"Of course I will ..." : The combined effect of certainty and level of expectancies on persistence and performance

The importance of performance expectancies for the prediction of regulation of behavior and actual performance has long been established. Building on theories from the field of social cognition, we suggest that the level of performance expectancies, as well as the certainty of the expectancy, have a joint influence on an individual’s beliefs and behavior. In two studies (one cross sectional using a sample of secondary school students and one longitudinal using a sample of university students) we found that expectancies more strongly predicted persistence, and subsequent performance, the more certain the expectancy was. This pattern was found even if prior performance was controlled, as in Study 2. The data give an indication that it may be useful to include certainty as an additional variable in expectancy models

The development of study-specific self-efficacy during grammar school.(Zur Entwicklung der studienspezifischen Selbstwirksamkeit in der Oberstufe)

Article is in German. Even if more and more German adolescents acquire a university entrance qualification, not all of them finally enrol at a university. In particular, the transition from school to university strongly depends on parent’s education. Even with the same marks in school, adolescents from non-academic households are less likely to enrol in universities than adolescents from academic housholds. One important reason is their lower belief to master a university study. This study analyses a specific intervention in grammar school to improve study-specific self- efficacy, the belief in one’s capabilities to master a university study, using a longitudinal design. We apply a difference-in-difference framework and show that programme participation significantly improves the study-specific self-efficacy for puplis from non- academic families but not for those from academic families. Hence, such a programme could reduce social disparities between both groups

Gender-Biased Adaptations in Educational Adaptive Hypermedia

this paper we address the question of what are the causes of this problem and how it can be relieved by adaptive mean