Vol. 1 No.
5__________________________________________________________________________
AERA, 1999
Effects of Gender, Math Ability, Trait Test Anxiety, Statistics Course Anxiety, Statistics Achievement, and Perceived Test Difficulty on State Test Anxiety
Eunsook Hong
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
ABSTRACT
A path analytic model of state test anxiety was tested in 169 college students who were enrolled in statistics courses. Variables in the model included gender, math ability, trait test anxiety (trait worry and trait emotionality as separate variables), statistics course anxiety, statistics achievement (scores on midterm exams), perceived test difficulty, and state test anxiety (state worry and state emotionality) measured at the time the final exam was taking place. Female students reported higher trait test anxiety and statistics course anxiety than did males. Math ability was negatively related to statistics course anxiety and positively related to statistics achievement. Students with low math ability perceived statistics course as difficult, which in turn strongly influenced their level of statistics course anxiety. Trait worry had a significant direct effect on state worry but not on state emotionality, and the same pattern occurred with trait-state emotionality. Trait worry, but not trait emotionality, was positively related to statistics course anxiety. Students reporting high statistics course anxiety perceived the final exam as difficult; however, statistics course anxiety had a significant effect neither on statistics achievement nor on state test anxiety. Students' perception of statistics course difficulty influenced their perception of test difficulty, which in turn had significant direct effects on both state worry and emotionality. As expected, achievement on statistics midterm exams had a direct effect on state worry but not on state emotionality.
An English Study of Teacher Satisfaction, Motivation, and Health
Dr. Catherine Scott and Ms. Sue Cox, Nottingham-Trent
Univesity
Dr. Steve Dinham, University of Western Sydney
ABSTRACT
This paper presents the results of a study of a sample of 543 English teachers and school executives (head teachers, deputies, etc.).
This study sought to examine and benchmark teachers' occupational motivation, satisfaction and health and to test a model of teacher satisfaction developed in Australia in a previous research phase.
English teachers were found, in common with their Australian counterparts to be motivated by altruism, affiliation and personal growth. They were also found, again like Australian teachers, to be most satisfied with 'core business' aspects of teaching- facilitating student learning and achievement, developing as a professional, and working with other staff; and the least satisfied with matters from systemic and societal levels- the nature and pace of change and the status and image of teaching. Between these two domains lay factors specific to particular schools- school leadership and communication, school resources and relationships with community.
Teachers from different types of schools and those holding different promotion positions were found to differ on some measures of satisfaction; however, unlike Australian Principals, Head Teachers were found to be on the whole no more satisfied than their classroom teacher colleagues, and to be similarly 'stressed'. These findings are interpreted in the light of the specific context of the English education system.
The Emotional Regulation During Test-Taking Scale
P.A. Schutz, C. Distefano, J. Benson, and H.A. Davis
University of Georgia
ABSTRACT
This proposal emerges from a program of work that is attempting to explicate the nature of self-directed behavior. From this perspective, the emotions we create and regulate while transacting within our environment are key factors that influence the success of our self-regulated learning attempts. The goal of this project was to develop and establish validity for an emotional regulation during test-taking scale. Results of the fourth pilot study are presented showing emerging support for the emotional regulation during test-taking scale.
The Interconnections Between Job Satisfaction and Work-Related Stress in Academic Deans
Wolverton, Mimi, Wolverton, Marvin L. & Gmelch, Walter
H.
Washington State University, USA
ABSTRACT
Optimal levels of stress can energize us, leading to greater productivity, enjoyment in what we do, and creativity. However, as stress exceeds optimal levels job satisfaction declines and it compromises work outcomes, such as job performance, morale, and commitment to the organization. Likewise, job dissatisfaction, coupled with other exogenous influences, increases work-related stress. Therefore, stress and job satisfaction simultaneously and continually impact upon each other. This paper examines the interconnections between job satisfaction and work-related stress in academic deans while controlling for simultaneity bias by jointly estimating stress and job satisfaction models. Academic deans across the United States were surveyed between October 1996 and January 1997. Potential sample institutions came from one of the following three groupings of Carnegie classifications- Research I & II and Doctoral I & II, Masters I & II, or Baccalaureate I & II. The overall sample size consisted of 1,370 deans, and the response rate was 60%. The overarching importance of this study lies in its methodology. Two findings reveal important implications for practice, and two others raise important questions that beg further inquiry. In the case of further research, female deans not only experienced higher levels of work-related stress but appear to be happier in their jobs. We must ask the question: Why? In a similar manner, we must explore the disturbing finding that although minority status deans seem to experience similar levels of stress as white deans they appear to be less satisfied in their positions. In conclusion, by using a simultaneous equation system to control for the relationship between mutually interdependent endogenous variables, we eliminate the bias inherent in single equation models. So, we produce a clearer picture of the impact of exogenous variables on job satisfaction and stress. This analytical approach deserves serious consideration as researchers in other situations investigate relational systems that are distorted by interdependencies between simultaneously determined variables.
Involvement in Mathematics Instruction: Students' Affective, Motivational, and Cognitive Responses and Teacher Scaffolding
Debra K. Meyer
Elmhurst College
Julianne C. Turner
University of Notre Dame
ABSTRACT
In this paper we examine student involvement by integrating Csikszentmihalyi's theory of intrinsic motivation and social constructivist perspectives on scaffolded instruction. We define classroom involvement as a complex interaction among student affect, cognition, and motivation. In related research, students have described involvement as a time of focused concentration, attention, and deep comprehension (Reed & Schallert, 1993) as well as positive affect, goal clarity, and intrinsic motivation (Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde, & Whalen, 1993). In the latter case, students also have described involving teachers as fostering learning while supporting motivation and demonstrating an understanding of when to offer support and when to allow for student autonomy (Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde, & Whalen, 1993). Thus, we also have discovered that involving teachers appear to scaffold students in learning mathematics (Turner, et al. 1998). Instructional scaffolding, or "assisting instruction" (Gallimore & Tharp 1990), should theoretically promote involvement in learning because it supports students affectively, cognitively, and motivationally while simultaneously helping them take ownership of their learning (Meyer, 1993). Therefore, for this paper we have established three goals: (1) to describe students' self-reports of classroom involvement and classify them according to Czikszentmihalyi's categorizations of quality of experience: flow, boredom, apathy, or anxiety, (2) to describe the quality of experiences (e.g., happiness, pride, clarity, involvement, etc.) reported by students in different instructional contexts, and (3) to examine the instructional discourse that corresponds to student reports of involvement and their qualities of experience.
Gender-related causes of stress in students on teaching practice in the School of Education, University of Manchester, UK.
Dr. Marie Brown, Dr. Sue Ralph and Mrs. Ivy
Brember
School of Education, University of Manchester, UK.
ABSTRACT
In this paper the gender-related causes of stress in students on teaching practice in the School of Education, University of Manchester are examined. A questionnaire was administered to students on the PGCE course (both primary and secondary teacher training students) during their period of initial teaching practice during the academic year 1995/6 in order to identify their stressors. The means and standard deviations of each item were then calculated separately for males and females. In only 12 of the 61 items did the males have a higher mean (indicating higher anxiety) than the females. There is clear evidence to indicate that females were more stressed than the males. However, of the twelve items the males found more stressful than the females, the two which were significant centered around issues of support of friends, family and partner. The best way to deal with stress is to try to prevent it occurring (Bradley, 1984) and this research would seem to indicate the need for PGCE tutors to include some stress identification and management courses in teacher training.
Relationship Between Self-Esteem and Feelings of Self-Worth: Self-Relevant Goals and Negative Feelings of Self-Worth Following Perceived Failure
Jeannine E. Turner, Southwest Educational Development
Laboratory
Karen A. Wohlblatt, Harvard University
ABSTRACT
Brown and Dutton's (1995) research has demonstrated that, following failure, self-esteem has no bearing on a person's experience of outcome dependent emotions (e.g., happy-sad), but, people with low self-esteem tend to have significantly lower feelings of self-worth (e.g., pride-shame) than people with high self-esteem when they experience failure. One short-coming of Brown and Dutton's research is that it was conducted in a laboratory setting using tasks that were not necessarily relevant to students' self-concepts or important future goals with which they might identify. The results of our study suggests that, as suggested by Brown and Dutton (1995), students who had lower self-esteem were susceptible to negative feelings of self-worth (i.e., shame, humiliation) following failure. However, contrary to Brown and Dutton, our results also demonstrated that, some students who indicated that they had high self-esteem on the first day of class, experienced shame and humiliation when they perceived that they had failed. For these students, having high global self-esteem did not insulate them from experiencing low feelings of self-worth when they perceived they had failed in a context that was connected to personal standards and/or goals. We also found that adding self-concept variables to our prediction model explained a statistically significant amount of additional variance in the patterns of emotional distress (feelings of self-worth) after test feedback. Student interviews supported the quantitative data that some students, who ordinarily held self-concepts of high academic ability and feelings of high self-esteem, did indeed suffer emotional distress following a perceived failure.