Students Will Learn With Their Whole Personality

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Students Will Learn With Their Whole Personality

• Saija Alatupa
• University of Helsinki, Department of Psychology
• E-mail saija.alatupa_at_helsinki.fi

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Background What is temperament?

• Theres no one commonly approved theory of
  temperament, but in general is accepted, that
  temperament refers to biologically rooted
  individual differences in behaviour tendencies
  that are present early in life and are relatively
  stable across various contexts and over time.
• Temperament refers to the how of behavior.
• Behavioral qualities that occure in several
  temperamental theories are emotion, attention and
  activity.

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• Temperamental differences are known largely to
  affect developmental courses from childhood to
  adulthood in behavioral, socio-emotional,
  cognitive and academic ahievement.
• Differences in temperament or behavioral styles
  may have positive or negative effects on
  childrens experiences in the classroom.

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• Temperamental differences may facilitate or
  impede the school achievement through childs
  ability
• to learn
• to control and direct energy
• to respond adaptively in the demands of the
  school environment
• Temperament is unrelated to cognitive skills and
  intelligence

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Task orientation factor

• There are three temperamental characteristics
  that especially have been found to influence
  school achievement.
• Activity Task
• Distractibility orientation
• Task persistence

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Low activity
Better school achievement Better attention ability
Low distractibility
Better attention ability Better school achievement
Better adjustment Higher frustration level Social
competetive Better school performance
High persistence
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School temperament

• Task orientation factor is part of the concept
  called School temperament, which consists of the
  following elements
• Personal flexibility and adaptability
• Reactivity
• Task orientation (focus of the present study) - gt
  Affects the way students are learning and how
  they achieve.

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Task orientation factor and school achievement

• High task orientation
• -gt High persistence, low distractibility and low
  activity are relevant factors to school learning.
• -gt Low activity, low distractibility and high
  persistence contributes to better school
  achievement.
• -gt Task orientation traits are also salient for
  teachers. It affects how students skills and
  know-how are rated
• Students who are rated as persistent, low in
  activity and low in distractibility are seen as
  mature, more skilled and motivated.
• Students with high task orientation are seen as
  more enjoyable to work with, theyre more liked
  and they require less effort from teacher.

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• Low task orientation
• -gt High activity, high distractibility and low
  persistence have been consistently related to
  underachievement.
• -gt Students with low task orientation are easily
  seen as unmotivated and / or immature, disruptive
  and difficult to deal with.
• -gt Teachers are responding more with behavioral
  criticism to low-attention, distractible
  children.
• -gt Students with low task orientation are less
  liked from the teachers.

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Temperament and IQ

• Correlations between temperament and IQ have been
  modest and selective (Matheny 1989). Adaptability
  and attention/persistence were most closely
  associated with measures of intelligence.
• Martin et al. (1994) found significant
  correlations between task orientation and IQ.
  Another study from Keogh et al. (1982)
  demonstrated modest correlations between task
  orientation and IQ.
• Teacher rated temperament correlates slightly
  higher with IQ than does parents ratings of
  temperament.

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• Students with positive temperament (high task
  orientation, flexibility and positive mood) are
  rated by teachers as more intelligent than
  students with negative temperament (high negative
  mood, emotional intensity and impulsivity).
• Temperament and IQ are not totally independent.
  They might interact bi-directional Cognitive
  abilities may serve to mediate the expression of
  temperament, and temperament may influence how
  intellectual energy is directed and expended
  (Keogh 2003).

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Aim of the study

• The aim of the present study was to examine
  wheather, and how much teachers perception of
  students activity, distractibility and task
  persistence explains students achievement in
  mathematics and native language.

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MethodsParticipants

• Participants were taken from the population based
  longitudinal survey called The Finnish Study of
  Temperament and School Achievement (TSA).
• Complete data were available for N 4255
  upper-comprehensive school (m 15.1 years)
  students at 9th grade.

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Measures

• Temperament ratings by teachers in mathematics
  and native language
• The scales task persistence and activity were
  derived from the Temperament Assessment for
  Children-Revised (TABC-R, Martin Bridger 1999)
  questionnaire.
• Distractibility was assessed with the Dimensions
  of Temperament-Revised (DOTS-R, Windle Lerner
  1986) questionnaire.
• Self-reports
• Grades in mathematics and native language in last
  school report.

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• Activity E.g. Child seems to have difficulty
  sitting still, may wiggle a lot or get out of
  seat. -gt Measures the motor vigor of the child.
• Distractibility E.g. When the student is doing
  something, nothing can get his attention away
  from the task. -gt Measures the ease with which
  the students attention can be interrupted by
  environmental stimuli, particularly low-level
  stimuli that interrupt ongoing task-related
  school behavior.
• Persistence E.g. Child can continue at the same
  activity for an hour. -gt Measures the attention
  span and the tendency to continue attempting the
  solution of learning or performance problems.
• -gt Temperament ratings were assessed in a
  five-point Likert-scale
• 1 the statement doesnt fit,
• 5 the statement fits very well

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Results
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Conclusions

• Teacher rated low activity, low distractibility
  and high persistence (task orientation)
  predicted better performance in mathematics and
  native language for both girls and boys. This
  fits with results from previous research.
• The impact of temperament on students school
  achievement in native language differs from
  previous research. In studies so far the
  influence of temperament has mostly been
  significant between achievement in mathematics
  but not between temperament and native language.

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• Boys were rated as more active and more
  distractible and girls were rated as higher in
  persistence from both mathematics and mother
  language teachers.
• Activity might not be that relevant factor for
  school success in Finnish culture than it appears
  to be in other cultures.
• It is of importance to increase teaching
  psychological knowledge relevant to schoolgoing
  in the education of teachers
• learning and personality
• teachers knowledge of his / her own personality
• teachers penchants related to students traits