Antonio Valle

Academic Goals and Learning Quality in Higher Education Students

In this paper, the relations between academic goals and various indicators that define the quality of the learning process are analyzed. The purpose was to determine to what extent high, moderate, or low levels of academic goals were positively or negatively related to effort regulation, the value assigned to academic tasks, meta-cognitive self-regulation, self-efficacy, beliefs about learning control, and management of time and study environment. The investigation was carried out with a sample of 632 university students (70% female and 30% male) and mean age of 21.22 (SD=2.2).The results show that learning goals, or task orientation, are positively related to all the indictors of learning quality considered herein. Although for other kinds of goals-work-avoidance goals, performance-approach goals, and performance-avoidance goals-significant relations were not found with all the indicators, there was a similar tendency of significant results in all cases; the higher the levels of these goals, the lower the levels of the indicators of learning quality.

Teachers' Feedback on Homework, Homework-Related Behaviors, and Academic Achievement.

ABSTRACT The authors intended to (a) identify the association between gender or grade level and teachers’ homework (HW) feedback and (b) examine the relationship between teachers’ HW feedback, HW-related behaviors (e.g., amount of HW completed), and academic achievement. Four hundred fifty-four students (Grades 5–12) participated in this study. The results showed that (a) at higher grade levels, there is a lower perceived amount of teachers’ HW feedback; (b) teachers’ HW feedback as perceived by students is positively and significantly related to the amount of HW completed and to the perceived quality of HW time management but not to the amount of time spent on HW; (c) the amount of HW completed and the perceived quality of HW time management positively and significantly predict academic achievement; and (d) teachers’ HW feedback as perceived by students has an indirect relationship with students’ academic achievement by its effect on students’ HW-related behaviors.

Homework and academic achievement across Spanish Compulsory Education

Homework (HW) is one of the most common school-related activities among parents, students and teachers. However, the need to assign HW to students has been extensively debated. The present investigation examines the relationship between specific HW variables (i.e. amount of HW completed, time spent on HW and perceived quality of HW time management) and academic achievement, while controlling for students’ gender and grade level. Participants included 454 students (ranging from 10 to 16 years of age) from three schools in northern Spain. A multivariate analyses of variance and path analyses showed that the amount of HW completed decreased with increased schooling, as did students’ perceived quality of HW time management. Data from hierarchical regression analyses completed by path analyses provided evidence that time spent on HW conjointly with perceived quality of HW time management explains how academic achievement is mediated by the amount of HW completed. These findings deepen the understanding of the complex impact of time spent on HW and on academic achievement.

Un modelo cognitivo-motivacional explicativo del rendimiento académico en la universidad

ResumenEl objetivo de este trabajo es estudiar las variables cognitivo-motivacionales que determinan el aprendizaje y el rendimiento academico en estudiantes universitarios. Uno de los supuestos basicos de los que partimos es que los motivos que guian la conducta academica determinan el tipo de recursos cognitivos que ponemos en marcha durante la situacion de aprendizaje. Utilizamos un diseno no experimental, descriptivo y tranversal a traves de cuestionarios. Para el analisis de datos hemos utilizado el analisis de ecuaciones estructurales (a traves del programa estadistico LISREL 7). Los resultados mas importante son: (a) los estudiantes utilizan diversas variables personales (variables cognitivas, motivacionales y afectivas) como criterio previo para analizar las tareas; (b) el nivel y tipo de motivacion desarrollada influye en las estrategias de aprendizaje; (c) el tipo y numero de estrategias de aprendizaje influye en el esfuerzo y persistencia del estudiante, y estos, a su vez, sobre el rendimiento ...

Motivational profiles as a combination of academic goals in higher education

The aim of the current study was to obtain information from students in higher education on different motivational profiles that resulted from the combination of three academic goals (i.e. learning goals (LG), performance-approach goals and performance-avoidance goals). Moreover, information related to the relevance of each goal within each motivational profile was explored to explain conditions closely related to the academic engagement. The sample consisted of 2556 students from five Spanish universities. Motivational profiles were obtained by using cluster analysis followed by a relevance analysis of each goal within each motivational profile. The results support the hypothesis concerning motivational profiles, and further suggest for motivational profiles with a predominance of LG to be more adaptive. According to our findings, high level of LG in one’s motivational profile appear to be a powerful protective factor in maintaining high interest in academic work, as well as high control beliefs and self-efficacy.

Olhares de género face à matemática:uma investigação no ensino obrigatório espanhol

Looking at Mathematics through gender: a study in Spanish compulsory education. Studying attitudes and their important role in learning Mathematics has been one of the concerns of research over the last fifty years. Nowadays research still deals with attitudes, but a new focus of interest comes to light: studying the differences between male and female attitudes and the reasons for that. Some existing studies state that females perceive themselves as less competent than males do in learning Mathematics but those studies are still not conclusive. Data also suggest that over school years students’ attitudes grow more and more negative. The present study highlights the differences in attitudes towards Mathematics according to gender and school year in the Spanish educational context.

Predicting approach to homework in primary school students

BACKGROUND The goal of this research was to study the weight of student variables related to homework (intrinsic homework motivation, perceived homework instrumentality, homework attitude, time spent on homework, and homework time management) and context (teacher feedback on homework and parental homework support) in the prediction of approaches to homework. METHOD 535 students of the last three courses of primary education participated in the study. Data were analyzed with hierarchical regression models and path analysis. RESULTS The results obtained suggest that students’ homework engagement (high or low) is related to students´ level of intrinsic motivation and positive attitude towards homework. Furthermore, it was also observed that students who manage their homework time well (and not necessarily those who spend more time) are more likely to show the deepest approach to homework. CONCLUSIONS Parental support and teacher feedback on homework affect student homework engagement through their effect on the levels of intrinsic homework motivation (directly), and on homework attitude, homework time management, and perceived homework instrumentality (indirectly). Data also indicated a strong and significant relationship between parental and teacher involvement.

Multiple Goals Perspective in Adolescent Students With Learning Difficulties

In the present work, the hypothesis of the existence of diverse motivational profiles in students with learning difficulties (LD) and the differential implications for intervention in the classroom are analyzed. Various assessment scales (academic goals, self-concept, and causal attributions) were administered to a sample of 259 students with LD, ages 8 to 15 years, in Spain. The data obtained were analyzed through (a) cluster analysis to study this hypothesis and (b) MANOVAs to determine the extent to which such profiles were accompanied by significant differences in self-esteem and causal attribution patterns. The results revealed four different motivational profiles and significantly different levels of self-esteem and causal attribution process.

Academic Goals, Student Homework Engagement, and Academic Achievement in Elementary School

There seems to be a general consensus in the literature that doing homework is beneficial for students. Thus, the current challenge is to examine the process of doing homework to find which variables may help students to complete the homework assigned. To address this goal, a path analysis model was fit. The model hypothesized that the way students engage in homework is explained by the type of academic goals set, and it explains the amount of time spend on homework, the homework time management, and the amount of homework done. Lastly, the amount of homework done is positively related to academic achievement. The model was fit using a sample of 535 Spanish students from the last three courses of elementary school (aged 9 to 13). Findings show that: (a) academic achievement was positively associated with the amount of homework completed, (b) the amount of homework completed was related to the homework time management, (c) homework time management was associated with the approach to homework, (d) and the approach to homework, like the rest of the variables of the model (except for the time spent on homework), was related to the students academic motivation (i.e., academic goals).

Metas académicas y estrategias de aprendizaje en estudiantes universitarios

Tomando en cuenta que no existe concordancia en la literatura entre los resultados de diferentes estudios respecto de la relevancia de la adopcion de un tipo u otro de meta para el aprendizaje academico, en el presente articulo se estudia la relacion entre los diferentes tipos de orientaciones motivacionales (metas de aprendizaje, metas de rendimiento y metas de evitacion del trabajo) y el uso de estrategias cognitivas y de autorregulacion. En el trabajo participan 632 estudiantes universitarios de diversas titulaciones de la universidad espanola. Aunque el estudio es de tipo correlacional, los analisis de los datos obtenidos, corroborando estudios anteriores, aportan informacion de interes para la discusion del problema que se investigo, por ejemplo que solo los niveles mas altos de metas de aprendizaje se encuentran asociados con una mayor utilizacion de estrategias de aprendizaje. Son discutidas implicaciones educativas de estos datos.