Deborah Pino-Pasternak

A Multidimensional Analysis of Parent–Child Interactions During Academic Tasks and Their Relationships With Children's Self-Regulated Learning

This study explored the extent to which parents were able to scaffold their childrens Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) in the context of authentic academic tasks and attempted to identify specific dimensions within the parent–child interaction (socioemotional and instructional) that were related to childrens SRL. Fifteen Chilean parents and their underachieving primary-aged children participated in set of six SRL-enhancing activities in the areas of reading comprehension and mathematical problem solving. Individual assessments of childrens SRL in the same curriculum areas were carried out before and after these activities. The assessment outcomes revealed that, although at the group level children showed positive changes in some aspects of SRL (metacognitive knowledge and regulation of cognition), individual variation was also noticeable within the group. Childrens evidence of SRL during the parent–child activities was related to both social and instructional dimensions of the interaction. SRL posttest outcomes, however, showed stronger associations with instructional behaviors.

Applying an observational lens to identify parental behaviours associated with children's homework motivation

BACKGROUND Extant research has traditionally associated childrens achievement motivation with socio-emotional parental behaviours such as demonstrations of affect, responsiveness, and the degree of parental control. AIMS This study explored the extent to which parental socio-emotional and instructional behaviours (including the contingency of instructional scaffolding) both related to childrens mastery and performance tendencies towards homework-like activities. SAMPLE The study involved nine underachieving primary-aged children and their parents, with four children showing predominantly mastery-oriented behaviours in the homework context and five showing predominantly performance-oriented behaviours. METHODS An in-depth observational analysis of video-recorded parent-child interactions during four homework-like sessions was carried out for each case. Socio-emotional and instructional parental behaviours were coded and subjected to nonparametric quantitative analyses. Subsequently, thick descriptions of parent-child interactions were used to identify critical aspects of parental assistance. RESULTS Moderate cognitive demand was associated with mastery orientation, while negative affect was related to performance orientation. As revealed quantitatively and qualitatively, socio-emotional and instructional parental behaviours were also associated with each other, forming distinct profiles of parental behaviours related to childrens homework motivation. CONCLUSIONS The findings support the idea that instructional parental behaviours are as important as socio-emotional ones in the analysis of childrens homework motivation. The value of observational methods in investigating the target variables is discussed.

Evolution of pre-service teachers’ attitudes towards learning science during an introductory science unit

ABSTRACT Primary teachers, despite their critical role in fostering student interest in science, lack confidence and have negative attitudes towards teaching science, with this trend starting during initial teacher education. Though research on attitudes towards teaching science is well established, less is known about attitudes towards learning science. In order to advance our understanding in this area, this study mapped the entry and evolution of attitudinal profiles towards learning science of 108 primary education pre-service teachers undertaking a first-year science unit. Participants completed an online survey tapping on self-determination, grade motivation, self-efficacy, difficulty, interest, anxiety and enjoyment in science before the commencement of the unit (T1) and at the end of it (T2). Clustering methods were used to group participants into homogenous attitudinal profiles at both points in time. Subsequently, daughter profile analysis was used to examine qualitative changes in final profiles respective to entry. Four distinct attitudinal profiles were identified with 47% of the participants exhibiting the least favourable profiles at the start of the science unit. Migration (T1 to T2) was more prevalent from the least to the most favourable profiles, however, it did occur in the opposite direction. Findings revealed that, though pre-service teachers increased their confidence in their ability to learn science, their self-determination decreased in all but one of the eight resulting daughter profiles.