Kenneth E. Sinclair

Student Teachers, Computer Anxiety and Computer Experience

Recent research has demonstrated the debilitating effect of computer anxiety on achievement in computer related learning. As controversy exists over the merits of increasing experience with computers in order to reduce computer anxiety, the effects of increased computing experience on computer anxiety were assessed for students enrolled in a University teacher education course. In addition, other hypothesized correlates of computer anxiety were studied, viz., age, sex, school background, and computer competence. The Computer Anxiety Rating Scale (CARS) was used to measure computer anxiety prior to and at the conclusion of computer training. A control group, not undergoing computer training, was used for comparison purposes. Many of the teacher trainees in this study exhibited a high degree of computer anxiety on a number of key dimensions related to computing. The evidence from this study gives some support to the notion that increased experience leads to a diminution in computer anxiety. However, the high levels of anxiety remaining for some students after treatment suggest that a simplistic belief that increased computer experience alone will reduce computer anxiety is not tenable. The article discusses the issue that initial anxiety and continuing anxiety, after computer training, may be a function of an individuals prior computing experiences, attitudes towards computing, perceptions of self efficacy, and expectations of success associated with computer interaction.

Cross Cultural Model Testing: Inventory of School Motivation:

This study was concerned with the factorial validation of the Inventory of School Motivation (ISM), an instrument based on a theory of personal investment and the possible use of derived ISM factor scales as predictors of student motivation to continue with schooling for three cultural groups (aboriginal, anglo, and migrant). Responses to the ISM from a total of 2152 Australian secondary students were subjected to principal axis factor analyses which yielded factor scales congruent with the personal investment theory and which were employed as variables in a series of discriminant analyses. The findings supported the usefulness of both the theoretical framework as well as the validity of the ISM in analyzing influential motivational variables for individuals from different cultural groups in educational settings.

Psychometric Properties of the Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale with Australian Adolescent Girls: Clarification of Multidimensionality and Perfectionist Typology.

The psychometric properties of the Frost, Marten, Lahart, and Rosenblate Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (1990) are investigated to determine its usefulness as a measurement of perfectionism with Australian secondary school girls and to find empirical support for the existence of both healthy and unhealthy types of perfectionist students. Participants were 409 female mixed-ability students from Years 7 and 10 in two private secondary schools in Sydney, Australia. Factor analyses yielded four rather than the six factors previously theorized. Cluster analysis indicated a distinct typology of healthy perfectionists, unhealthy perfectionists, and nonperfectionists. Healthy perfectionists were characterized by higher levels on Organization, whereas unhealthy perfectionists scored higher on the Parental Expectations & Criticism and Concern Over Mistakes & Doubts dimensions of perfectionism. Both types of perfectionists scored high on Personal Standards.

Dimensions of School Motivation A Cross-Cultural Validation Study

This article examines Maehrs Personal Investment Model of motivation, which has clear and significant implications for cross-cultural research in education. The design and validation of the Inventory of School Motivation (1SM) based on Personal Investment Theory is described. Evidence is presented for both the usefulness of the theoretical framework and the validity of the ISM in analyzing motivational variables for individuals from different cultural groups in educational settings. Multiple-regression analysis demonstrated the predictive power of the ISM, and discriminant analysis showed that variables from the scale were able to discriminate between students who returned to school for senior high school and those who did not.

Social constructivist teaching methods in Australian universities – reported uptake and perceived learning effects: a survey of lecturers

Pragmatic social constructivist teaching methods require students to construct knowledge by engaging collaboratively with realistic problems, cases or projects. It is hypothesised that they are more effective than traditional didactic teaching methods in developing undergraduate students’: (1) theoretical knowledge; (2) profession‐specific skills; and (3) knowledge creation capacity. Results of a survey show the second and third learning effects to be salient among Australian university lecturers, but not the first. Lecturers report that these teaching methods have been adopted more widely in human service‐related faculties and design‐related faculties than in business‐related faculties, possibly owing to the lesser emphasis placed by business lecturers on developing students’ profession‐specific skills and knowledge creation capacity. A corresponding survey of business practitioners revealed a surprising gap between the value that business practitioners place on new graduates’ knowledge creation capacity and the rather limited emphasis that business lecturers place upon developing that capacity in their undergraduate students.

A Longitudinal Study of Student Attitudes toward Computers: Resolving an Attitude Decay Paradox

Abstract An integrated curriculum project in New Zealand generated educationally interesting but paradoxical results regarding student motivation and attitudes toward computer use. Students mastered and used a range of computer applications, becoming enthusiastic users to the point of regarding the computer as indispensable as pens and pocket calculators. Performance of three cohorts of students in the nationwide school certificate examination showed that project students performed significantly better than peers in the parallel traditional school program. Yet student attitudes toward computers became significantly less positive during their junior high school careers. This article illuminates and explains the paradox through comparative analysis of the relevant findings. It examines implications for the design and implementation of curriculum programs that will involve student use of and control over many and diverse forms of compelling computer applications, from CD-ROMs to the Internet.

Anxiety and Cognitive Processes in Problem Solving

In this paper a trait-state conception of anxiety is presented which incorporates a number of extensions to current theorizing. The conception is a cognitive one in that it emphasizes information processing that occurs with respect to both the trait and state components of anxiety. The conception indicates a number of insights into human problem solving that can be made through a consideration of cognitive processing, anxiety processing, and their interaction. In particular, the role of coping styles in threat reduction and the influence of A-state on specific cognitive processes are examined. Implications for theory and further research are discussed.

Occupational Choices of Sydney Teenagers: Relationships with Sex, Social Class, Grade Level and Parent Expectations.

Occupational choices were studied for a cross-section of 876 Sydney students in Years 6–12. Clear sex differences in occupational choice were observed confirming results of overseas studies. Girls chose different types of jobs from boys, and confined themselves to a more restricted range of jobs. While job decisiveness was found to increase with grade level, it was apparent that particular choice points in the course of schooling (viz. years 10 and 12 at high school, and year 6 before entry to high school) also influence extent of decisiveness. Occupational choice was further found to be related to social class. Adolescents from lower social class backgrounds tended to choose jobs requiring less further education and of a lower status, while adolescents from higher social class backgrounds chose jobs requiring more further education and higher in status. The results were interpreted as illustrating how particular socialization processes relating to social class and sex operate to narrow what is regarded as an acceptable occupation.

Teacher Anxiety, Teacher Effectiveness, and Student Anxiety.

Abstract The relationships between teacher anxiety while teaching, student anxiety, and student perceptions of teaching effectiveness were examined. The teachers were 19 nurse educators and the students were 72 student nurses in Sydney, Australia. The teachers taught a lesson selected at random and completed a state anxiety questionnaire before the lesson began and, again, after the lesson in terms of how they felt while teaching. After the lesson, the students completed an assessment of the teachers effectiveness and a questionnaire to record the anxiety levels experienced while being taught. Teacher A-State while teaching was found to be closely related to student perceptions about lesson organization, teacher affect, and teacher confidence. Teacher A-State while teaching was also found to be significantly related to the level of A-State experienced by the students while being taught.

Social Change and the Transition from Adolescence to Adulthood: A Study of Three Generations of Australians

The study focuses attention on the different patterns of transition to adulthood experienced by the members of a hypothetical three-generation Australian family consisting of grandparents, parents and their adolescent children. For each of these three generations data from the Bureau of Census and Statistics were examined to determine the age at which they left school and entered a job, married, and began a family. The data indicate that when the transition to adulthood is measured in terms of these variables the process of growing up was accomplished by the most recent adolescent generation in a shorter space of time, at a younger age, and by a greater proportion of the cohort than for either the parent or grandparent generations.