Jasmine Green

Academic motivation, self-concept, engagement, and performance in high school: Key processes from a longitudinal perspective

The study tested three theoretically/conceptually hypothesized longitudinal models of academic processes leading to academic performance. Based on a longitudinal sample of 1866 high-school students across two consecutive years of high school (Time 1 and Time 2), the model with the most superior heuristic value demonstrated: (a) academic motivation and self-concept positively predicted attitudes toward school; (b) attitudes toward school positively predicted class participation and homework completion and negatively predicted absenteeism; and (c) class participation and homework completion positively predicted test performance whilst absenteeism negatively predicted test performance. Taken together, these findings provide support for the relevance of the self-system model and, particularly, the importance of examining the dynamic relationships amongst engagement factors of the model. The study highlights implications for educational and psychological theory, measurement, and intervention.

Quantitative Modelling of Correlational and Multilevel Data in Educational Research: A Construct Validity Approach to Exploring and Testing Theory

In this chapter, we describe correlational research (focussing on confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modelling, and multilevel modelling) through a construct validity lens, outline historical roots and developments in methodology that underpin modern measurement and correlational modelling, and summarise the types of knowledge that correlational approaches produce under a construct validation framework. The discussion introduces modern techniques that are geared to analyse correlational data most effectively, and examples are presented from three large-scale educational studies that are based on correlational data. The chapter concludes by describing some of the issues and debates relevant to correlational techniques and offer direction for other research methods and designs that can complement correlational construct validity approaches.