possible to further enhance the focus on enabling young people with disabilities to set and achieve goals as causal agents in their own lives.”
Personal Takeaway
Self-determination positively predicts in- and post- school outcomes as well as transition planning for students with disabilities. Improved understanding of the development and skills associated with self-determination guides current assessment and intervention. Consequently, evidence-based interventions allow practitioners to feasibly and effectively integrate self-determination and skills associated with self-determined action into instruction within the school context for students with and without disabilities.
Ashley Parnell
Summarized Article:
Burke, K. M., Raley, S. K., Shogren, K. A., Hagiwara, M., Mumbardó-Adam, C., Uyanik, H., & Behrens, S. (2020). A meta-analysis of interventions to promote self-determination for students with disabilities. Remedial and Special Education, 41(3), 176-188.
Knowledge construction refers to the ways that students solve problems and construct their own understanding of concepts, phenomena, and situations. In other words, how students learn. The current understanding of knowledge construction in game-based learning environments is limited. While studies have linked the adoption of mobile serious games (digital games for learning) and improvements in learning performance and student engagement few have conclusively shown an improvement in learning outcomes.
The authors wanted to specifically examine what knowledge-construction behaviors are exhibited by elementary school students when using serious games and how these behaviors differ across academic performance levels.
The Phases of Knowledge Construction
Academics in the field typically divide knowledge construction behavior into phases or types. The IAM model used by the researchers follows the following five phases: 1) sharing or comparing of information about problems 2) discovery and exploration of dissonance or inconsistency among ideas 3) negotiation of meaning or co-construction of knowledge 4) testing and modification of proposed syntheses or co-construction; 5) agreement statements, or applications of newly constructed meanings. Typically, knowledge construction behaviors are low among elementary school students since they are still developing self-regulation skills and have relatively weaker abstract thinking abilities.
Skills Necessary for Knowledge Construction
The study had 83 participants in classes across third, fifth, and sixth grade in an urban public elementary school in Beijing, China. All participants had more than two years of prior mobile technology-enhanced classroom learning experience. The authors and researchers developed an app that would provide a “personalized, game-like and task-driven self-paced learning environment” about the Chinese mid-Autumn festival to collect the needed data. The app was implemented as a self-paced learning material for four weeks and participants were encouraged to go explore in classes. Teachers were present in the room but did not deliver any lectures.
Performance groups were decided based on participants’ overall accuracy rates when using the app, the high-performing group included the top 25% of students, while the low-performing group the bottom 25%. Differences between the two groups were then analyzed. “The students showed a clear capacity to regulate their learning in a mobile serious game environment.” They demonstrated agency, self-monitoring, and self-evaluation skills. “Results also indicated that, if coupled with feedback, a simple game-like design can empower children to construct their knowledge independently.”
The data also illustrated an interesting difference between the two performance groups. The low-performing group rarely studied or re-studied learning material after they answered a question incorrectly. Whereas the high-performing group tended to go back to try to renegotiate meaning and re-constructed knowledge to modify errors in previous understandings. The low-performing group also tended to watch learning materials repeatedly, getting stuck in a negotiating-of-meaning cycle as they tried different answers again and again.
Creating Systems To Identify Learning Patterns
Students can self-regulate their learning, as early as elementary school, without intervention by teachers. However, low-performing students may need to adjust their learning strategies around self-monitoring and self-evaluation when in self-paced environments. Designers of such technology can facilitate this by creating systems that can identify certain learning patterns and alert users about them. In addition, they could add app features that facilitate social interaction so that students can engage in collective and shared regulation of learning.
Notable Quotes:
“One limitation of empirical measurement of learning-behavior patterns is that it cannot capture how students learn in technology-enhanced environments.”
“To engage in technology-enhanced self-regulated learning effectively individuals must be able to make reasonable determinations of what, when, and how to learn.”
“…when students used self-monitoring record forms right after they started their learning and before they completed it, their learning outcomes and motivation both increased.”
Personal Takeaway
Students, regardless of age, are capable of self-regulated learning and can construct knowledge through independent self-paced learning. Given that self-regulation and self-directed learning is a continuum, educators may still need to provide support to some students. This could be achieved through explicit instruction in self-monitoring and self-evaluation skills to aid the student in reflecting on their learning process.
Ayla Reau
Summarized Article:
Sun, Z., Lin, CH., Lv, K. et al. Knowledge-construction behaviors in a mobile learning environment: a lag-sequential analysis of group differences. Education Tech Research Dev 69, 533–551 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-021-09938-x.
Within American school districts, there is a call to reimagine what inclusive education looks like to respond to the overall need for equity. As a means to initiate this transformation, the study seeks to assess the current understandings of inclusive education amongst a triad of stakeholders (school administrators, special educators and general educators) in order to outline next steps for creating inclusive schools.
Inclusive Practices in Planning Professional Development Opportunities
School administrators play a significant role in ensuring that all stakeholders in the school commit to equity, including all staff, parents/guardians, and students. Thus, when planning professional development opportunities, school leadership must carefully consider how both general and special educators can be collaboratively involved in professional learning contexts regarding inclusive practices. However, it is also important to acknowledge that it takes time for inclusive practices to become institutionalized (5 or more years) and administrators should be prepared to encounter some level of resistance given the disruptions to the status quo, including but not limited to shifts in power dynamics, established practices, and the role of the teacher as an expert to a learner. All members of the school community must be willing to grow, experiment, and learn in order to initiate positive changes in the area of inclusion.
Feedback From General Educators vs Special Educators
Ricci, Scheier-Dolberg, & Perkins’ study surveyed K-12 administrators, special educators, and general educators from 21 U.S. schools across 9 districts in Southern California and Las Vegas areas. The participants worked in both charter and public schools. Through the collection of written responses to a series of questions, the researchers were able to identify emerging themes that served as part of their qualitative analysis. The study revealed that all stakeholders agreed that inclusive education prioritizes focusing on every learner as an individual, emphasizing practices that are centered around relationship building, providing appropriate accommodations and modifications, and meeting the needs of all learners. However, special educators were amongst the most to comment on this theme as important compared to general educators and administrators. Other significant themes that arose from the results included: a focus on the school, focus on the content, focus on instruction, focus on providing support for teachers, focus on personal characteristics, and a focus on collaboration.
Collaboration Needed Between Different Departments in a School
As discussed in the article, “collaboration between administrators, general educators, and special educators is needed to understand the frames of reference (e.g. the beliefs, values, experiences, and expectations that affect how individuals perceive and react to situations) that each stakeholder brings to the school and how these assets can be leveraged to promote inclusive practices.” Ricci et al. highlight that schools must move away from the idea that inclusion is the sole responsibility of special educators, but rather that inclusion is a shared practice across the school community. Thus, professional development opportunities that encourage stakeholders to reflect on their own practices and see inclusion through the perspectives of one another must be provided to achieve the goal of fully inclusive schools.
Notable Quotes:
“We believe that it is important to cast aside this rigidity in role-based responsibilities to move all stakeholders toward taking ownership for all aspects of schooling and for all students. This calls for special educators to become content experts as well, just as general educators should increase their skills in differentiation of instruction for all learners.”
“Despite the importance of collaboration among stakeholders for promoting inclusive practices, it is noteworthy that focus on collaboration with others was the theme least often mentioned. This finding lends itself to the question of who is ‘in charge’ of collaboration? This highlights the importance of administrators taking a stronger lead in facilitating crucial conversations between general and special educators to promote inclusive practices at their school sites.”
“Our schools are in urgent need of transformational leadership approaches that bring all adults in a school building together to seek solutions to barriers to teaching and learning for all students, regardless of ability.”
Personal Takeaway
As a special educator, collaboration is a key part of providing effective support for my learners. Working in partnership with administrators, general educators, educational professionals, students, and their families, creates the strong foundation needed to support positive learning outcomes. Therefore, as the article suggests, providing increased professional development opportunities for various stakeholders to exchange ideas and practices regarding inclusion will likely strengthen the overall inclusivity of the school community, positively impacting student performance and wellbeing. As special educators, we must advocate for inclusion and help to create a space for members of our school communities to embark on this professional learning journey alongside us — a point strongly emphasized in Ricci et al’s. article.
Taryn McBrayne
Summarized Article:
Ricci, L., Scheier-Dolberg, S., & Perkins, B. (2022). Transforming triads for inclusion: understanding frames of reference of special educators, general educators, and administrators engaging in collaboration for inclusion of all learners, International Journal of Inclusive Education, 26(5), 526-539, DOI: 10.1080/13603116.2019.1699609.
The question of how learners’ motivation influences their academic achievement and vice versa has been the subject of intensive research due to its theoretical relevance and important implications for the field of education. This study shows how influential theories of academic motivation have conceptualized reciprocal interactions between motivation and achievement, and the kinds of evidence that support this reciprocity.
Mediating Factors Between Motivation and Achievement
Motivation and emotion can be a difficult line to draw. Both of these concepts can interact, although emotions are depicted as more temporary than motivation. For instance, certain emotions can either enhance or obstruct motivation. Just like how there have been studies on the relationship between motivation and student achievement, there are recent studies on the reciprocal relationship between emotions and student achievement.
There are several mediating factors between motivation and achievement. When effort is measured as quality of learning (e.g., selecting adaptive goals, adopting higher-quality learning strategies, etc.), there is some evidence for a positive link between academic achievement and effort. However, when effort is measured as a quantity of learning (such as study time, practice time, time-on-task, persistence, etc.), this relationship seems either weak or only significant after controlling for quality of learning. Another mediating factor can be self-regulation, as some theories suggest motivation only leads to the decision to act.
Finding of Studies Performed on Motivation and Achievement
Most studies (this article summarized multiple studies) investigating the reciprocal relationship between motivation and achievement have measured motivation through questionnaires probing academic self-concept (e.g., the Academic SelfDescription Questionnaire by Marsh & O’Neill, 1984). The studies interpreting the connection between motivation and achievement lack a causal relationship. In almost every study investigating reciprocal motivation and achievement relations, the need for experimental designs, in which either motivation or achievement is manipulated, is raised as a suggestion for future research.
The Influence of Motivation on Achievement
All the theories examined suggested that there are positive influences of motivation on achievement and vice versa. There is also a very strong relationship between motivation and student achievement. One of the hardest problems to solve is the lack of studies that allow for firm causal inferences. While there are studies that lack a controlled variable, there are other studies that do have a causal effect but consist of a third or hidden variable.
Notable Quotes:
“This led to a research agenda consisting of the following recommendations for future studies on the relationship between motivation and performance: (1) include multiple motivation constructs (on top of ASC), (2) investigate behavioral mediators, (3) consider a network approach, (4) align frequency of measurement to expected change rate in intended constructs and include multiple time scales to better understand influences across time-scales, (5) check whether designs meet the criteria for measuring causal, reciprocal inferences, (6) choose an appropriate statistical model, (7) apply alternatives to self-reports, (8) consider various ways of measuring achievement, and (9) strive for generalization of the findings to various age, ethnic, and sociocultural groups.”
“We argued that the strongest support for causal claims on motivation-achievement relations would be studies manipulating either motivation or achievement at one time point and studying the effects on motivation-achievement interactions across subsequent time points.”
“…there might be culture-dependent or population-specific pathways connecting the relationship between motivation and achievement.”
Summarized Article:
Vu, T., Magis-Weinberg, L., Jansen, B. R. J., van Atteveldt, N., Janssen, T. W. P., Lee, N. C., van der Maas, H. L. J., Raijmakers, M. E. J., Sachisthal, M. S. M., & Meeter, M. (2022). Motivation-Achievement Cycles in Learning: a Literature Review and Research Agenda. Educational Psychology Review, 34(1), 39–71. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-021-09616-7.
Summarized By: Michael Ho
The number of students with registered disabilities enrolling in colleges and universities across the United States is continuing to increase, speaking to the myriad of improvements and advancements in technology, legislation, and treatment over the past few decades. Such advances have resulted in the creation of more inclusive learning environments for individuals with disabilities and have improved overall access to higher education. However, students with disabilities continue to face barriers when it comes to integrating in postsecondary institutions. Campus counseling centers have been suggested as a positive way to provide support for students with disabilities who are experiencing academic and/or psychological distress, yet little is known about the use or effectiveness of these services. O’Shea et al.’s (2021) study serves to close this research gap by determining the effectiveness of campus-based individual counseling for students with disabilities.
To disclose disabilities, or not?
While there is an overall hesitation for students to disclose their disability to their college/university, the impact of social and structural stigmatization on students’ reluctance to disclose may be more pronounced for students with certain types of disabilities. On U.S. campuses, psychiatric disabilities (commonly including disorders such as depression, bipolar, anxiety, or schizophrenia) continue to be the largest and fastest growing sub-category of disability amongst college students (Americans With Disabilities Act, 2018), and yet are also often surrounded by the most stigma.
Research indicates that “students with disabilities are at a higher risk in comparison to their peers of experiencing mental health issues on campus, including increased rates of anxiety, academic distress, suicidality, and self-injury (Coduti et al., 2016).” Such statistics further emphasize the need for accessible and high-quality support services on campus.
The Chinese education context is characterized by high-stakes testing and exam systems and more authoritative teaching styles. This highly competitive system has caused unique features of depression in Chinese students. Meta-analyses suggest that contrary to the gender differences reported in Western cultures for Chinese primary and middle school students there are no significant gender differences in the prevalence of depressive symptoms. The great value that Chinese culture places on interpersonal harmony also means that the quality of interpersonal relationships exerted a stronger impact on depressive symptoms in Chinese adolescents than in their western counterparts.
The importance of teacher autonomy support
This research is based on a 3-year longitudinal study. Data was collected as part of a large-scale educational assessment of all schools in the Mentou-gou School District, which is located in the western area of Beijing, China. In total, 1613 4th-grade students from 25 primary schools and 1397 7th-grade students from 14 middle schools were recruited during the baseline assessment in 2014. Tracking the same group of students, a second and third assessment was implemented in 2015 and 2016. “The results of this study revealed that for both the primary and middle school samples, teacher autonomy support and teacher–student relationships consistently buffered the students’ depressive symptoms over time.” These findings align with the conclusions from previous studies.
The importance of teacher-student relationships
Gender differences were only present in the primary school sample, with females having a lower initial score that increased significantly over time, compared to the male students whose scores declined over time. In middle school, depressive symptoms increased significantly with a similar rate of change regardless of gender, although females still maintained a higher baseline. The authors suggest that this is different from the Western cultural context (where female students were more likely to show a higher rate of increased depressive symptoms than their male peers) because of Chinese cultural influences. Female students who are more likely to follow and obey rules would receive more positive feedback from teachers and parents, and Chinese females typically academically outperform their male peers at this age, both of which could act as protective factors.
Students who had higher socioeconomic backgrounds reported lower levels of depressive symptoms. This finding is consistent with current research.
“The study confirmed the significant effects of teachers’ autonomous and supportive strategies on reducing students’ depressive symptoms in both primary and middle school.” In China, studies have found that interpersonal stress significantly predicted the depression levels of Chinese pupils. This implies that teacher-student relationships are an especially crucial factor in students’ development in a Chinese context, with a higher potential impact to offset students’ depressive symptoms.
Notable Quotes:
“As indicated by this study, establishing a harmonious and autonomy-supportive school environment could benefit students in many ways and might reduce the potential risks of psychological problems. This implication is particularly meaningful in the schooling context, where the general teaching styles are less autonomy supportive.”
“Therefore, schools should provide teachers with training programmes regarding need-supportive teaching strategies and enhance teachers’ awareness of the importance of mental health.”
“To empower students with more autonomy, teachers could provide students with opportunities to express their thoughts and make choices, show concern for students’ negative emotions, and use noncontrolling language during instruction. In addition, teachers could improve students’ sense of relatedness by listening, expressing care, and being available during difficulties.”
Personal Takeaway:
This study serves as further research on the importance of positive student-teacher relationships and the benefits it has for teaching and learning as well as meeting a student’s developmental, emotional and academic needs. It also highlights the benefits of promoting student autonomy in the learning process. When students are given voice and choice they are more empowered, engaged, and connected to the learning environment, ultimately having positive impacts on both their academic and mental-wellbeing.
Ayla Reau
Summarized Article:
Zhang, D., Jin, B., & Cui, Y. (2021). Do teacher autonomy support and teacher–student relationships influence students’ depression? A 3-year longitudinal study. School Mental Health: A Multidisciplinary Research and Practice Journal. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12310-021-09456-4
While there are many studies out there that examine the general intrinsic motivation for physical activity, little research has been done on emotions as a crucial factor in understanding student motivation in a PE setting. By considering the students’ subjective emotional experiences, a more holistic understanding of physical activity behavior change and why students are not getting enough daily physical activity can be better understood.
The levels of physical activity in school-aged children
In Germany, only 22.4% of girls and 29.4% of boys aged 3 to 17 reach the WHO guideline of physical activity, and their physical activity significantly decreases from age 3 to 17. Therefore, a deeper understanding of emotions among students during physical activity will better inform what is triggering their regular physical activity during leisure time. In addition, the control-value theory of learning and achievement emotions serves as an appropriate and established theoretical framework, as it presents antecedents and outcomes of emotions in school settings.
The benefits of perceived autonomy supports in student self-efficacy
The sample consisted of 1030 student participants between 11 and 18 years who attended Grades 6 to 10 of the German Mittelschule, which is a type of school with the lowest educational level among secondary schools in Germany. 408 participants were female (39.6%), and 622 participants were male (60.4%). Whether or not the PE teacher was perceived to be providing cognitive autonomy and organizational autonomy supports positively predicted students’ academic self-efficacy in PE.
Furthermore, the students’ academic self-efficacy in PE positively predicted their enjoyment in PE, which had a negative effect on their anxiety in PE. The intrinsic value that students identified in PE also positively predicted students’ enjoyment and negatively predicted their anxiety.
The students’ enjoyment in PE was a positive predictor of their physical activity during leisure time.
Finally, perceived cognitive autonomy support provided by the PE teacher positively predicted students’ physical activity in leisure time via students’ PE-related academic self-efficacy, intrinsic value, enjoyment and anxiety.
Creating positive emotional experiences
If students are provided the opportunity to influence their learning environment, they tend to have higher action-control expectancies and assign more relevance to their PE class. PE can be seen as a potentially powerful platform for the promotion of leisure-time physical activity, especially if it is conducted in a way that evokes regular positive achievement emotions in students while keeping negative ones on a minor level. This study suggests a substantial potential of emotional experiences in PE as a powerful predictor of physical behavior outside of school.
Notable Quotes:
“Positive emotional experiences in PE could be seen as a main factor to increase physical activity in a lifelong perspective and could thus help students to improve their overall health.”
“PE teachers have the opportunity to create positive emotional experiences for students and to reduce the experience of negative emotions by use of autonomy-supportive teaching strategies.”
“PE exhibits the potential to affect students’ thoughts and feelings related to PE in leisure time and thus is a promising starting point for children and adolescents with regard to an active lifestyle in the long term.”
Personal Takeaway:
As special educators, we tend to focus on our students’ core subjects. We may easily forget the importance of PE and how emotions can play a big role in their motivation to do well in their physical activity. The findings of this study allow me to attend to the students’ emotional experience during physical activity in recess and PE classes. It will also allow me to use autonomy-supportive teaching strategies by considering the environment and creating opportunities in the classroom for physical activities they enjoy.
Michael Ho
Summarized Article:
Zimmermann, J.; Tilga, H.; Bachner, J.; Demetriou, Y. The Effect of Teacher Autonomy Support on Leisure-Time Physical Activity via Cognitive Appraisals and Achievement Emotions: A Mediation Analysis Based on the Control-Value Theory. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18, 3987. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18083987
Identifying the interrelationships between self-regulation, emotion, grit and student performance by using the Cyclical Self-Regulated learning model, which is associated with a K-12 math tutoring program.
What happens when students fail in their academic tasks?
When students repeatedly fail at a task, their self-confidence in the subject goes down, and their anxiety and frustration goes up. They build a resentment towards the subject and start to believe that their time in class is not useful.
The concept and long-term nature of grit helps students maintain consistent and focused interest for important and challenging goals.
Improving the level of grit in students
Two groups of middle schoolers who were participating in a weekly Mathspring Intervention program were chosen, one based in the US, and the other in Argentina. The levels of grit and expectation of success were measured in these groups. The research team argues for the need to work on improving the level of grit in students, by validating hard work ethic, strengthening student setbacks, and encouraging diligence. It was also found that grit in the early phase of learning predicts success in later stages of learning.
More research needs to be done on student experience
This study is just the tip of the iceberg on representing types of student learning. More research needs to be done on the experiences of students with diverse learning patterns, and patterns found for students with disabilities, gifted students, easily-frustrated students and so on.
Notable Quotes:
“In education settings, students who exhibit self-regulation in learning behaviours are able to direct their efforts toward achieving academic goals.”
“There are certain traits and dimensions of character other than intelligence that are strong determinants of a person’s unique path towards success despite setbacks.”
“The long-term nature of grit is what differentiates it from similar constructs such as self-control and conscientiousness.”
Personal Takeaway
Reading this research has opened my mind to the importance of building grit in students, especially those in Learning Support, as this skill will strongly contribute to their future success in life and allow them to persevere through the challenges of life with more ease.
Shekufeh Monadjem
Summarized Article:
Kooken, J. W., Zaini, R., & Arroyo, I. (2021). Simulating the dynamics of self-regulation, emotion, grit, and student performance in cyber-learning environments. Metacognition and Learning, 16(2), 367-405.
In this article, authors Adi, Artini & Wahyuni (2021) “analyze teachers’ perceptions of self-directed learning (SDL) and the identifiable components of SDL from online learning activities assigned by teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The involvement of students in learning decisions
This article did not include a literature review. However, it was interesting to note that despite the fact that educators recognize the value of SDL, many hesitate to involve students in decisions related to their learning, including both content and assessment decisions.
Measuring perceptions of self-directed learning
As a part of the data collection methods, the researchers provided a self-rated questionnaire, measuring teachers’ “perceptions of SDL content knowledge, perceptions of SDL implementation, and perceptions of the impact of SDL on students.”
The study surveyed one high school English as an Additional Language (EAL) teacher in Indonesia. Overall, the findings revealed that while teachers recognize the importance of providing opportunities for self-directed learning for student success, “the application of SDL has not been maximized.” Rather, “teachers tend to use classical strategies that do not focus on student-centered learning” and “are hesitant to involve students” in decisions related to their learning, including content and assessments.
How teachers can help students grow in independence
The results suggest that “teachers and school authorities need to develop the most appropriate curriculum and assignments to encourage students to be more independent and independent in learning.” The study showed that English teachers consider themselves “knowledgeable” about SDL content knowledge and “anticipate” in applying SDL, yet “rarely do pre-activities and post-activities” to promote student autonomy. However, the research is limited by the survey size (only one teacher was surveyed) and additional participants need to be surveyed in order to be able to generalize the findings to a wider population of teachers.
Notable Quotes:
“Teachers felt that SDL strategies could significantly motivate students in learning, stimulate them to recognize their learning goals, and assist them in determining appropriate sources and ways of learning.”
Self-directed learning (SDL) is “a process in which students take the initiative to identify their learning needs, formulate learning objectives, determine learning resources, apply appropriate learning strategies and evaluate their learning outcomes, with or without the help of others” (Hill et al., 2020; Suryadewi, Wiyasa, & Sujana, 2020).
According to the questionnaire, teachers “generally agree that SDL is important for students” as it “can give autonomy to students in learning and increase students’ initiative in monitoring their learning.”
Personal Takeaway
As the world shifts back to in-person school, evaluating perceptions of self-directed learning will be an important part of determining next steps for teacher instruction in this new phase of the pandemic.
Taryn McBrayne
Summarized Article:
Adi, N. L. M. P., Artini, L. P., & Wahyuni, L. G. E. (2021). Self-Directed Learning in EFL During Covid-19 Pandemic: Teacher’s Perception and Students’ Learning Autonomy. Indonesian Journal of Educational Research and Review, 5(1), 80-90. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23887/ijerr.v4i1.
