Jennifer A. Schmidt

Self-Esteem and Family Challenge: An Investigation of Their Effects on Achievement

This study uses longitudinal data on a sample of 10th graders to investigate the associations between self-esteem, family challenge, and 2 indicators of adolescent achievement: high school grades and extracurricular involvement. Research on self-esteem and on family challenge has linked both of these factors to achievement in adolescents, but studies have not simultaneously examined the effects of these factors on achievement. The present study finds that family challenge and self-esteem are correlated with one another, and examines the effects of each of these factors on achievement while controlling on the other factor. Controlling on self-esteem, family challenge was positively associated with grades in school, and was marginally associated with extracurricular participation. Controlling on family challenge, we did not find self-esteem to be predictive of grades or extracurricular involvement in longitudinal analyses, but we did find some evidence for a relationship in the opposite direction, with grades in 10th grade predicting self-esteem in 12th grade. Results also suggest differences in academic achievement and extracurricular participation by race/ethnicity. Implications of these findings for the role of family challenge and self-esteem in the positive development of adolescents are discussed.

Individual and Situational Factors Related to the Experience of Flow in Adolescence

A fundamental issue pursued by researchers in positive psychology involves defining what constitutes a good life and understanding how individuals can create one. From the perspective of flow theory, “a good life is one that is characterized by complete absorption in what one does” (Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi in Handbook of positive psychology. Oxford, New York, 2002). Born out of a desire to understand intrinsically motivated activity, flow refers to a state of optimal experience characterized by total absorption in the task at hand: a merging of action and awareness in which the individual loses track of both time and self, The flow state is experientially positive, and out of the flow experience emerges a desire to replicate the experience. Over the past three decades, Csikszentmihalyi and colleagues have developed theoretical constructs and empirical research tools to better understand the nature, origins, and consequences of this state of optimal experience called flow. In this chapter, we describe the flow model and then present data analyses in which we explore the personal traits and contextual conditions associated with the experience of flow among adolescents in the United States. We demonstrate the utility of hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) for exploring flow using a complex data set characterized by repeated measures.

Correlates of reduced misconduct among adolescents facing adversity

This study examines the association between engagement in daily challenges and school misconduct in a sample of adolescents. Engagement is assessed by the amount of time spent in challenging activities and in terms of subjective ratings of success in daily challenges. Analyses employ data from a study in which adolescents provided self-reports of their immediate experience over the course of 1 week in response to signals generated at random times by alarm wristwatches. Analyses also test whether the number of opportunities for engagement in school activities is associated with misconduct. Because adolescents who face substantial adversity at home or at school are at particular risk for increased misconduct, associations are tested separately for high- and low-adversity adolescents. Results indicate that both time in daily challenge and perceived success in daily challenge are independently associated with reduced misconduct, and that these associations are slightly more pronounced for high (as compared to low) adversity adolescents. Extracurricular opportunities were shown to be associated with reductions in misconduct for high- but not low-adversity adolescents. Among high adversity adolescents, opportunity for engagement and perceived success in daily challenge were not only associated with reduced misconduct in cross-sectional analyses but also were predictive of reductions in misconduct over time.

Multiple Perspectives on Student Learning, Engagement, and Motivation in High School Biology Labs

We present three studies pertaining to learning, engagement and motivation during laboratory lessons in three high school biology classrooms. In the first, quantitative methods are used to compare students’ in-the-moment reports of learning, engagement, and motivation during laboratory with other classroom activities. Data were collected with the Experience Sampling Method (ESM). Students reported equivalent learning, less engagement, lower relevance and more enjoyment and interest during lab than during other activities. In the second study, video data from one laboratory lesson pertaining to pH in those classes was coded using event sampling and discourse analysis in an effort to understand the students’ reports. A scientist with expertise in the lab topic also watched the videos while thinking aloud. Results showed that the lab was limited in terms of practices promoting learning, engagement and relevance. Finally, responses from an interview with each teacher and the scientist about the goals and relevance of the laboratory for students were analyzed to shed further light on the findings from the first two studies. Results are discussed in terms of how laboratory lessons might be improved to enhance student learning, engagement, and motivation.

Flow in Education

This article describes actual and potential applications of the flow model in education. Flow refers to a state of total absorption in the task at hand; a merging of action and experience where the individual loses track of both time and self. Researchers have identified several conditions under which the flow experience tends to emerge. Two of these conditions – high levels of challenge matched to an individual’s skills – are often present in educational environments, but other important conditions are largely absent in classrooms, with the result that students do not experience flow in school as often as one might expect.

Perceived Challenge, Teacher Support, and Teacher Obstruction as Predictors of Student Engagement.

This study explored associations between students’ perceptions of challenge, teacher-provided support and obstruction, and students’ momentary academic engagement in high school science classrooms. Instrumental and emotional dimensions of support and obstruction were examined separately, and analyses tested whether the relationship between challenge and engagement was moderated by teacher support, teacher obstruction, and individual characteristics like gender and grade level. Students’ perceptions of challenge were positively related to their momentary reports of engagement in science learning activities, while teachers’ instrumental support was positively associated with engagement across all levels of perceived challenge. Even though teachers’ provision of emotional support was not predictive of student engagement, teachers’ emotional obstruction was negatively associated with student engagement. Teachers’ instrumental obstruction had less consistent associations with student engagement, and was only associated with declines in engagement during those moments when students perceived greater challenge in class. Both gender and grade level emerged as moderators of the relationship between challenge and engagement. Results are discussed in terms of implications for future research and instructional practice.

Community-based Service-learning as a Context for Youth Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness

Framed by self-determination and identity development theories, this study examined the process through which participating in a community-based service-learning project supported high school students’ feelings of autonomy, competence and relatedness, and how these feelings were related to students’ intentions for doing more service in the future. The goals were to understand 1) the task and time related variations in students’ reports of autonomy, competence and relatedness, and 2) whether these task and time related variations differed for youth who did service voluntarily compared to those who did service to fulfill a requirement. Results showed increases in autonomy, competence and relatedness over the course of the project, as well as task-related variations in these feelings. Competence and relatedness positively predicted internalized reasons for future service. Internalized reasons positively predicted strong intentions for future service. Required and voluntary service participants reported similar levels of autonomy, competence and relatedness, as well as similar reasons and intentions for future service. Implications provide insights into designing service programs for adolescents’ optimal psychosocial development during out-of-school time.

Examining Relationships among Choice, Affect, and Engagement in Summer STEM Programs

Out-of-school time programs focused on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) have proliferated recently because they are seen as having potential to appeal to youth and enhance STEM interest. Although such programs are not mandatory, youth are not always involved in making the choice about their participation and it is unclear whether youth’s involvement in the choice to attend impacts their program experiences. Using data collected from experience sampling, traditional surveys, and video recordings, we explore relationships among youth’s choice to attend out-of-school time programs (measured through a pre-survey) and their experience of affect (i.e., youth experience sampling ratings of happiness and excitement) and engagement (i.e., youth experience sampling ratings of concentration and effort) during program activities. Data were collected from a racially and ethnically diverse sample of 10–16 year old youth (n = 203; 50% female) enrolled in nine different summer STEM programs targeting underserved youth. Multilevel analysis indicated that choice and affect are independently and positively associated with momentary engagement. Though choice to enroll was a significant predictor of momentary engagement, positive affective experiences during the program may compensate for any decrements to engagement associated with lack of choice. Together, these findings have implications for researchers, parents, and educators and administrators of out-of-school time programming.

tidyLPA: An R Package to Easily Carry Out Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) Using Open-Source or Commercial Software

Researchers are often interested in identifying homogeneous subgroups within heterogeneous samples on the basis of a set of measures, such as profiles of individuals’ motivation (i.e., their values, competence beliefs, and achievement goals). Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) is a statistical method for identifying such groups, or latent profiles, and is a special case of the general mixture model where all measured variables are continuous (Harring & Hodis, 2016; Pastor, Barron, Miller, & Davis, 2007). The tidyLPA package allows users to specify different models that determine whether and how different parameters (i.e., means, variances, and covariances) are estimated, and to specify and compare different solutions based on the number of profiles extracted.

Testing a mindset intervention as a resilience factor among Latino/a students in science

ABSTRACT Latinos/as experience underachievement and underrepresentation in science. Mindset beliefs contribute to positive academic outcomes among students generally, but are understudied among Latinos/as in science. In this quasi-experimental study, Latino/a students expressed initial mindset-related beliefs shown to be less generative of success in science than their non-Latino/a classmates. A six-week mindset intervention positively influenced Latinos/as’ mindset beliefs and self-perceptions compared to a control group. Gains were generally similar in magnitude for Latino/a and non-Latino/a students, suggesting that mindset may be compensatory rather than protective among Latino/a youth. Gender differences in initial mindset beliefs and response to the intervention are discussed.