Investigating applicability of ratings of indicators of the CLASS Pre-K instrument
When classroom observations are increasingly used for accountability and evaluation purposes, a deeper understanding of the psychometric properties of such measurement tools is needed. The present study took a unique approach to examine the psychometric properties of a commonly used classroom observation measure by testing the reliability of indicators for higher-order constructs (i.e. dimensions). We investigated the reliability of indicator ratings of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) Pre-K instrument in Finnish kindergarten and first grade classrooms. Twenty-one observer pairs rated 838 segments identified from the 413 lessons of 48 teachers. Variance components models were…
Teachers’ situational physiological stress and affect
Since teaching is a demanding and stressful profession, the study of teachers’ physiological stress in the classroom setting is an emerging field. In cross-sectional studies self-reported stress and affect are related, but less is known about the intraindividual relations between situational physiological stress and corresponding positive and negative affect. The aim of our study was to investigate the associations between situational physiological stress (six salivary cortisol samples per day) and self-reported situational affect (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule four times a day) among 61 Finnish primary school teachers over two workdays. We present a novel multilevel structural equa…
How are learning experiences and task properties associated with adolescents’ emotions and psychophysiological states?
We examined whether learning experiences (value of success, mastery experience) and task properties (challenge) are related to early adolescents’ (n = 190, median age = 12) emotional responses and psychophysiological states (autonomic nervous system, ANS) in achievement situations in an ambulatory laboratory. They completed four achievement tasks (two math and two reading) at different challenge levels in randomized order, and reported their learning and task perceptions for each task. The proportion of errors indicated the objective demandingness of each task. As indices of sympathetic nervous system activity, we recorded skin conductance response (SCR) and heart rate (HR), and, as parasym…
Within-students variability in learning experiences, and teachers' perceptions of students' task-focus
In order to advance our understanding of educational processes, we present a tutorial of intraindividual variability. An adaptive educational process is characterised by stable (less variability), and a maladaptive process is characterised by instable (more variability) learning experiences from one learning situation to the next. We outline step by step how we specify a multilevel structural equation model of state, trait and individual differences in intraindividual variability constructs, which can be appropriately fitted to intraindividual data (e.g., time-points nested in persons, intensive longitudinal data). In total 285 primary school students’ (Years 5 and 6) completed the Learning…
Within-student variability in learning experiences, and teachers’ perceptions of students’ task-focus
In order to advance models of educational processes (intraindividual, intensive longitudinal), we propose a model in which we specify state and trait constructs, and an intraindividual variability construct. In our ecological momentary assessment study, we investigated how trait-level and intraindividual variability of students’ learning experiences (intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, task difficulty, effort exertion, help-seeking and competence evaluations) converged with teacher-reported student task-focus. 285 primary school students’ (Years 5 and 6) completed the Learning Experience Questionnaire using handheld computers, on average 13.6 learning episodes during one week (SD = 4.6; Ran…
Intra‐individual dynamics of lesson‐specific engagement: Lagged and cross‐lagged effects from one lesson to the next
Background Student engagement denotes active participation in academic work through commitment and involvement in learning tasks (Appleton et al., 2006, Journal of School Psychology, 44, 427). This study looks at questions such as whether engagement experiences in one lesson have an effect on the next lesson. In the present study, process‐oriented analyses were conducted to examine lower secondary school students’ engagement experiences and the stability of those experiences from one lesson to the next. Aims (1) To what extent are students’ engagement experiences, in terms of behavioural and cognitive engagement, emotional engagement, and disaffection, stable from one lesson to the next (au…
The role of study engagement in university students' daily experiences: A multilevel test of moderation
The present study investigated the dynamic nature of students' daily experiences and general study engagement using intra-individual assessment. More specifically, we examined individual differences in the relationship between university students' task-specific value and situational emotions and, further, whether first-year study engagement would moderate this association during the first two years of studies. Intra-individual state assessments were conducted via mobile phone-based experience sampling method (ESM) during participants' first (N = 72) and second (N = 56) academic years, resulting in 3089 and 2912 fully completed state questionnaires. In both years, students were asked five ti…
Students' school performance, task-focus, and situation-specific motivation
Going beyond studies of individual differences in and profiles of students' motivation, we investigated situation-specific (intra-personal) experiences of autonomous (enjoyment, interest, and task choice) and controlled (having to do, and the teacher wanting them to do a task) motivation across learning situations during one week, and how these were related to student characteristics (teacher rated academic performance and task-focus). Three-hundred and fourteen primary school students (Years 5 and 6) completed electronic questionnaires on Personal Digital Assistants, on an average of 11.2 learning episodes during a week. Multilevel Structural Equation Models provided support for a model ba…