Thursday, 922

1
Thursday, 9/22

• Review survey methods
• Review Phinney article
• Achievement motivation
• Review Bornstein Cote article
• Term paper topic
• Faculty feedback

2
Survey construction
Survey or interview questions
Construct
operationalization
Construct- an abstract or general idea inferred
or derived from specific instances Operationalize-
take a general idea and turn it into specific
instances Example want to assess levels of
happiness
3
Happiness survey scoring guide

• 35 - 31 Extremely satisfied
• 26 - 30 Satisfied
• 21 - 25 Slightly satisfied
• 20         Neutral
• 15 - 19 Slightly dissatisfied
• 10 - 14 Dissatisfied
•  5 -  9    Extremely dissatisfied

4
Literature review / introduction

• Why was this study conducted?
• Why did the author consider it important?
• What were the primary research questions?

5
Methods

• What were the primary research methods used to
  investigate the study questions?

6
Results / discussion

• What were the major findings from this study?
• What are the broader implications of this study?
• Dissonant acculturation theory

7
Achievement

• Concerns the development of motives,
  capabilities, interests, and behavior that have
  to do with performance in evaluative situations

8
Achievement motives and beliefs

• Need for achievement- the extent to which people
  strive for success
• Separate from ability
• An intrinsically motivated desire
• In general, higher need for achievement predicts
  greater levels of achievement
• Can be domain specific
• Beliefs about ability influence achievement

9
Intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation

• Intrinsic- motivation comes from within the
  individual
• Strive to achieve because of the pleasure they
  get out of learning and mastering the material
• Competent individuals
• Extrinsic- motivation comes from outside the
  individual
• Strive to achieve because of rewards or fear of
  punishments
• Less competent individuals

10
Achievement attributions

• The way in which students interpret their
  successes and failures
• Internal factors (ability and effort)
• External factors (task difficulty or luck)
• Good students attribute success and failure to
  effort
• Learned helplessness- the belief that ones
  effort doesnt make a difference

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Achievement motivation in context

• Familys role
• Degree of need for achievement
• Foster intrinsic or extrinsic motivations
• Cultural capital
• Friends role
• Role of socioeconomic status
• Parental education
• Access to cultural and social capital

12
Ethnic differences in academic achievement

• African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans almost
  always lag behind White students, who lag behind
  Asian-American students
• Why?

13
Ethnic differences in academic achievement

• Socioeconomic status
• Study skills and study habits
• Ethnic group differences about ability

14
Bornstein Cote

• Cognitions- internally held beliefs
• Anglo-conformity theory of acculturation

15
Bornstein Cote cont

• We see that beliefs about ability do vary by
  ethnic group and also by immigration status
• Mothers beliefs are determined in part by their
  culture of origin and by how long they have been
  in US
• The longer they are in the US, the more they look
  like US

16
Maternal attributions

• Japanese mothers
• Success- internal (effort) attributions
• Failure- internal (effort) attributions
• Japanese-American mothers
• Success- internal (effort) attributions
• Failure- external attributions
• Argentinean mothers
• Success- internal (effort) attributions
• Failure- internal (effort) attributions
• Argentinean-American mothers
• Success- internal (effort) attributions
• Failure- external attributions
• Caucasian mothers
• Success- internal (effort) attributions
• Failure- external attributions

17
Maternal attributions cont

• While Japanese-Americans come to resemble
  Caucasian mothers, they are still resemble
  Japanese mothers more
• Argentinean-American mothers much more closely
  resemble Caucasian mothers
• Confirms what we were talking about before
• Asians and Asian-Americans are more likely to
  attribute success and failure to effort than to
  external factors, which causes them to work
  harder
• However the longer they are in the US, the more
  their attributions begin to look like Caucasians
  

18
Term paper topic due 9/29

• One-two paragraphs long
• What are the two ethnic groups, cultures, races,
  etc that you plan to compare?
• Chinese
• African-Americans
• Jews in America
• What issue do you plan to compare these groups
  on?
• Achievement motivation
• Parenting styles
• Media portrayals
• Why are you interested in these groups?
• Why are you interested in this topic?