Module 3.3 Chapter 12. Achievement.

What do contemporary theories tend to stress about success in achievements?

Contemporary theories tend to stress the interaction of motives, beliefs, attributions, and goals as influencing adolescents' achievement orientation. Adolescents who believe that ability is malleable, who are motivated by intrinsic rather than extrinsic rewards, whose attribute their successes and failures to effort rather than to things they can't control achieve more in school than their peers.

What are occupational plans influenced by?

Broader context, including adolescents' perceptions of what occupations are "appropriate" for them given their sex, ethnicity, and social background.

School performance

A measure of achievement based on an individual's grades in school.

Occupational attainment

A measure of achievement based on the status or prestige of the job an individual holds.

Need for achievement

A need that influences the extent to which an individual strives for success in evaluative situations.

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)

A periodic testing of American 4th-, 8th-, and 12th- graders by the federal government, used to track achievement.

Crystallization

According to Super, the stage during which individuals, typically age 14-18, first begin to formulate their ideas about appropriate occupations.

Specification

According to Super, the stage during which individuals, typically ages 18-21, first begin to consider narrowly defined occupational pursuits.

Why is achievement an important issue during adolescence?

Achievement is an important issue during adolescence because society typically designates adolescence as a time for preparation for adult work roles, because individuals now can understand the long term implications of their educational and career decisions and because during adolescence schools begin making distinctions among individuals that potentially have profound effects on their long-term occupational development.

Academic achievement

Achievement that is measured by standardized tests of scholastic ability of knowledge.

How does home and family influence adolescent's achievement.

Adolescents perform better and are more engaged in school when they come from homes in which their parents value and expect scholastic success, practice authoritative parenting, and provide a home environment that is high in cultural capital.

How do friends influence adolescent's achievement.

Adolescents whose friends support academic achievement perform better in school than do peers whose friends disparage doing well in school.

What are adolescents' career choices influenced by?

Adolescents' career choices are influenced by a number of factors, including their work values, their social background, and their perceptions of the labor market and their potential place within it.

How does need for achievement and fear of failure work together in adolescence? What facilitates high levels of achievement?

Adolescents' need for achievement and their fear of failure work together to pull them toward or repel them from achievement situations. A strong need for achievement is facilitated by parenting that combines elements of authoritativeness with high expectations for success.

What are the reasons for underachieving in adolescence?

Although some students underachieve because they have an intense fear of failure, which makes them anxious, others engage in "self-handicapping" strategies in order to appear nonchalant (calm, relaxed, no anxiety or enthusiasm) about school. Often self-handicapping is done so that students have an excuse for poor performance rather than lack of ability.

Self-handicapping

Deliberately behaving in ways that will likely interfere with doing well, in order to have an excuse for failing.

Explain the risk factors for dropout and who is at highest risk.

Dropouts are more likely than their peers to be foreign-born Hispanic youth, to come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, to come from single-parent homes, and to have had a poor record of educational achievement throughout their school years. Dropping out is not so much a decision that is made during adolescence as it is the culmination of a long process that begins early on.

Fear of failure

Fear of the consequences of failing in achievement situations.

Underachievers

Individuals whose actual school performance is lower than what would be expected on the basis of objective measures of their aptitude (natural ability) and intelligence.

Intrinsic motivation

Motivation based on the pleasure one will experience from mastering a task.

Extrinsic motivation

Motivation based on the rewards one will receive for successful performance.

How does fundamental changes of adolescence affect the development of achievement?

Puberty may affect the development of achievement by introducing new psychological and interpersonal concerns, which may affect the adolescents' priorities and behavior in school. the cognitive changes of adolescence allow individuals to engage in longer-term, hypothetical thinking and planning about their educational and occupational futures. The transition into new social roles is probably the most important influence on achievement in adolescence. Society has structured the worlds of school and work so that major decisions about school and work take place in adolescence.

What is the summary of what researchers now understand of adolescent achievement?

Researchers now understand that patterns of achievement are the result of a cumulative process that includes a long history of experience and socialization in school, in the family, in the peer group, and in the community.

How does socioeconomic status affect school achievement?

Socioeconomic status is an extremely powerful influence on educational achievement. Generally, adolescents from higher social classes perform better in school and complete more years of schooling than do their less advantaged counterparts.

As is the case with educational achievement, occupational attainment is strongly influenced by what?

Socioeconomic status.

Explain the link between ethnic discrimination and poor achievement.

Some students perform poorly because they have been led to believe that members of their ethnic group or gender are inherently less able than others, a phenomenon called "stereotype threat".

What are ethnic differences in achievement, besides socioeconomic status?

Studies also indicate that there are ethnic differences in educational achievement above and beyond those attributable to socioeconomic status. In the United States, Asian adolescents outperform White students, who in turn, do better than Black, Hispanic, or American Indian students. One reason for the superior performance of Asian students is that they are more likely to hold the sorts of beliefs about achievement that are predictive of success in school in all ethnic groups.

How can teachers help improve their students' achievement?

Teachers can help improve their students' achievement by creating environments that stress mastery over performance, by helping students attribute their successes and failures to how hard they work, and by stressing that intelligence is malleable rather than fixed.

Learned helplessness

The acquired belief that an individual is not able to influence events through his or her own efforts or actions.

Achievement attributions

The beliefs an individual holds about the causes of her or his successes and failures.

What process does the development of occupational plan follow?

The development of occupational plan follows a process that is similar to the process of identity development, with a period of experimentation and exploration leading to increasingly more specific plans.

Stereotype threat

The harmful effect that exposure to stereotypes about ethnic and sex differences in ability has on student performance.

Social capital

The interpersonal resources available to an adolescent or family.

What is the concern about educational achievement among American youth.

The low level of educational achievement among American youth in general has been a concern for several decades. Although some gains in scores on standardized tests of achievement were reported during mid-1980s, with the exception of early adolescents' math scores, achievement by and large has not improved since then, and American high school students continue to fare poorly in international comparisons.

Educational attainment

The number of years of schooling completed by an individual.

Work values

The particular sorts of rewards an individual looks for in a job (extrinsic, intrinsic, social, altruistic, security, influence, leisure)

Social promotion

The practice of promoting students from one grade to the next automatically, regardless of their school performance.

Achievement

The psychosocial domain concerning behaviors and feelings in evaluative situations.

Cultural capital

The resources provided within a family through the exposure of the adolescent to art, music, literature, and other elements of "high culture".

Self-efficacy

The sense that an individual has some control over his or her life.

In addition to the influence of beliefs, motives, attributions, and goals, what are individual's levels of achievement affected by?

They are affected by social context in which they develop.