Friends’ Responses to Children’s Disclosure of an Achievement-Related Success: An Observational Study

This study examined social support processes in the context of positive events. The conversations of fourth-grade through sixth-grade focal children and their friends (N = 116) were observed after focal children outperformed their friend on an achievement-related task. Changes in focal children’s performance-related positive affect from prediscussion to postdiscussion were predicted from the features of these conversations. Focal children reported more positive affect when friends engaged in relatively high levels of help seeking and relatively low levels of off-task talk. Friends’ responses were, in turn, predicted by friendship quality as rated by focal children and friends. Results are discussed in light of the changes in school adjustment and peer relationships that many children experience as they approach adolescence

Peer Socialization of Achievement -Related Beliefs

133 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2001.Study 2 examined children's classroom discourse as one mechanism through which peers may influence children's beliefs about their academic capabilities. Kindergarten, first grade, and second grade students (N = 106) participated in two waves of data collection, approximately one year apart. During the first year of the study, children's verbal interactions with their classmates were observed and recorded. During the spring of each year, children's self-perceptions of competence were assessed. Analyses revealed that changes in children's competence perceptions could be predicted from the types of statements that children made and had directed toward them by peers in the classroom setting. Examining sequences of children's statements proved helpful in explaining the observed changes in children's perceptions of competence over time.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD

The development of competence-related and motivational beliefs: An investigation of similarity and influence among friends

This research examined the degree to which children's achievement-related beliefs could be predicted from their friends' beliefs, both concurrently and over time. For 3 semesters, 4th-, 5th-, and 6th-grade students (N ϭ 929) completed measures of their competence-related beliefs, motivational beliefs, and friendship choices. Concurrent analyses indicated that friends showed consistent, albeit modest, similarities with regard to their self-perceptions of competence, academic standards, importance of meeting standards, and preference for challenge. During the academic year, friends appeared influential with regard to children's ability attributions for success and the importance they placed on meeting academic standards. Over a grade-level transition, friends appeared influential with regard to children's ability attributions for failure. Overall, associations were stronger among reciprocated than among unilateral friends. Research suggests that only 25% of the variability in children's achievement outcomes can be accounted for by their scores on tests of intelligence In exploring the development of children's achievement-related beliefs, researchers have begun to focus on how these beliefs are socialized by the significant others in children's lives. Much of this research has been directed toward parents and teachers as the key socializers (e.g., Eccles Parsons, The purpose of the present study was to address this gap in the achievement socialization literature. Our central goal was to examine the degree to which children and their friends hold concordant achievement-related beliefs and the extent to which these similarities can be explained by friends' apparent influence on children's beliefs over time. We examined these relations for both reciprocated and unilateral friendship dyads over the course of three semesters. Our focus was on two classes of psychological constructs that have been identified as important predictors of children's academic behaviors and school success (see . First, we examined similarity and influence among friends with regard to children's competence-related beliefs-that is, beliefs related to the question, Can I do this task? Within this category, we were particularly concerned with children's evaluations of their intellectual abilities, both generally (e.g., Am I good at math?) and in the context of personal success and failure (e.g., Did I fail my math test because I'm not smart?). Prior research has shown that children who view themselves as intellectually competent (e.g., Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Ellen Rydell Altermatt, who is now at the College of Education, Michigan State University, 513D Erickson Hall, East Lansing, Michigan 48824. E-mail: [email protected] Journal of Educational Psychology Copyright 2003 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 2003, Vol. 95, No. 1, 111-123 0022-0663/03/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037 111 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. attention in a variety of models of achievement motivation. Moreover, research based on these models provides clear and fairly consistent evidence that ability attributions for success are adaptive, whereas ability attributions for failure are maladaptive (e.g., Similarity Among Friends Interest in the degree to which friends are similar has yielded a plethora of research. This research has generally focused on demographic variables such as children 's gender, ethnicity, and religion (e.g., Hamm, 2000; Although there is considerable evidence to suggest that similarities in attitudes, ideals, and values are associated with interpersonal attraction among adults (e.g., Similar evidence for friends' psychological similarity has not yet been established in the academic domain. Although a host of studies have documented moderate correlations between friends on measures of achievement outcomes such as report card grades and standardized test scores (e.g., Influence Among Friends Although establishing the degree to which friendships are characterized by psychological similarity is important in its own right, the practice of examining similarities among friends has been undertaken, in large part, to support claims that peers are influential agents of socialization. This practice has, however, received considerable criticism, as concurrent measures of similarity fail to distinguish between the processes of selection (i.e., individuals who are similar in certain attributes purposefully select each other as friends) and those of influence (i.e., individuals are socialized by their friends, thereby becoming more similar to them; see To date, only a handful of studies have examined peer influence in the academic domain. Results are promising, however, and suggest that friends not only perform in similar ways academically but that changes in children's academic outcomes (e.g., report card grades, standardized test scores) and educational aspirations can be predicted from those of friends and peer group members (e.g., ALTERMATT AND POMERANTZ This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. (1995) for seventh-and eighth-grade students. Specifically, children who perceived their group of friends to be involved (e.g., frequently participating in class discussions) and nondisruptive (e.g., infrequently misbehaving in class) at the beginning of the year became more involved and less disruptive themselves over the course of the academic year. Whether friends play a similar role in influencing changes in children's achievement-related beliefs remains unclear. To date, research has examined only a few achievement-related beliefs and has yielded a complex set of results. In one study, Ryan Although these studies offer insight into friends' influence, the number of beliefs so far investigated is quite limited. Moreover, findings have been both inconsistent (i.e., influence has been demonstrated for some variables but not for others) and potentially paradoxical (i.e., with some initial evidence that students may become less similar to their friends over time). Together, these results suggest that a good deal remains to be learned about friends' influence on children's achievement-related beliefs. Children's Friendships An important issue of discussion among peer socialization researchers is how children's friendships are best measured and whether children's friends or the larger peer group are likely to exert the most influence (see The Role of Temporal Context An important task confronting achievement socialization researchers is to document not only whether parents, teachers, and peers influence children's school attitudes and outcomes but to explore how changing social contexts impact the socialization process (see Overview of the Present Research Recent research suggests a growing interest in examining peers as socializers of children's achievement attitudes, behaviors, and outcomes. Despite new evidence that friends are both similar and influential with regard to children's academic behaviors and beliefs, there are still significant gaps in our knowledge. The present research examined friends' similarity and influence in the academic domain among a large sample (N ϭ 929) of fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students and, in so doing, extended prior research in three key ways. First, the present study investigated both similarity and influence among close friends with regard to children's academic performance and a number of important competence-related beliefs (i.e., ability attributions for success and failure) and motivational beliefs (i.e., level of standards, importance of meeting standards, and preference for challenge) that have not been previously examined. Although friends' influence on children's selfperceptions of competence has been investigated in a prior study (see SIMILARITY AND INFLUENCE This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. time) suggest that replication of these results is needed. We were especially interested in examining competence-related and motivational beliefs given their prominence in a variety of theories of achievement motivation (e.g., Method Participants The data used in the present study were collected as part of the University of Illinois Self-Evaluation Project, a research program aimed at examining the development of children's achievement-related beliefs (see 1 The majority of participants were European American (95%), but the sample also included African Americans (4%) and other minorities (1%). Approximately 20% of the sample participated in free-or reduced-lunch programs. All students attended one of two school districts in the Midwest. Within these school districts, nine schools representing 58 classrooms participated. Letters describing the study were sent home to parents. Parents were asked to contact the school or investigators if they did not want their children to participate. Only 4% of parents did not permit their children to participate. Procedure Children participated in three waves of data collection approximately 6 months apart. The attrition rate was 11% (primarily because of children moving out of the school district), yielding the sample described previously. The first wave took place during the spring (Wave 1), the second wave took place during the following fall (Wave 2), and the third wave took place during the following spring (Wave 3). Hence, by the second wave, the fourth graders (fourth-grade cohort) were in fifth grade, the fifth graders (fifth-grade cohort) were in sixth grade, and the sixth graders (sixth-grade cohort) were in seventh grade. Children remained in these same grades during the third wave. In addition to the grade-level transition that all children experienced after the first wave of data collection, children in the sixth-grade cohort made a school transition (i.e., from elementary to middle school) at this time. Seventy-one percent of fourth graders also made a school transition at this time. 2 At each wave, children took part in two 45-min classroom sessions during which questionnaires were administered. A trained research assistant read each item to children who marked their responses on their own. Measures Academic Performance Children's report card grades were obtained in six academic subject areas (English, math, reading, science, social studies, and spelling). 3 Letter grades were converted to numerical values, ranging from 0 (F) to 12 (Aϩ). The mean of the grades in the six subjects across the two academic quarters overlapping with each wave was used as an index of academic performance for each wave. Achievement-Related Beliefs Competence-Related Beliefs Self-perceptions of competence. Self-perceptions of competence were assessed following Wigfield, Eccles, Mac Iver, Reuman, and Midgley (1991). Children rated how skilled they were in each of the six subjects for which they received grades (e.g., "How good at reading are you?") and their relative position in their class (e.g., "If you were to rank all of the students in your class from the worst to the best in reading, where would you put yourself?"). The mean of the two items across the six subjects was used, with higher numbers indicating more positive perceptions. Ability attributions for success and failure. Following past research (e.g., Eccles 2 To determine whether indices of similarity and influence differed for children who experienced a school transition from those who experienced only a grade-level transition, "school transition" was entered as a dummy variable in our concurrent and longitudinal analyses, and interactions between school transition and friends' characteristics in predicting children's characteristics were examined. Cohort (and its interaction with friends' characteristics) was entered as a control variable in these analyses to ensure that any differences were not due to children's grade level. Few significant interactions emerged. Moreover, the direction of the effects was inconsistent. Future work will be important in examining the effects of school transitions versus grade-level transitions on friends' similarity and influence. 3 At Waves 2 and 3, children in the sixth-grade cohort received grades in four academic subjects only (English, math, science, and social studies). For these children, report card grades and self-perceptions of competence are based on 8 rather than 12 items. In addition, level and importance of standards are based on 4 rather than 6 items. ALTERMATT AND POMERANTZ This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Motivational Beliefs Level of standards. A scale measuring the level of children's standards for academic performance was developed for this and related studies (see Importance of meeting standards. A scale measuring the importance children assigned to meeting academic standards was developed for the purpose of this and related studies. Specifically, after children were asked to indicate the grade they deemed to be personally acceptable in each of the six subjects for which they received grades, they were asked to indicate how important it was to obtain that grade (e.g., "How important is it to you to get a grade at least this high in reading?"). The mean of children's responses across the six subject areas was used, with higher numbers indicating greater importance. In addition to being face valid, this measure is internally reliable (␣s Ͼ .85; see Preference for challenge. Preference for difficult over easy academic work was assessed with five of the six items of the Preference for Challenge Subscale of Harter's (1981) Intrinsic Orientation in the Classroom Scale. Children were presented with descriptions of two types of children differing in the type of academic work they prefer (e.g., "Some kids would rather just learn what they have to in school, but other kids would rather learn about as much as they can"). Children decided which they were more like and indicated if the given statement was really or sort of true for them. The mean of the five items was used, with higher numbers indicating greater preference for challenge. Friendship Assessment To gather information on children's friendships, we gave children a class roster and asked them to circle the names of their three "best friends." 4 Children were instructed that they could circle fewer than three names but not more. From this list, children were asked to select their single, very best friend. The percentage of children selecting a very best friend varied from 74% to 92% across the three waves of data collection. Two subsets of children who selected a very best friend were identified. A child was deemed to have a reciprocated very best friendship if his or her nominated very best friend also selected the child as a very best friend. Otherwise, the child's self-reported very best friendship was determined to be unilateral (i.e., nonreciprocated). The percentage of children whose very best friendship was reciprocated varied from 38% to 42% across the three waves of data collection. Children's scores on each of the academic outcome and achievement-related belief measures were matched to those of their single, very best friend. It is important to note that these analyses were also conducted by matching children with their very best friend using a less stringent criterion for reciprocation (i.e., a child's selected very best friend nominated the child as one of his or her three best friends) and by matching children with their three best friends. The results obtained from these analyses were, in general, similar to or weaker than those reported here. Because the percentage of children selecting a very best friend differed from wave to wave, the final sample for all analyses using friendship data ranged from 678 (285 reciprocated, 393 unilateral) to 851 (359 reciprocated, 492 unilateral) across the three waves of data collection. The sample for each analysis varies somewhat because children or friends sometimes failed to complete the majority of items for one of the measures included in the analysis. 4 At Waves 2 and 3, children in the sixth-grade cohort met with different teachers and classmates for each subject area. For these students, friendship nominations were limited to children's English classrooms. One concern with this procedure is that similarity and influence may be attenuated among seventh-grade students because they are forced to select friends from a subset of students that may not include their closest friends. This does not appear to be the case, however. Specifically, estimates of similarity and influence generally decreased rather than increased when seventh-grade students were excluded from the analyses. A second possible consequence of this procedure is that it may produce heightened estimates of similarity and influence among older students because of the greater homogeneity in student performance and achievement-related beliefs among seventh graders because of tracking. Again, however, this does not appear to be the case. Specifically, at Waves 2 and 3, standard deviations for academic performance and achievement beliefs did not differ significantly in seventh-grade classrooms from those obtained in fifth-and sixth-grade classrooms. SIMILARITY AND INFLUENCE This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Results Two sets of central analyses were conducted. In the first set, we examined concurrent relations between children's academic performance, competence-related beliefs, and motivational beliefs and those of their very best friends. In the second set, we examined these relations longitudinally to determine whether children's performance and beliefs were predicted by friends' performance and beliefs over time. In describing the results of both sets of analyses, we highlight instances in which the findings varied by friendship type. In addition to these central analyses, two sets of supplementary analyses were conducted to explore alternative explanations for the findings obtained in our central analyses. Central Analyses Examining Similarities Among Friends A series of hierarchical regression analyses was conducted to determine whether children and their very best friends performed similarly in school and held concordant achievement-related beliefs. Each academic outcome or achievement-related belief variable (e.g., children's standards at Wave 1) was entered as the dependent variable in a separate analysis. At Step 1, friends' characteristics at the same wave (e.g., friends' standards at Wave 1) were entered. If, at this step, the analyses reveal that friends' characteristics are a significant predictor of children's characteristics, it suggests that friends are similar with regard to their academic outcomes or achievement-related beliefs. The standardized beta coefficients from this step of our analyses are presented in To determine whether relations between children's characteristics and friends' characteristics differ by friendship type, a dummy variable representing friendship type (i.e., reciprocated versus unilateral) was entered at the second step in each analysis. At the third step, a term that reflected the interaction of friendship type and friends' characteristics was entered. If significant, the interaction term suggests that the degree of friends' similarity differs by friendship type. In such cases, correlation coefficients were calculated and are reported separately for reciprocated and unilateral friends. Academic Performance As demonstrated in prior research, children and their very best friends were similar with regard to their report card grades. Associations were significant at all three waves of data collection, ␤s ϭ .27 to .34, ts(671-729) Ͼ 7.30, ps Ͻ .01. A significant friendship type interaction emerged at the fall (Wave 2) time period, ␤ ϭ .10, ALTERMATT AND POMERANTZ This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. t(727) ϭ 2.26, p Ͻ .05. Follow-up analyses indicated that reciprocated friends were more similar with regard to their report card grades (r ϭ .46, p Ͻ .01) than were unilateral friends (r ϭ .27, p Ͻ .01). Competence-Related Beliefs Among the competence-related beliefs, very best friends were most similar with regard to their self-perceptions of competence. Associations were significant across all three waves of data collection, ␤s ϭ .18 to .22, ts(593-823) Ͼ 4.50, ps Ͻ .01. At the spring (Wave 1) semester, a significant friends

Coping with Achievement-Related Failure: An Examination of Conversations between Friends

Prior research has identified ways in which parents and teachers contribute to learned helpless responses to failure, but little is known about the role that interactions with peers might play. In this study, the conversations of fourth- through sixth- grade children and their friends were observed after children experienced an achievement-related failure. Changes in children’s responses to failure from postfailure to postdiscussion were predicted from the features of these conversations. Children who received frequent help from friends reported fewer maladaptive responses to failure. In contrast, learned helpless responses were predicted when friends engaged in off-task talk, when children discounted their failures, and when children or friends evaluated the task negatively. Sequential analyses were used to better understand these effects and those moderated by gender and relative performance. Using observational methods, this study contributes to our understanding of the processes by which achievement-related beliefs are influenced by peer interactions