Incremental Theory of Intelligence Moderated the Relationship between Prior Achievement and School Engagement in Chinese High School Students

Abstract

School engagement plays a prominent role in promoting academic accomplishments. In contrast to the relative wealth of research that examined the impact of students’ school engagement on their academic achievement, considerably less research has investigated the effect of high school students’ prior achievement on their school engagement. The present study examined the relationship between prior achievement and school engagement among Chinese high school students. Based on the Dweck’s social-cognitive theory of motivation, we further examined the moderating effect of students’ theories of intelligence (TOIs) on this relationship. A total of 4036 (2066 girls) students from five public high school enrolled in grades 10 reported their high school entrance exam achievement in Chinese, Math and English, school engagement, and TOIs. Results showed that (a) students’ prior achievement predicted their behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement, respectively, and (b) the association between prior achievement and behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement is strong for students with an incremental theory but not for those with an entity theory in the emotional and cognitive engagement. These findings suggest that prior achievement and incremental theory were implicated in relation to adolescents’ school engagement. Implications and future research directions were discussed.

Students' academic and emotional adjustment during the transition from primary to secondary school: A cross-lagged study

“…However, higher levels of achievement predicted more cognitive engagement one or two years later, which provides partial support for hypothesis 2a. These findings suggest that the more students thrive in school academically, the more successful they feel, which, in turn, may increase the importance they attach to their schoolwork (Li et al, 2017;Salmela-Aro & Upadaya, 2012). Thus, in contrast to behavioral engagement, higher achievement promoted higher cognitive engagement one and two years later, revealing different associations for both engagement dimensions and highlighting the importance of distinguishing among the different aspects of school engagement.…”

“…It has been suggested that poor learning outcomes typically lead to task-avoidance through the process of failure expectations, whereas good academic performance activates mastery orientation and task-focused behavior (Onatsu-Arvilommi & Nurmi, 2000). Previous research on cognitive engagement is limited, but studies have shown that low prior achievement is associated with lower cognitive engagement, whereas high prior achievement is related to higher cognitive engagement (Li et al, 2017). Some studies have suggested that the more students thrive in school academically, the more efficacious they feel, which in turn increases their engagement in school (Li et al, 2017;Salmela-Aro & Upadaya, 2012).…”

Assessing Engagement in Chinese Upper Secondary School Students Using the Chinese Version of the Schoolwork Engagement Inventory: Energy, Dedication, and Absorption (CEDA)

“…However, with respect to the measurement of engagement, most measures originate in Western research communities. To date, although Chinese scholars have translated several commonly used measures into Chinese, most validation studies have focused on middle school students or general high school students (e.g., Wang and Eccles, 2012 ; Li et al, 2017 ). In this study, we introduce a Chinese version of the schoolwork engagement inventory: Energy, Dedication, and Absorption (CEDA) and comprehensively validated it by (1) examining the factor structure of the CEDA; (2) testing the measurement invariance of the CEDA across school tracks (i.e., academic vs. vocational tracks), school types (i.e., ordinary vs. key schools) and gender; and (3) testing the construct validity of the CEDA through exploring the relationship between student engagement and assumed correlates.…”

“…To date, it still lacks evidence about the dimensionality of schoolwork engagement in Chinese upper secondary school student population. Moreover, most engagement research in Chinese upper secondary schools has been mainly focused on students in the general high schools, not the vocational high schools [e.g., Wang and Eccles ( 2012 ) and Li et al ( 2017 )]. The present study aims to fill those research gaps by validating EDA in the Chinese high school contexts and by testing the engagement from both general high and vocational high schools.…”

Indicators of Asian Achievement in Chemistry: Implications to the Philippine Setting

“…This could be due to the fact that prior achievement motivated the learners to attain higher achievement in the future. Prior achievement can significantly predict student engagement, thereby leading to positive association to the further achievements (Li et al, 2017), as achieved knowledge could be developed over time (Claro et al, 2016).…”