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Cultural life scripts are composed of the events people expect to occur in the life of a “typical” person in their society. Building on this psychological construct from the field of autobiographical memory, we investigated the cultural career script, referring to the shared expectations individuals have about the typical career in their culture. This mixed-methods study characterizes the nature of the cultural career script using data from 297 undergraduate students, who collectively generated over 2000 events. The results showed similarities with prior life script research, such as a tendency to generate events that are positive and predicted to occur relatively early in life. However, there was little consensus among participants in the events generated, and potential demographic differences in how individuals conceptualize a typical career emerged. Our findings advance scientific understanding of the cultural life script, episodic future thought, and autobiographical memory while providing practical implications for higher education practitioners.

Learning strategies that create “desirable difficulties” by slowing or hindering improvement during learning often produce superior long-term retention and transfer ( Bjork, 1994 , Bjork, 1999 ). Despite the desirability of difficulties for learning, many learners choose not to use the learning strategies and/or disengage when they are implemented by a teacher. Knowledge of these learning strategies is necessary but insufficient for behavior change—learners must be motivated to embrace or, at minimum cope, with difficulties. To identify ways to help students engage with learning strategies that produce desirable difficulties, the present article briefly reviews five areas of psychological research on motivation that provide strategies for increasing engagement and persistence: finding value, reducing cost, reframing appraisals and attributions, creating appropriate challenges, and providing choice. Looking forward, there is a clear need for empirical work to investigate and theoretical frameworks to explain the interplay between motivation and learning strategies that create desirable difficulties.

Several strands of prior work have evaluated students' study strategies and learning activities. In this work, we focus on integrating two of those strands. One has focused on student self-reports of their study practices from a cognitive psychology perspective. The other has focused on classifying student learning activities from a learning sciences perspective using the Interactive, Constructive, Active, and Passive (ICAP) framework (Chi & Wylie, 2014). The current study aims to integrate these two strands of research by testing the implications of the ICAP framework with students' self-reports in a classroom context. Another goal was to address the measurement limitations of the metacognitive study strategy literature by using assessment-specific self-reports with both closed and open-ended questions. Across three noncumulative exams, 342 undergraduates self-reported their study practices before each exam. We then categorized their strategies as either active or constructive in alignment with the ICAP framework. Next, we examined whether these strategies were related to each other and then tested the hypothesis that constructive strategies would be positively associated with better exam performance than active strategies. Students reported using a variety of study practices in which a few active strategies were related to constructive strategies, but constructive strategies were more likely to be related to each other. Lastly, supporting the ICAP framework, many of the constructive strategies were positively related to exam performance, whereas the active strategies were not. This work provides insight into the measurement of students' study strategies and their relations to each other and learning outcomes.

Achievement goals are the reasons for pursuing competence-related tasks. Much prior work has shown that they can affect student motivation, learning, and performance outcomes. They are typically measured in classroom settings vis-a-vis self-report surveys about students’ goals or the perceived goal structure of the class. Less work has measured how achievement goals naturally emerge in class instruction. We address this gap by examining teacher talk for evidence of different achievement goals and their relation to conceptual math learning. Classrooms with high- and low-growth on a conceptual mathematics assessment were compared for instances of mastery- or performance-focused talk in relation to the framing of the instructional task, student recognition, and student evaluation. Results showed that teachers from high-growth classrooms used more mastery-focused talk for both the framing of the task and student evaluation than teachers from low-growth classrooms. Teachers from low-growth classrooms used more performance-focused talk for the framing of the task than teachers from high-growth classrooms. There were no differences between high- and low-growth classrooms for either mastery or performance student recognition or performance-focused student evaluation. These results help to bridge the gap between teacher practice and achievement goal theory and have implications for understanding how goals manifest in the classroom as well as possible interventions that support productive classroom goals and student learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)

A gulf exists between prior work testing metacognitive instructional interventions and teacher practices that may support metacognition in the classroom. To help bridge this gulf, we designed an observational protocol to capture whether and how teachers provide metacognitive support in their talk and examined whether these supports were related to student learning. We examined four features of metacognitive support, including the type of metacognitive knowledge supported (personal, strategy, or conditional), the type of metacognitive skill supported (planning, monitoring, or evaluating) the type of instructional manner in which the support was delivered (directives, prompting, or modeling), and the type of framing (problem specific, problem general, or domain general), during three types of instructional activities (individual, group, or whole-class instruction). We compared teacher talk from 20 middle school mathematics classrooms with high growth in conceptual mathematics scores with teacher talk from 20 classrooms with low growth. For each of these classrooms, we examined the amount of teacher talk that supported metacognition during one regular class period. Observations revealed that the high-conceptual growth classrooms had more metacognitive supports for personal knowledge, monitoring, evaluating, directive manners, and domain-general frames than the low-conceptual growth classrooms. We discuss the implications of those observations for bridging research on metacognition to teacher practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)

This article used self-regulated learning as a theoretical lens to examine the individual and interactive associations between a growth mindset and metacognition on math engagement for adolescent students from socioeconomically disadvantaged schools. Across three longitudinal studies with 207, 897, and 2,325 11- to 15-year-old adolescents, students' beliefs that intelligence is malleable and capable of growth over time only predicted higher math engagement among students possessing the metacognitive skills to reflect upon and be aware of their learning progress. The results suggest that metacognitive skills may be necessary for students to realize their growth mindset. Thus, growth mindsets and metacognitive skills should be promoted together to capitalize on the mutually reinforcing effects of each, especially among students in socioeconomically disadvantaged schools.

Maintaining learning engagement throughout adolescence is critical for long-term academic success. This research sought to understand the role of metacognition and motivation in predicting adolescents' engagement in math learning over time. In two longitudinal studies with 2,325 and 207 adolescents (ages 11-15), metacognitive skills, interest, and self-control each uniquely predicted math engagement. Additionally, metacognitive skills worked with interest and self-control interactively to shape engagement. In Study 1, metacognitive skills and interest were found to compensate for one another. This compensatory pattern further interacted with time in Study 2, indicating that the decline in engagement was forestalled among adolescents who had either high metacognitive skills or high interest. Both studies also uncovered an interaction between metacognitive skills and self-control, though with slightly different interaction patterns.

Several strands of prior work have evaluated students' study strategies and learning activities. In this work, we focus on integrating two of those strands. One has focused on student self-reports of their study practices from a cognitive psychology perspective. The other has focused on classifying student learning activities from a learning sciences perspective using the Interactive, Constructive, Active, and Passive (ICAP) framework (ChiWylie, 2014). The current study aims to integrate these two strands of research by testing the implications of the ICAP framework with students' self-reports in a classroom context. Another goal was to address the measurement limitations of the metacognitive study strategy literature by using assessment-specific self-reports with both closed and open-ended questions. Across three noncumulative exams, 342 undergraduates self-reported their study practices before each exam. We then categorized their strategies as either active or constructive in alignment with the ICAP framework. Next, we examined whether these strategies were related to each other and then tested the hypothesis that constructive strategies would be positively associated with better exam performance than active strategies. Students reported using a variety of study practices in which a few active strategies were related to constructive strategies, but constructive strategies were more likely to be related to each other. Lastly, supporting the ICAP framework, many of the constructive strategies were positively related to exam performance, whereas the active strategies were not. This work provides insight into the measurement of students' study strategies and their relations to each other and learning outcomes.

Prior studies have not tested whether an instructional intervention aimed at improving metacognitive skills results in changes to student metacognition, motivation, learning, and future learning in the classroom. We examined whether a 6-hr intervention designed to teach the declarative and procedural components of planning, monitoring, and evaluation could increase students’ metacognition, motivation, learning, and preparation for future learning for middle school science. Forty-six eighth-grade students were randomly assigned to either a control group, which received extensive problem-solving practice, or an experimental group, which received more limited problem-solving practice along with metacognitive instruction and training. Results revealed that those who received the metacognitive instruction and training were less biased when making metacognitive judgments, p = .03, d = 0.65, endorsed higher levels of motivation after instruction (e.g., there was a large effect on task value, p = .006, d = 0.87), performed better on a conceptual physics test, p = .03, d = 0.64, and performed better on a novel self-guided learning activity, p = .007, d = 0.87. This study demonstrates that metacognitive instruction can lead to better self-regulated learning outcomes during adolescence, a period in which students’ academic achievement and motivation often decline. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

In three experiments, we compared the effectiveness of rainbow writing and retrieval practice, two common methods of spelling instruction. In experiment 1 (n = 14), second graders completed 2 days of spelling practice, followed by spelling tests 1 day and 5 weeks later. A repeated measures analysis of variance demonstrated that spelling accuracy for words trained with retrieval practice was higher than for words trained with rainbow writing on both tests (η p 2 = .49). In experiments 2 (second graders, n = 16) and 3 (first graders, n = 12), students completed 2 days of spelling practice followed by a spelling test 1 day later. Results replicated experiment 1; spelling accuracy was higher for words trained with retrieval practice compared with rainbow writing (η p 2 = .42 and .64, respectively). Furthermore, students endorsed both liking and learning from retrieval practice at least as much as (and sometimes more than) rainbow writing. Results demonstrate that retrieval practice is a more useful (and as engaging) training method than is rainbow writing and extend the well-established testing effect to beginning spellers.