From: Linh, Cao
Email:
Course: CD169: Motivating Children and Adolescents in Educational Settings
College: San Jose State University
Instructor: Eugene Matusov, Ph. D.
ClassWeb: http://www.ematusov.com/CD169
ChildrenObservations:
Date: 16 May 1997
Time: 22:10:47
Remote Name: 130.65.2.108
Academic achievement among students in America is of great concern. School reforms are to increase academic achievement. Qualifications for teachers of today are increased, standards are tightened, hours put into school are increase. This paper argued that although school and teacher efforts are very important, conditions outside of school hold the key to increasing achievement substantially. Comparison of American and Asian students show that student effort and parenting styles link to academic achievement. Many studies indicate the need for an explanation as to why Asian, particularly Chinese and Japanese students, posse significantly different attributions for achievement than do U.S. students. Asian students perceive both stable and unstable effort as more important factors than do American students, and U.S. students value ability and situational factors than do Asian students. There are also some suggestions followed. To help increase student motivation in the educational settings, this is a must read paper for parents and educators.
Ability and Effort
It was expected that Asian students would emphasize effort more than the United States, and that U.S. students would emphasize ability more than Asian. The United States/Asia differences for the effort and ability attributions were glaring. In an article entitled Concepts of Ability and Effort in Japan and the United States, Holloway (1988) presents a number of studies indicating that effort is identified as the primary determinant of achievement to a much greater extend in Japan than in the United States. Also, a cross-national study by Chandler et al. (1981) found Japanese students attributed their achievement to ability significantly less, and to luck significantly more than did students from the United States. Chandler's data also demonstrated a significant interaction between success/failure and United States/Japan attributions: American students believed effort to be more important for success than lack of effort for failure, whereas Japanese students believed the opposite, that lack of effort is the more likely cause of failure. These findings suggest that Asians do not have as strong a hedonistic bias as do Americans, if they have one at all.
Furthermore, research conducted by Stevenson and his colleagues (Lee, Ichikawa, & Stevenson, 1987; Stevenson et al., 1990) also revealed that Chinese and Japanese students and their mothers consider effort to be a much greater factor in academic achievement than did American mothers. An investigation of family beliefs about children's performance in mathematics, conducted by Hess, Chih-Mei, & McDevitt (1987) found mothers and children from the People's Republic of China much more likely to attribute children's failure in mathematics to low effort, and less likely to attribute to lack of ability than were their Americans counterparts.
Moreover, American mothers and teachers emphasized innate ability versus effort more than did their Asian counterparts. According to Stevenson, Chen, & Lee (1993), ninety-three percent of the Japanese teachers said that "studying hard" was the main influence on achievement, compared to only 26 percent of American teachers. As for psychological adjustment, the highest-achieving Japanese and Chinese students reported the least stress while the highest-achieving American students reported the most (Crystal et al., 1994; Fuligni & Stevenson,1995). What account for these differences in the degree of stresses in term of high-achievement? The researchers said that American teenagers must cope with an "abundance of completing demands." For instance, compared with Asian adolescents, American students work (80 percent versus 27 percent and 26 percent of out-of school time) and socialize more. Asian students devote more time in school, on subjects, and to studying when with friends.(1 http://www.gasou.edu/aix2/edi./found/Mancil.html )
The problem of effort is probably more at the heart of these achievement differences than are competing demands or wishful thinking. Effort wanes in American children when individual performance falls short of expectations. "To avoid the stigma of having tried and failed, low-achieving students say learning is not important and withhold efforts to learn"(2 http://ericps.ed.uiuc.edu/npin/pnews/pnew396/pnew396b.html). This reaction protects against self-judgment of low ability. By age 10, children understand that even tremendous amounts of effort will not produce high achievement if ability is low (Stipek & Iver, 1989). They also know that high effort, relative to others, puts low ability on display. Only if children are socialized to value academic achievement and to feel obligated to themselves and others to pursue it, will concern about revealing low ability compete with shame and a sense of loss for not trying.
Parenting Styles and Achievement
According to Steinberg et al. (1989), authoritative parenting affects school achievement indirectly, by affecting work orientation (i. e, pride in one's schoolwork and persistence in completing it). In other words, authoritative parenting affects effort, which then affects school achievement. Authoritative parenting considered the most effective style in raising healthy children in America. On the other hand, authoritarian parenting, which is high on both warmth and control, is highly practiced in Asian. As an Asian parent and have been seeing and interacting with so many Asians parents, I know it is not quite true that Asian-American parents are authoritarian in the complete "American" sense. The higher control and restrictiveness exerted by Asian parents typically is not accompanied by hostility or coercion, as often is the case with non-Asian American authoritarian parents.
The meaning of "control" is "equated with parental concern, caring, or involvement" in Chinese families (Chao, 1994, p.112). Chao (1994) explains that "child control" to Chinese mothers means "child training," not child domination, and that "training" means "teaching or educating," which includes teaching the child how to behave and perform in school (p.122). In addition, Vogel (1968) indicates that Japanese mothers "never go against the child." It means that, in achieving control, the mother-child relationship is to be preserved. In the long run, this yields the internalized obligations the Japanese mother desires. The mother also is the chief trainer or teacher, which includes governing the child. According to Chao, "to govern" means "to care for" and "to love" (p.112).
The view that American and Asian students systematically perceive the causes of success and failure in academic situations differently from their achieving peers should be amended. A more accurate statement would be : Cultural factors influence the way both underachievers and achievers perceive the causes of academic performance. The causes of success and failure in academic situations have been identified. Now the main thing to do is how to find ways to improve the achievement behaviors of those who fall behind.
In order to increase academic achievement, parental and other adult involvement with children must also be increase. High levels of warm and responsive and engagement with children (i.e., high degrees of "joint effort"), and high expectations and demands are necessary for the development of children's academic and social competence. Also, devotion is very critical to academic achievement in children worldwide. It is by which the expectations parents must impose on themselves are as high as the expectations they make known to their children. Also, let's not to forget that child-rearing environments affect academic achievement profoundly. Thus, if students are not motivated to put forth the effort to learn, even school reforms will not be much help.
Reference List
1. http://www.gasou.edu/aix2/edi./found/Mancil.html
2. http://ericps.ed.uiuc.edu/npin/pnews/pnew396/pnew396b.html
Chandler, T. A., et al. (1981). Multi-attributional causality: A five cross-national study. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 12, 207-222.
Chao, R.K. (1994). Beyond parental control and authoritarian parenting style: Understanding Chinese parenting through the cultural notion of training. Child Development, 65, 1111-1119.
Crystal, D.S., et al. (194). Psychological maladjustment and academic achievement: A cross-cultural study of Japanese, Chinese, and American high school students. Child Development, 65, 738-753.
Hess, R., Chih-Mei, C., & McDevitt, T. (1987). Cultural variations in family beliefs about children's performance in mathematics: Comparisons among People's Republic of China, Chinese-American, and Caucasian-American families. Journal of Educational Psychology, 79, 179-188.
Holloway, S.D. (1988). Concepts of ability and effort in Japan and the United States. Review of Education Research, 58, 327-346.
Lee, S., Ichikawa, V., & Stevenson, H.W. (1987). Beliefs and achievement in mathematics and reading: A cross-national study of Chinese, Japanese, and American children and their mothers. Advances in Motivation and Achievement: Advancing Motivation, 5, 149-179.
Stevenson, H.W., Chen,C., & Lee, S. (1993). Mathematics achievement of Chinese, Japanese, and American children: Ten years later. Science, 259, 53-58.
Stipek, d., & Iver, D. (1989). Developmental changes in children's assessment of intellectual competence: A review. Child Development, 60, 521-538.
Vogel, E.F. (1968). Japan's new middle class: The salary man and his family in a Tokyo suburb. Berkeley: University of California Press.