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This study considers how class composition, in terms of between-student variability and the average level of achievement, is related to the academic development of students, and how these relationships can be explained by features of the class learning environment. At the start of secondary education, Flemish schools can decide autonomously how to group their students, leading to variation in class mean and class heterogeneity between classes. In a sample of 2,895 Flemish students from 158 classes, math achievement at the end of Grade 8 was found to be unrelated to class heterogeneity, after accounting for previous achievement, intelligence, gender and social background. Path analyses showed that class heterogeneity was positive associated with teachers’ use of differentiated instruction to accommodate for differences between students, and that differentiated instruction was related to higher student achievement. Second, students were found to achieve better in classes with high average achievement. While this held true for all students, high achieving students seemed to benefit the most from being in a class with a high average level. Although class-average achievement was positively related to the academic orientation of the class, this did not explain the association between class mean level and achievement. These results suggest that, although it might be beneficial for the students in the high ability groups, grouping students in distinct classes according to ability might have little overall benefit, and emphasizes that teachers’ responses to student diversity might be more decisive for improving student achievement than homogenizing classes in terms of ability. ispartof: Journal Of Educational Psychology vol:114 issue:3 pages:498-512 status: published

Beliefs about academic functioning play an important role in the academic development of students. This study considers perceptions about underachievement, that is, the degree to which accomplishments are believed to be in line with potential. In particular, we examined why these perceptions might deviate from measured underachievement, determined by regressing achievement on a measure of cognitive ability. Using data from the TALENTstudy, a large-scale study among 3,409 Flemish 7th grade students, we observed student, teacher, and parent ratings of underachievement to be moderately associated with underachievement. Girls were less likely to be perceived as underachievers than boys at a similar actual level of underachievement, in particular by teachers and parents. Comparing different achievement domains (general, mathematics, and languages), this underestimation of female underachievement was found to be most pronounced in mathematics. Moreover, at a given level of measured underachievement, cognitive ability was negatively associated with perceived underachievement: as high ability underachievers often still achieve at an average level, the level of their underachievement might be underestimated. Although findings were consistent over different operationalizations of underachievement, measuring underachievement in terms of standardized test scores instead of grades led to weaker associations with perceived underachievement. ispartof: Journal Of Experimental Education vol:90 issue:4 pages:797-817 status: published

OBJECTIVE: Although intellectually gifted individuals are often portrayed as perfectionists, evidence for an association between cognitive ability and perfectionism is inconclusive. This study investigates the relations between cognitive ability and two distinct dimensions of perfectionism and addresses the role of parental antecedents of perfectionism in adolescents at different levels of cognitive ability. METHOD: In a community sample of 3,168 adolescents and their parents, cognitive ability was assessed and perfectionism levels and parenting practices were surveyed. RESULTS: Adolescents higher in cognitive ability reported higher levels of Personal Standards (i.e., setting ambitious objectives) but lower levels of Concern over Mistakes (i.e., worrying excessively about mistakes). Parental criticism, high parental expectations, and conditionally regarding parenting were associated positively with Concern over Mistakes, and high parental expectations were related positively to Personal Standards. These associations were generally independent of adolescents' cognitive ability. Parents of adolescents higher in cognitive ability relied less on parenting practices associated with the development of perfectionism. CONCLUSION: Cognitive ability is related to a higher pursuit of personal standards, yet does not constitute a risk factor for excessive concerns about mistakes. Parental antecedents were related similarly and in theoretically meaningful ways to adolescent perfectionism across different levels of cognitive ability. ispartof: JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY vol:89 issue:4 pages:652-671 ispartof: location:United States status: published

Although it has been hypothesized that gifted students are at risk for adopting a fixed mindset, research revealed inconsistent results. We aimed to clarify this by differentiating between two operationalizations of giftedness (high cognitive ability and formal identification as gifted) and how these relate to students’ beliefs about intelligence and effort. Also, we examined the role of parental antecedents on students’ beliefs. Participants were 3,329 7th-grade students and their parents. Only being labeled as gifted was related to adopting a fixed mindset. Regarding parental antecedents, parents’ intelligence and effort beliefs were related to students’ corresponding beliefs. Further, parental feedback was associated with students’ beliefs, which was most pronounced when student-reports of feedback were used. In particular, person-oriented feedback related positively to a fixed mindset and negatively to students’ appreciation of the role of effort in academic performance, while process-oriented feedback showed the opposite pattern. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. ispartof: Gifted Child Quarterly vol:66 issue:3 pages:220-237 status: published

While bivariate associations between motivation and academic achievement have been soundly established, only a handful of studies have documented evidence for its incremental predictive role above and beyond other student features related to student achievement, such as intelligence and personality. Moreover, it is not yet clear which motivational processes are most essential for academic achievement. The current study considered how an array of motivational processes related to academic achievement, controlling for intelligence and personality, in a large sample of Flemish 7th graders. Students’ intelligence and need for cognition, that is, the personal preference to engage in cognitively demanding work, proved to be strong predictors of academic achievement. Yet, even after controlling for intelligence and personality, several motivational processes explained additional, unique variance in achievement, totaling about a quarter of the explained variance in school results. In particular, academic self-concept proved to relate most strongly to achievement, while achievement goals, achievement motivation, autonomous motivation, and effort beliefs additionally explained a unique portion of the variance in academic achievement. Although these findings were largely consistent across different operationalizations of achievement, motivational constructs explained more variance when achievement was measured with school grades instead of standardized tests. Given the more malleable nature of motivational dynamics compared to intelligence and personality differences, the unique, positive associations between motivation and achievement suggest that improving student motivation is a worthwhile undertaking. ispartof: Journal Of Educational Psychology vol:114 issue:4 pages:772-790 status: published

This study used a longitudinal person-oriented approach to examine whether two distinct developmental pathways of maladaptive motivation could be distinguished among high-ability students (intelligence quotient [IQ] ≥ 120, N = 403, Mage = 12.2 years, 60.5% males), as proposed by the Pathways to Underachievement Model. Latent class growth analysis provided evidence for a three-class solution, including an adaptive class and two maladaptive classes, largely corresponding with the predictions of the Pathways to Underachievement Model. Furthermore, the classes related to the outcome variables in the expected ways, with the maladaptive classes showing higher disengagement and underachievement. These findings substantiate the Pathways to Underachievement Model and provide developmental insight into the multiple motivational pathways underlying disengagement and underachievement among high-ability students.

One important predictor of students’ intrinsic motivation and schoolwork engagement is the balance between schoolwork difficulty and student skill level, such that students are adequately challenged. However, the question arises whether this is equally true for all students or whether there are students for whom having adequately challenging schoolwork is even more important than for others. In this study, we investigated whether students’ cognitive ability and their need for cognition (i.e., their tendency to actively seek, engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activity) affects students’ motivational responses to adequately challenging schoolwork. Building on data from a large-scale survey among 3002 Flemish 7th graders, we found that adequately challenging schoolwork had a more favorable effect on intrinsic motivation and schoolwork engagement for students high in need for cognition than for students low in need for cognition. Student cognitive ability did not moderate the association between adequate challenge and motivational outcomes. The findings are discussed in light of school engagement and intellectual investment theory. ispartof: Personality And Individual Differences vol:171 pages:1-5 status: published

School engagement and disengagement are important predictors of school success that are grounded in the social context of the classroom. This study used multilevel analysis to examine the contributions of the descriptive norms of friends, popular students and classmates regarding engagement and disengagement to the development of Students’ own behavioral and emotional engagement and disengagement among Flemish 7th-graders (N = 3,409). Moderating effects of students’ self-esteem and cognitive ability were examined. The results showed effects from friends’ and classmates’ (dis)engagement on all dimensions of (dis)engagement. Popular Students’ engagement only affected individual Student’s behavioral disengagement and emotional engagement. Self-esteem and high cognitive ability did not make students more or less susceptible to peer effects. ispartof: Frontiers In Psychology vol:12 pages:1-12 ispartof: location:Switzerland status: Published online

Introduction The Pathways to Underachievement model (PUM; Snyder & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2013) is a person-oriented framework identifying two distinct patterns of self- and value beliefs that help explain underachievement among cognitively highly able students. This framework was developed to clear up inconclusive findings from variable-centered underachievement research, but has not been previously empirically tested. Methods The present study aimed to test the PUM by investigating (a) whether the predicted motivational profiles are evident among a sample of high-ability students (IQ ≥120) beginning secondary school in Flanders, Belgium (N=403, Mage = 12.2 years, 60.5% males) and (b) whether these profiles relate to students’ (dis)engagement from and (under)achievement in school, as assessed by the students, their parents and teachers, and school grades. Latent profile analysis was performed on five motivational dimensions: academic self-concept, self-worth contingency, task value beliefs, entity beliefs, and attainment/utility value, and outcomes were compared across profiles using the BCH method. Results Latent profile analysis identified four profiles, each involving a distinct patterns of motivational variables. Two of the profiles exhibited maladaptive variable patterns consistent with the distinct profiles theorized by the PUM. Furthermore, profile differences in (dis)engagement and (under)achievement outcomes generally corresponded with the predictions of the PUM across multiple perspectives. Conclusion This study found distinct maladaptive motivational profiles that were each linked to the outcomes hypothesized by the PUM. These findings establish empirically that there are qualitatively different types of high-ability underachievers, which supports the Pathways to Underachievement model and gives momentum to person-oriented analysis within underachievement research. ispartof: Journal Of Adolescence vol:88 pages:146-161 ispartof: location:England status: published

An important issue in the design of secondary-level education is the balance between conveying general and occupation-specific (vocational) skills. On the one hand, vocationally oriented programmes, providing occupation-specific skills with immediate labour market relevance, have repeatedly been shown to secure safe pathways into employment. On the other hand, these programmes tend to put less emphasis on developing general knowledge, skills and competencies, including numeracy and literacy, which are foundational to lifelong learning. Hence, when the needs of the labour market change, employees who opted for a vocational track when they were at secondary school risk being less flexible in adapting to such changes later in their career. The authors of this article examine whether this results in a trade-off between short-term gains and long-term losses by considering differences in the labour market careers of vocationally and generally educated respondents in the 2012 Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). Their results suggest that early labour market benefits of vocational specialisation decrease over time; the authors relate this to its lower ability to equip secondary school students – future employees – with skills for lifelong learning. ispartof: International Review of Education vol:63 issue:2 pages:257-280 status: published

Peer relationships form a key developmental context. The current study investigated differences in peer acceptance between high-ability and average-ability youth, from the perspectives of teachers, peers, and students. Relying on the person-group similarity model, we also tested whether high-ability students’ acceptance would depend on the peer group’s mean ability level. A sample of 2,736 sixth-grade students from 188 classes in 117 schools participated. Students scoring in the top 10% of a cognitive ability measure were considered high-ability students (N = 274). Results showed that high-ability students were better accepted than average-ability students according to teachers and peers. However, the students did not show more positive self-perceptions of acceptance. Moreover, they nominated less peers as their friends. Gifted students felt more accepted in classes with higher mean ability levels. The authors call for a stronger integration of developmental theory and research into the study of giftedness. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Special Issue: The Future of Research in Talent Development: Promising Trends, Evidence, and Implications of Innovative Scholarship for Policy and Practice ispartof: New Directions For Child And Adolescent Development vol:168 issue:168 pages:27-46 ispartof: location:United States status: published

Why do students prefer one subject (e.g., mathematics) over another (e.g., languages)? This study examined how both students’ individual dispositions and environmental factors predicted school subject liking in a large sample of 3,409 Flemish middle-school students. First, subject preferences were found to depend on stable individual dispositions (i.e., trait interests and cognitive abilities). In particular, trait interests (RIASEC) predicted which school subject students liked best in general accordance with vocational interest theory. In addition, cognitive abilities were differentially related to subject liking, with fluid intelligence relating to a preference for mathematics and crystallized intelligence to a preference for humanities (i.e., history). Beyond trait interests and cognitive abilities, however, subject liking also depended on environmental characteristics. In particular, student perceptions of engaging teaching uniquely predicted how students liked their teachers’ subjects, suggesting that teachers can promote subject liking beyond individual dispositions. ispartof: Personality And Individual Differences vol:174 pages:1-7 status: published

Comparative research has often emphasized the importance of external barriers (e.g. enrolment costs) to explain inequalities in lifelong learning participation. However, individuals, in particular the low educated, are often not only prevented from participation by external barriers, but also by negative psychological dispositions about learning. In this article, we study how dispositions about learning as measured in PIAAC (2012) vary between countries. In particular, we assess how these crosscountry differences are related to a number of design characteristics of the initial school system. We improve the crosssectional research design by controlling attitudes among adults for attitudes collected among primary school students, making use of diff-in-diff and pseudo-panel-techniques. Overall, we find that strong external differentiation mechanisms, in particular tracking students at a young age and making extensively use of grade retention, are associated with less positive attitudes towards learning among adults. However, a number of methodological issues, related to small country samples and differences in data definition between surveys, calls for further investigation. peerreview_statement: The publishing and review policy for this title is described in its Aims & Scope. aims_and_scope_url: http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=csce20 ispartof: Studies in Continuing Education vol:29 issue:2 pages:176-196 status: published

One of the important differences between educational systems from different countries is the age at which students are placed into separate tracks. We examined the effects of the age at which tracking occurred on student achievement in a comparative perspective, making use of recent waves of three internationally standardized student assessments (PISA, TIMSS, and PIRLS). In order to control for unobserved national heterogeneity, we adopted a differences-in-differences approach, in which we controlled secondary school results for differences already present in primary school (i.e. before the introduction of tracking). The results indicate that early tracking has a negative effect on mean performance of students, particularly in the domain of literacy. Moreover, by separating out groups with different abilities, it is shown that early tracking has a very strong negative effect on low achieving students, suggesting that disadvantageous peer- and environmental effects in the lower tracks may have detrimental consequences on students’ academic achievements. By contrast, a null effect on the group of top achieving students was found, suggesting that comprehensive systems can equally challenge high performers to learn at a high pace. ispartof: Research in Comparative and International Education vol:11 issue:3 pages:334-349 status: published

This book, written by one of the leading scholars in the field, provides a comprehensive account of the policies and strategies that promote adult learning. Adult learning is interpreted here in it...

This study investigated whether motivational resources play a role in predicting changes in students’ achievement and well-being above and beyond the role of intelligence during the transition to secondary school. The motivational resources entailed autonomous and controlled motivation as conceived in Self-Determination Theory and implicit beliefs of intelligence as defined in Dweck's perspective. We used two waves of data from a larger longitudinal study, thereby following 6th grade students in the transition to secondary education (N = 2546, Mage = 11.52 years, 49.8% boys). Results of Latent Change Modeling revealed that, after controlling for the role of intelligence in the prediction of standardized math achievement tests, motivational resources played a supplementary role, both at the level of interindividual differences and at the level of intra-individual change. Students with higher initial levels of autonomous motivation obtained higher initial test scores, reported higher school well-being, and made greater progress in both outcomes across the transition. An increase in autonomous motivation was also related to an increase in both achievement and well-being. A similar, yet opposite, pattern of findings was obtained for controlled motivation. An entity mindset failed to yield any unique associations. Given that autonomous motivation contributes to both achievement and well-being beyond effects of intelligence, it is critical for educators to nurture this motivational resource as it allows them to kill two birds with one stone.

Earlier research showed that obtaining a vocational instead of a general qualification has contrasting effects on employment and earnings over the life course. Relying on two international datasets (ESJS and PIAAC) and focussing on upper-secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary qualifications, we find similar contrasting effects in terms of educational and skill mismatches. While vocationally educated individuals are less likely to face mismatches at the start of their careers, this advantage gradually fades over time. This pattern is not only found for overall mismatches, but also for mismatches in terms of several more detailed types of skills. We also find more favourable effects in terms of avoided mismatches for vocational programmes that combine a specific focus with workplace learning, while programmes that combine a less-specific focus with workplace learning seem to be less effective.

Accurate teacher judgments of student cognitive ability are crucial to effective instruction. Building on a large survey among 7th graders and their teachers, this study considers which student characteristics affect teacher and peer recognition of high ability students. High ability judgments by teachers were found to depend more on everyday school achievement (GPA) than on cognitive ability (IQ) itself, even when teachers were urged to distinguish between achievement and ability. Girls were less likely to be perceived as highly able than boys with similar levels of ability. Parental educational level affected high ability judgment, but only through its relation with school achievement. Both the most engaged and the most bored students were more frequently selected as highly able students. Similarly, peer judgments of highly able classmates depended, net of cognitive ability, on everyday school achievement, perceived engagement and disengagement, and gender, with girls being less likely to be judged as highly able. ispartof: Learning And Individual Differences vol:78 status: published

This article presents a comparative analysis of the determinants of early school leaving (ESL) at the country level. We decompose ESL rates into two components: a ‘primary’ rate reflecting unqualified school leaving from initial education, and a second component accounting for early school leavers who participate in training programmes. Both may be influenced by structural and policy determinants. We examine how the ESL rate is affected by macro-economic and social context variables such as GDP/capita, growth, poverty, and youth unemployment, as well as system characteristics of the education system (such as legal school leaving age, grade retention, early tracking, and size of vocational education) and the labour market and social protection systems (minimum wages, unemployment insurance).

Reducing the number of early school leavers, those who quit education without at least a high school degree, is a key objective of educational policy throughout Europe. Previous research has shown that in particular youngsters from disadvantaged families face relatively high risks of school dropout. In this paper we use data from the 2009 ad hoc module of the Labour Force Survey to examine how macro-level determinants influence school dropout risks among different social groups. Our results indicate that both the design of the educational system (tracking age, extent of vocational education) and characteristics of the socioeconomic context (poverty rate, unemployment patterns) have an impact on the social distribution of school dropout risk. ispartof: European Education vol:47 issue:4 pages:295-310 status: published

One of the major imperatives behind the comprehensivisation of secondary education was the belief that postponing the age at which students are tracked in different educational routes would mitigate the effect of social background on educational outcomes. Comparative investigations of large-scale international student achievement tests in secondary education, such as PISA, have indeed suggested that individual test results depend less on social origin in countries that have postponed tracking age. However, a crucial pitfall in such cross-sectional studies is that many other factors influence the effect of social origin on achievement as well. In order to account for possible unobserved confounder bias, and to acknowledge the fact that part of the social origin effect already exists prior to the introduction of tracking, we apply a difference-in-differences analysis to data from PIRLS (primary education, 2006, N = 33, n = 171.486) and PISA (secondary education, 2012, N = 33, n = 235.378). Our results confirm that the introduction of tracking increases the effect of social origin on reading achievement between primary and secondary education. This lends further support to the argument that postponing the tracking age can foster social equity in educational achievement. ispartof: European Educational Research Journal vol:14 issue:3 pages:206-221 status: published