Children's autonomy and perceived control in learning: A model of motivation and achievement in Taiwan.

A model of motivation and achievement was tested with data from 50 teachers and 806 Grade 4-6 students in Taiwan. Autonomy as a construct was shown to have ecological validity in Chinese children. The proposed model fit the data well, showing that maternal involvement and autonomy support, as well as teachers' autonomy support, are important for children's autonomy and perceived control. Without the mediation of perceived control, autonomy had a small negative effect on performance; controlling for perceived control, external motivation orientation was a positive predictor for Chinese children's effort and performance. The teachers' reported motivating style, as construed in Western research, does not correspond with Chinese children's perceptions of their teachers nor does it have any relationship with their motivation measures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Where should "you" go in a math compare problem?

This study examined the cognitive effects of self-referencing in math word problems in 100 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. Two types of compare problems were used: compare unknown (CU) and referent unknown (RU). The word you was placed in the problems either as the known or the unknown term. For the CU problems, self-referencing facilitated students' performance regardless of the position of the you term. When self-referencing was applied, students asked for fewer repeats and solved these CU problems faster and with greater accuracy. For the RU problems, however, students benefited from self-referencing only when the self term was placed as the compare (known) term. When the you term was placed as the referent term, the facilitative effect of self-referencing disappeared. The position of the you term in a RU problem apparently has an impact on the translation procedure required in solving the problem. Further research on the cognitive processing issues raised by these data is suggested and the educational implications of the findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Role of Choice in Children's Learning: A Distinctive Cultural and Gender Difference in Efficacy, Interest, and Effort.

A cross-cultural experiment testing the effect of personal choice on learning was conducted with fifth- and sixth-graders from Canada (n = 130) and Taiwan (n = 153) using a computerized foreign language learning task. The results showed that choice had no significant impact on children's interest, effort, or learning outcome. Although comparable to their Chinese counterparts in efficacy beliefs, the Canadian children reported to be more interested but showed less effort and performed less well on the task. The Canadian boys had a lower efficacy belief and consistently showed less interest and effort than the girls; this gender gap, however, was not evident in the Chinese. Unlike the Canadians, Chinese children's effort was unrelated to efficacy beliefs or interest. When told explicitly there would be no test, Chinese children became more interested in the task but the Canadians were unaffected. Implications of these findings are discussed and further studies are suggested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)