A study examined the hypothesis that learning strategy coupled with efficacy-building teaching interactions would lead to greater strategic learning than learning strategy instruction alone. A reading comprehension strategy was taught to 184 students from 4 Los Angeles County (California) public and independent schools. Included were 65…

This investigation explored the differences in the motivational beliefs of ninth-grade Asian American and non-Asian students. Participants were 154 Asian Americans of various ethnicities and 372 non-Asians. Student beliefs about achievement were explored through a questionnaire developed for the study. The statistical findings suggest that the…

In an exploration of junior high school teachers' meanings of success, it was discovered that teachers tend to talk about their practice in terms of management strategies. Management was clearly significant for teachers as a metaphor for their ways of living, instructing, developing student responsibility, and building community within the fluid…

This paper summarizes results of a survey examining educational attitudes, lifestyle, and aspirations of Hispanic students in south Texas. Many students live in impoverished, rural, unincorporated subdivisions called "colonias" that are growing around Laredo, Texas, and other border cities. An introduction to the Texas/Mexico border…

This study assessed the relative value of Bandura's (1977, 1982, 1986) self-efficacy theory and Rotter's (1966) locus of control model in predicting the career maturity of college students. A sample of 113 undergraduates (83 women and 30 men) completed a demographics questionnaire and measures of career decision-making (CDM) self-efficacy (Taylor…

This book tells the story of children and families whose lives are affected by alcohol. It also provides a guide to school personnel who are interested in developing programs for children of alcoholics (COAs). The program described herein, ESCAPE (Enhancing Social Competence and Personal Efficacy), was designed to be integrated into existing…

There continues to be a public outcry concerning the quality of education in our nation. These concerns have translated into numerous programs to improve teaching in the public schools, many of which have focused on mentoring for beginning teachers. The proliferation of programs has shown the need for research investigating the effectiveness of…

This paper presents findings of a study that examined young adolescents' motivational processes and use of strategies with expository text. Specifically, the study sought to determine how their attributes, self-efficacy, intrinsic value, anxiety, and goal orientation related to their use of cognitive and self-regulating strategies needed to…

This study examines how academic assertiveness in junior high school students affects conceptual change and the degree to which their assertiveness affects the conceptual change of partners paired with them for a series of activities using a computer simulation of the human cardiovascular system. The sample was a group of 90 eighth-grade students…

Previous research has provided support for the mediating role of self-efficacy between independent attitude variables and dependent performance measures. However the existence of a confirmatory model, that can be generalized over both males' and females' measures of attitudes, perceived self-efficacy, and achievement levels, has not yet been…

This paper reports on a study designed to identify the relationships among the context variables of sense of efficacy, teacher empowerment, and school climate as perceived by 1,802 Kansas City (Missouri) teachers. Factors related to teacher sense of efficacy (teaching efficacy and personal efficacy), to teacher empowerment, defined as the…

This study examined the relationship between leader power and the amount of conflict with teachers' perceptions of their empowerment. Drawing from the literature, the study identified underlying dimensions of empowerment as teachers' involvement in decision making, and teacher impact, status, autonomy, opportunities for professional development,…

In the spirit of educational reform, the purpose of this paper is to review the literature and present six empirically derived dimensions underlying the construct of teacher empowerment. The dimensions were obtained from a study conducted on school empowerment in nine school districts across the country from 1989 to 1992. Empowerment has been…

This study assessed how goal setting and progress feedback affect self-efficacy and writing achievement for 20 male and 20 female fourth graders. Children received writing strategy instruction and were given a process goal of learning the strategy, a product goal of writing paragraphs, or a general goal of working productively (control condition).…

This study was conducted to examine one suburban San Diego (California) school's attempt, under a restructuring plan, to correct resegregation in classroom assignments. A program was developed which combined gifted, regular education, and bilingual students (n=79) in grades three and four with three teachers in a team-teaching approach. Students…