This quantitative synthesis of 448 independent studies including 480,830 families revealed small positive associations (rs ϭ .13 to .23) between parents' naturally occurring involvement in children's schooling and children's academic adjustment (i.e., achievement, engagement, and motivation) that were maintained over time. Parents' involvement was also positively related to children's social (r ϭ .12) and emotional adjustment (r ϭ .17) and negatively related to their delinquency (r ϭ Ϫ.15), concurrently. Analyses focusing on children's academic adjustment revealed that different types of involvement (e.g., parents' participation in school events and discussion of school with children) were similarly positively associated with such adjustment. The only exception was that parents' homework assistance was negatively associated with children's achievement (r ϭ Ϫ.15), but not engagement (r ϭ .07) or motivation (r ϭ .05). There was little variation due to age, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status in the links between different types of involvement and children's academic adjustment.
Public Significance StatementThe findings underscore the utility of parents' involvement in children's schooling, other than in the homework context, to support not only children's academic adjustment, but also other dimensions of their adjustment, regardless of children's developmental phase.
Despite efforts to attract and maintain diverse students in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) pipeline, issues with attrition from undergraduate STEM majors persist. The aim of this study was to examine how undergraduate science students' competence beliefs, task values, and perceived costs in science combine into motivational profiles and to consider how such profiles relate to short-term and long-term persistence outcomes in STEM. We also examined the relations between underrepresented group membership and profile membership. Using latent profile analysis, we identified three profiles that characterized 600 participants' motivation during their first semester in college:
Moderate All, Very High Competence/Values-Low Effort Cost, andHigh Competence/Values-Moderate Low Costs. The Moderate All profile was associated with the completion of fewer STEM courses and lower STEM grade point averages relative to the other profiles after 1 and 4 years of college. Furthermore, underrepresented minority students were overrepresented in the Moderate All profile. Findings contribute to our understanding of how science competence beliefs, task values, and perceived costs may coexist and what combinations of these variables may be adaptive or deleterious for STEM persistence and achievement. Science Education. 2019;103:264-286. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/sce
The current study reports on the efficacy of a multi-faceted motivationally designed undergraduate enrichment summer program for supporting science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) persistence. Structural equation modeling was used to compare summer program participants ( = 186), who participated in the program between their first and second years in college, to a propensity score matched comparison sample ( = 401). Participation in the summer program positively predicted science motivation (self-efficacy, task value), assessed eight months after the end of the program (second year in college). The summer enrichment program was also beneficial for science persistence variables, as evidenced by significant direct and indirect effects of the program on science course completion during students' third year of college and students' intentions to pursue a science research career assessed during the third year of college. In general, the program was equally beneficial for all participants, but ancillary analyses indicated added benefits with respect to task value for students with relatively lower prior science achievement during the first year of college and with respect to subsequent science course taking for males. Implications for developing effective interventions to reduce the flow of individuals out of STEM fields and for translating motivational theory into practice are discussed.
The current study investigated whether the developmental timing of a student’s identification as gifted (i.e., when a student is first identified) was associated with later implicit beliefs about intelligence, and whether this relation is moderated by academic ability. A sample of 1,743 high-ability college students reported on whether and when they had been identified as gifted, academic ability (SAT scores), and implicit beliefs of intelligence. Timing of identification was unrelated to implicit beliefs; academic ability was the only significant predictor. Higher ability students who had been previously identified as gifted at any point in time reported implicit beliefs more toward entity beliefs than relatively lower ability students who had also been identified; however, this effect was quite small. Implicit beliefs did not vary by ability level for nonidentified students. These findings suggest that identification as gifted at any age modestly (but not necessarily meaningfully) relates to implicit beliefs for high-ability students.
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