Longitudinal relations between perceived autonomy and social support from teachers and students' self-regulated learning and achievement

Most research investigating the relation between perceived teacher support and self-regulated learning (SRL) is cross-sectional, and little is known about the direction of the effects. This longitudinal study investigated the direction of the effects between students' perceptions of autonomy support and social support from teacher on two behavioural aspects of SRL: delay of gratification and metacognitive strategy use. A second aim was to investigate the extent to which the effects of perceived teacher support on student achievement were mediated by SRL. Students (N = 701, age 12) completed questionnaires five times during their first 2 years in secondary education. Cross-lagged autoregressive models revealed small reciprocal effects in both directions between delay of gratification and perceived autonomy support. Metacognitive strategy use predicted perceived autonomy support and perceived social support from teachers predicted both aspects of SRL. The study revealed a small mediating effects from SRL between perceived teacher support and achievement

Effects of task structure and group composition on elaboration and metacognitive activities of high-ability students during collaborative learning

Collaborative learning tasks may represent an effective way to stimulate higher-order processes among high-ability students in regular classrooms. This study investigated the effects of task structure and group composition on the elaboration and metacognitive activities of 11th grade pre-university students during a collaborative learning task: 102 students worked in small groups. On an ill-structured or moderately structured task. Differential effects for cognitive ability were investigated using a continuous measure. Likewise, the effects of group composition were examined using a continuous measure of the cognitive heterogeneity of the group. The group dialogues were transcribed and coded. Analysis revealed an interaction effect between task structure and cognitive ability on students' elaboration and metacognitive activities. Task structure had a negative effect on the elaborative contributions of high-ability students. For students with lower abilities, task structure had a positive effect on elaboration and metacognitive activities. No effects were found of the cognitive heterogeneity of the group. Group composition seemed not to be related to group interaction among 11th grade pre-university students. The results indicate that open-ended collaborative tasks with little guidance and directions on how to handle them, can stimulate higher-order processes among high-ability students and may offer them the challenge they need

The quality of student dialogue in citizenship education

This study investigates the relationship between the quality of student dialogue and students’ ability to justify their viewpoints on a moral issue. A curriculum unit for dialogic citizenship education was developed and implemented in the 8th grade of secondary education. In the final lesson, students discussed a moral issue and then wrote an essay on it. The results show that students who made more value-related utterances during the discussion also referred more often and more explicitly in their individually written essays to moral values. This study indicates that the quality of the content of students’ dialogue is important for their ability to substantiate their opinion on moral issues with value-laden argumentation. Approaches to citizenship education in which dialogue is a central element should, therefore, pay specific attention to the validation of ideas in student dialogue