Promoting the will and skill of students at academic risk: an evaluation of an instructional design geared to foster achievement, self-efficacy and motivation

Journal of Instructional Psychology, March, 2003 by Miriam Alfassi

Administration of Measures

Permission was granted by the school district to conduct the study in the present form. The Raven Standard Progressive Matrices was administered to students participating in 8th and 9th grade classes prior to initiation of the study. Achievement tests, a standardized reading test, measures of self-efficacy and motivation scales were administered to all students towards the end of the school year.

Measures

The Internal consistency reliability of all measures was calculated by Cronbach's alpha. The achievement tests were determined by the students' level of study and reflected the topics and skills taught within each subject. Independent raters, certified teachers in the specific academic domains, agreed on the appropriateness of the questions on the different tests. The total score of all achievement tests was expressed in percentage terms.

Math skill tests. A 25-item test was used to assess students' mathematics skills. The test was based on traditional evaluation procedures involving multiple choice items and open-ended computation problems. The eighth grade test ([alpha] = .83) was divided into six sections and covered the following topics: reading and writing of numbers; computation of natural numbers; simple fractions; decimal fractions; measurements; and number relations. The ninth grade test ([alpha] = .90) was divided into four sections and covered the following topics: percentages; rational numbers; algebra; and geometry.

Language skill tests. These tests assessed the student' s reading comprehension, verbal knowledge and functional writing skills. The eighth grade language skills test ([alpha] = .82) consisted of 22 items which examined five sections. Explicit and implicit reading comprehension skills; the students ability to use a dictionary; conjunctions and prepositions; and basic functional writing skills. The ninth grade language skills test ([alpha] = .78) consisted of 16 questions divided into three major sections. Explicit and implicit reading comprehension skills; application of verbal knowledge such as word meaning, conjunctions and prepositions; and writing skills.

Standardized Reading Test. (Ortar, 1987). The Ortar Reading Test ([alpha] = .80) consists of 68 items followed by several-multiple choice questions. The first 21 questions relate to decoding competency, the next 47 questions tap reading comprehension. The 10 reading comprehension passages are mainly of expository text and vary in their length from 35 to 135 words. The content of the passages represents the content found in most public schools (e.g., social sciences, natural sciences and the arts). This test is widely used in Israel to diagnose students' level of reading comprehension and identify those who perform below their grade level.

Academic Self-Efficacy Scale. Academic self-efficacy was assessed in math ([alpha] = .96) and language skills ([alpha] = .94). The six items of each scale are from the Patterns of Learning Survey (PALS: Midgley et al., 1996). Each scale refers to students' judgments of their capability to complete their schoolwork successfully in that specific domain. The items were scored on a five-point scale with high scores reflecting a high academic self-efficacy and low scores reflecting a low self-efficacy.