Handbook of psychology volume 7 educational psychology
Research to Policy for Guiding Educational Reform
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- Dealing With Increased Student Diversity
- Contributions of Educational Psychology to Effective Reform 589
- Studying Development of Academic Motivation
- Developing Students’ Metacognitive and Self-Regulation Competencies
- Contributions of Educational Psychology to Effective Reform 591
- Redefining Intelligence and Giftedness
588 Research to Policy for Guiding Educational Reform CONTRIBUTIONS OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY TO EFFECTIVE REFORM In looking across the chapters in this volume and other recent work in the field of educational psychology, a number of trends emerge. Most significant from my perspective are the following: • Acknowledging the complexity of human behavior and the need for integrative theories and research that contextual- ize teaching and learning in schools as living systems that are themselves complex, dynamic, and built on both indi-
• Looking at humans and their behavior holistically and focusing not only on cognitive and intellectual processes, but also on social and emotional processes that differen- tially influence learning, motivation, and development. • Situating the study of teaching and learning in diverse school contexts and in particular content domains with a mix of quantitative and qualitative methodologies. • Seeing teachers as learners whose own professional de- velopment must mirror the best of what we know about learning, motivation, and development. • Rethinking critical assumptions about human abilities and talents, reciprocity in teacher and learner roles, and the function and purpose of schooling so that we can better prepare students for productive contributions to a global world and lifelong learning with emerging tech- nologies. • Acknowledging the central role of learners’ thinking and perceptions of their experiences in learning and motivation—for all learners in the system, including teachers, administrators, parents, and students. We are in an exciting era of transformation and change— an era where the knowledge base in educational psychology has the opportunity to play a significant role in shaping our K–20 educational systems for the better. Particularly relevant to educational reform is knowledge being gained in the fol- lowing areas, many of which have been highlighted in prior chapters in this volume. My intention here, however, is to de- scribe more broadly how other areas of research in the field of educational psychology are informing issues in educational reform and the design of more effective learning systems.
An issue of growing concern is the record number of students entering public and private elementary and secondary schools (Meece & Kurtz-Costes, 2001). This population is more diverse than ever before, with almost 40% minority stu- dents in the total public school population. Wong and Rowley (2001) offer a commentary on the schooling of ethnic minor- ity children, cautioning that researchers should be sensitive to the cultural biases of their research with populations of color, recognize the diversity within ethnic groups, limit compar- isons between groups, integrate processes pertaining to eth- nic minority cultures with those of normative development, examine cultural factors in multiple settings, balance the focus on risks and problems with attention to strengths and protective factors, and examine outcomes other than school achievement. There is a need for comprehensive and coher- ent frameworks that allow differentiation of common issues (e.g., all children being potentially resistant to school because of its compulsory nature) to identify additional factors (e.g., cultural dissonance between school norms and ethnic culture norms) related to resistance to school. Multiple contexts should be studied, longitudinal studies undertaken, and sophisticated statistical tools applied. Okagaki (2001) argues for a triarchic model of minority children’s school achievement that takes into account the form and perceived function of school, the family’s cultural norms and beliefs about education and development, and the characteristics of the child. The significant role of percep- tions, expectations for school achievement, educational goals, conceptions of intelligence, and self-reported behav- iors and feelings of efficacy are discussed as they influence successful strategies for the education of minority children. Home, school, and personal characteristics must all be con- sidered, with particular attention paid to practices that fa- cilitate positive teacher-child and child-peer interactions. The culture of the classroom must be made more visible and understandable to children from different cultural backgrounds—carefully considering the depth and clarity of communications with parents, helping students and parents see the practical relevance of obtaining a good education, thinking through how what we do in schools might have stereotyping effects for students, and recognizing that fami- lies have different theories about education, intelligence, parenting, and child development. It is generally recognized that unacceptable achievement gaps exist between minority and nonminority children and that dropout rates are higher for some ethnic groups. Longi- tudinal research by Goldschmidt and Wang (1999) using National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS) database on student and school factors associated with dropping out in different grades shows that the mix of student risk factors changes between early and late dropouts, with family charac- teristics being most important for late dropouts. Being held back was the single strongest predictor of dropping out for Contributions of Educational Psychology to Effective Reform 589 both early and late dropouts, but misbehaving was the most important factor in late dropouts. Hispanics are more likely to drop out than are African Americans and African Americans are more likely to drop out than are Whites. These differ- ences are partly accounted for by differences in family, lan- guage, and socioeconomic factors. Associations between racial groups and factors such as being below expected grade levels, working while in school, and having poor grades also contribute to the differences in cultural groups. Interventions that show promise for reversing these nega- tive trends include social support and a focus on positive school climates. Lee and Smith (1999) report research on young adolescents in the Chicago public schools that indi- cates there needs to be a balance of challenging and rigorous academic instruction with social support in the form of smaller, more intimate learning communities. Such a balance tends to eliminate achievement differences among students from different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds— particularly in math and reading. The biggest disadvantages in achievement are for students who attend schools with both little social support and low academic challenge and rigor; thus, social support is particularly effective when students also are in schools that push them toward academic pursuits. The balance needs to be one with a focus on learning and on learner needs. Studying Development of Academic Motivation Ryan and Patrick (2001) studied the motivation and engage- ment of middle school adolescents as a function of their perceptions of the classroom social environment. Changes in motivation and engagement were found to be a function of four distinct dimensions of the environment: (a) promoting interaction (discuss with, share ideas, get to know other stu- dents), (b) promoting mutual respect (respect each other’s ideas, don’t make fun of or say negative things to others), (c) promoting performance goals (compare students to oth- ers, make best and worst test scores and grades public, make it obvious who is not doing well), and (d) teacher support (respect student opinions, understands students’ feelings, help students when upset or need support in schoolwork). In general, if students perceived teacher support and perceived that the teacher promoted interaction and mutual respect, mo- tivation and engagement were enhanced. On the other hand, if students perceived that their teacher promoted perfor- mance goals, negative effects on motivation and engage- ment occurred. Students with supportive teachers reported higher self-efficacy and increases in self-regulated learn- ing, whereas with performance-goal-oriented teachers, stu- dents reported engaging in more disruptive behaviors. Ryan and Patrick conclude that becoming more student-centered means (a) attending to social conditions in the classroom environment as perceived by students and (b) providing practices that enhance students’ perceptions of support, re- spect, and interaction. Our work with kindergarten-through college-age students over the past 8 years has revealed that learner-centered prac- tices consistent with educational psychology’s knowledge base and the learner-centered psychological principles en- hance learner motivation and achievement (McCombs, 2000a, 2001a; McCombs & Whisler, 1997; Weinberger & McCombs, 2001). Of particular significance in this work is that student perceptions of their teachers’ instructional practices accounts for between 45–60%, whereas teacher beliefs and perceptions only account for between 4–15% of the variance in student motivation and achievement. The single most important do- main of practice for students in all age ranges are practices that promote a positive climate for learning and interpersonal relationships between and among students and teachers. Also important are practices that provide academic challenge and give students choice and control, that encourage the develop- ment of critical thinking and learning skills, and that adapt to a variety of individual developmental differences. Using teacher and student surveys based on the learner- centered psychological principles, called the Assessment of Learner-Centered Practices (ALCP), teachers can be assisted in reflecting on individual and class discrepancies in percep- tions of classroom practice and in changing practices to meet student needs (McCombs, 2001). Results of our research with the ALCP teacher and student surveys at both the sec- ondary and postsecondary levels have confirmed that at all levels of our educational system, teachers and instructors can be helped to improve instructional practices and change to- ward more learner-centered practices by attending to what students are perceiving and by spending more time creating positive climates and relationships—critical connections so important to personal and system learning and change. For students who are seen as academically unmotivated, Hidi and Harackiewicz (2000) provide insights from a review of research related to academic motivation. The literature on interests and goals is reviewed and integrated, and the authors urge educators to provide a balance of practices that are sen- sitive to students’ individual interests, intrinsic motivation, and mastery goals—with practices that trigger situational interest, extrinsic motivation, and performance goals. This balance helps to shift the orientation to an internalization of interests and motivation and to promote positive motivational development for traditionally unmotivated students. The importance of the roles of significant others (e.g., teachers, parents, coaches) is also highlighted in terms of eliciting and
590 Research to Policy for Guiding Educational Reform shaping interests and goals in their students and children. Such an intrinsic-extrinsic motivational balance is deemed essential if educators are to meet diverse student needs, back- grounds, and experiences—that is, to adapt to the full range of student differences, we need the full range of instructional approaches, and these approaches need to be flexibly implemented. The effects of student perceptions of their classroom environment on their achievement goals and outcomes was studied by Church, Elliot, and Gable (2001). The relation- ship between student perceptions and achievement outcomes was indirect; their influence first affected achievement goals, which in turn influenced achievement outcomes. If under- graduate students perceived that their instructor made the lecture interesting and engaging (compared to a situation in which they perceived that the instructor emphasized the importance of grades and performance evaluations or had grading structures that minimized the chance of being suc- cessful), they adopted mastery goal orientations (intrinsic motivation) versus performance goal orientations (extrinsic motivation). The authors conclude that stringent evalua- tion standards can lead to the adoption of performance- avoidance goals and hinder mastery goal adoption. For this reason, a study of both approach and avoidance orientations is needed because it moves research toward a broader frame- work that involves more complex integration of multiple constructs. On the other hand, Midgley, Kaplan, and Middleton (2001) argue that the call to reconceptualize goal theory to acknowledge the positive effects of performance-approach goals is not warranted. They review studies that indicate the negative effects of performance-approach goals in terms of students’ use of avoidance strategies, cheating, and reluc- tance to cooperate with peers. They stress that it is important to consider for whom and under what conditions perfor- mance goals are good. Emphasizing mastery goals needs to be an integral part of all practices—particularly in this era, in which standards, testing, and accountability dominate educa- tional practices and deep meaningful learning is in short supply. In a longitudinal study of changes in academic intrinsic motivation from childhood through late adolescence, Gottfried, Fleming, and Gottfried (2001) found that not only is intrinsic motivation a stable construct over time, but acad- emic intrinsic motivation declines—particularly in math and science—over the developmental span. For this reason, Gottfried et al. argue that early interventions are needed to identify those students who may be at risk for low motivation and performance. Practices such as introducing new materi- als that are of optimal or moderate difficulty; related to student interests; meaningful to students; provide choice and autonomy; and utilize incongruity, novelty, surprise, and complexity are recommended. Developing Students’ Metacognitive and Self-Regulation Competencies Lin (2001) describes the power of metacognitive activities that foster both cognitive and social development. To accom- plish this goal, however, knowledge about self-as-learner must be part of the metacognitive approach. Knowing how to assess what they know and do not know about a particular knowledge domain is not sufficient, and Lin’s research shows that knowledge about self-as-learner as well as supportive social environments help promote a shared understanding among community members about why metacognitive knowl- edge and strategies are useful in learning. The knowledge of self-as-learner can also be expanded to helping students know who they are and what their role is in specific learning cultures and knowledge domains or tasks; thus, this research highlights the application of the knowledge base on metacog- nition in ways that are holistic and assist in the development of both cognitive and social skills. Another example of applying research that integrates cog- nitive, metacognitive, motivational, and social strategies in the form of self-regulated learning (SRL) interventions is provided by Paris and Paris (2001). After reviewing what we have learned in this area, Paris and Paris define a number of principles of SRL that can be applied in the classroom, including the following: • Helping students use self-appraisal to analyze personal styles and strategies of learning as a way to promote mon- itoring of progress, revising of strategies, and enhanced feelings of self-efficacy. • Teaching self-management of thinking, effort, and affect such as goal setting, time management, reflection, and com- prehension monitoring that can provide students with tools to be adaptive, persistent, strategic, and self-controlled in learning and problem-solving situations. • Using a variety of explicit instructional approaches and in- direct modeling and reflection approaches to help students acquire metacognitive skills and seek evidence of per- sonal growth through self-assessments, charting, discuss- ing evidence, and practicing with experts. • Integrating the use of narrative autobiographical stories as part of students’ participation in a reflective community and as a way to help them examine their own self- regulation habits. Contributions of Educational Psychology to Effective Reform 591 Additional principles are suggested by Ley and Young (2001, pp. 94–95) for embedding support in instruction to facilitate SRL in less expert learners. These principles are • Guide learners to prepare and structure an effective learn- ing environment; this includes helping learners to manage distractions by such strategies as charts for recording study time and defining what is an effective distraction- free study environment for them. • Organize instruction and activities to facilitate cognitive and metacognitive processes; this includes strategies such as outlining, concept mapping, and structured overviewing. • Use instructional goals and feedback to present student monitoring opportunities; this includes self-monitoring instruction and record keeping. • Provide learners with continuous evaluation information and occasions to self-evaluate this includes helping stu- dents evaluate the success of various strategies and revis- ing approaches based on feedback (Ley & Young, 2001, pp. 94–95). Redefining Intelligence and Giftedness As pointed out in this volume (see chapters by Sternberg and by Olszewski-Kubilius), there is a growing movement in the- ory and practice to reconceptualize what is meant by intelli- gence and giftedness. For example, Howard Gardner, in an interview by Kogan (2000), strongly argues that schools should be places where students learn to think and study deeply those things that matter and have meaning; schools should also help students learn to make sense of the world. He advocates a three-prong curriculum aimed at teaching— through a multiple intelligences approach—truth, beauty, and goodness. To teach truth, Gardner believes children need to understand the notion of evolution—including species varia- tion and natural selection—and an appreciation of the strug- gle among people for survival. To teach beauty, Gardner would choose Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro as a pinna- cle of beauty that portrays characters with deeply held emo- tions, offers the opportunity to help students appreciate other works of art, and inspires new creations. To teach goodness, Gardner chooses helping students understand a sequence of events such as the Holocaust, which shows what humans are capable of doing in both good and bad ways and provides a way for students to learn how others deal with pressures and dilemmas. Methods such as dramatic, vivid narratives and metaphors are recommended for involving students in their learning. Other new developments influencing our understanding of intelligence are interdisciplinary fields of research that can offer multiple perspectives on complex human phenomena. Ochsner and Lieberman (2001) describe the emergence of social cognitive neuroscience that allows three levels of analysis: a social level concerned with motivational and so- cial factors influencing behavior and experience; a cognitive level concerned with information-processing mechanisms that underlie social-level phenomena; and a neural level con- cerned with brain mechanisms that instantiate cognitive processes. Although still in its infancy, this multidisciplinary field promises to provide new insights about human function- ing that can be useful in studying learners and learning in complex living systems such as schools. It also follows the trend toward more integrative and holistic research practices. Consistent with this integrative trend is work by Robinson, Zigler, and Gallagher (2000) on the similarities and differences between people at the two tails of the normal curve—the mentally retarded and the gifted. As operational- ized in tests of intelligence, deviance from the norm by per- formance two standard deviations from the mean (IQ of 70–75 or lower or IQ of 125–130 or higher) typically defines individuals who are mentally retarded or gifted, respectively. In looking at educational issues, Robinson et al. raise the following points: • A one-size-fits-all paradigm for education does not ac- commodate individual differences in level and pace of learning—creating major problems for meeting the needs of diverse students in the current system designed for the average student. • Strategies and approaches that work well with gifted chil- dren need to become models for improving the school experiences of all children. • The basic philosophies and values of American schools are in keeping—at least theoretically—with the concept of adapting to individual differences in abilities, thereby pro- viding an opportunity for our schools to become models of how best to deal with students in the two tails of the normal curve. • More work is needed to solve the problems of economic and ethnic disadvantages that skew distributions of IQ scores and lead to discrimination by gender, race, and eth- nic origin in terms of overplacement of minority students in special services and underrepresentation of minority students in gifted services. • Research agendas in areas such as neurodevelopmental science, brain function, and genetics need to look at both ends in longitudinal studies that can provide insight into how to design interventions that overcome current mal- adaptive approaches to learning and performance that can hinder retarded and gifted students.
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