A total of 1487 eleventh grade students in Leipzig (Germany) and Sendai (Japan) were given a test of basic concepts and operations in high school mathematics and a questionnaire involving beliefs, attitudes, and practices related to mathematics, their own abilities, and their psychological adjustment. Large differences were found between the two countries in the students' performance. The lower scores of the German students are attributed to three major areas of difference. Compared to Japanese students, German students were less critical of themselves and their academic ability, held lower standards for their performance, and were less likely to attribute excellence in performance to studying. Students in both countries expressed few indications of maladjustment. When differences were found the indices of maladjustment were more common among German than among Japanese students. Boys obtained higher scores on the mathematics test than girls, were more likely to spend more time studying mathematics, and placed more importance on going to college than did girls. The poor performance of the German students appears to be attributable to the same kinds of beliefs and attitudes as those found in prior studies of US students, who also have received low scores on tests of mathematics achievement.
This article reports findings from an impact study of a 2-year postsecondary academic program offered in state prisons. Outcomes examined for participants during their 1st year of participation include performance on a standardized test of critical thinking skills, credit acquisition, achievement motivation, educational aspirations, personal development, and institutional (prison) climate. A cluster randomized design was used in which prisons in six states were randomly assigned to implement the Correctional Education Association College of the Air (CEA/COA) program or control programming. Analyses show that students in the CEA/COA program had average critical thinking scores that were about three fourths of a point lower, as measured by the Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (effect size = −.14), and acquired on average approximately two fewer credits (effect size = −.43) than students from control sites after 1 year. There were no significant group differences associated with educational aspirations, achievement motivation, personal development, and institutional climate measures.
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