1. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 1 Adolescence 8th edition By Laurence Steinberg, Ph.D. Chapter Twelve: Achievement

2. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 2 Chapter 12 Overview  Why is achievement an adolescent issue?  Why are achievement motives and beliefs about one’s abilities important?  What are the influences of the home environment or friends on achievement?  How is educational achievement influenced by socioeconomic status? By ethnicity?  What influences occupational achievement?

3. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3 What is Achievement?  Achievement is the development of motives, capabilities, interests, and behaviors that have to do with performance in evaluative situations  Includes performance in educational settings, hopes and plans for future scholastic and occupational careers Insert DAL photo

4. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 4 Why is Achievement an Adolescent Issue?  Achievement is a lifelong concern, but adolescence merits special attention because:  It is a time of preparation for adult work roles  Teens evaluate differences in school performance in regard to future success  Educational decisions are numerous and consequences of decisions are serious

5. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 5 What Motivates Adolescents to Achieve?  Need for achievement  Extent to which an individual strives for success and is intrinsically motivated to perform well  Teens with high need for achievement have authoritative parents who have encouraged success and:  Set high performance standards  Rewarded achievement success during childhood  Encouraged autonomy and independence

6. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 6 What Motivates Adolescents to Achieve?  Fear of failure  Often manifested by feelings of anxiety  Interferes with successful performance  Interacts with adolescents’ need for achievement  Underachievers  Have weak need for achievement and high fear of failure  Tend to avoid and dread challenging situations  Grades are lower than expected based on ability  Self-handicapping strategies

7. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 7 Why Are Beliefs Important for Achievement?  Adolescents’ beliefs about their abilities influence their actual achievement, which, in turn, shapes their beliefs about their abilities

8. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 8 Why Are Beliefs Important for Achievement?  Two types of motivation are affected by adolescents’ beliefs about their abilities:  Intrinsic motivation  Strive to achieve because of the internal pleasure they get out of learning and mastering the material  Extrinsic motivation  Strive to achieve because of external rewards or punishment for performance

9. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 9 Why Are Beliefs Important for Achievement?  Stereotype Threat (Claude Steele)  Students’ beliefs about their abilities, and their subsequent performance can be affected by situational factors  Telling ethnic minorities or females that their group typically does poorly on a certain kind of test results in lower scores on that test

10. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 10 Why Are Beliefs Important for Achievement?  Three factors interact to predict students’ behavior in school  Belief that intelligence is fixed or malleable  Intrinsic or extrinsic orientation  Sense of self-efficacy  Achievement Attributions  Explanations students give for their success or failure  Learned helplessness is the belief that failure is inevitable

11. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 11 Does the Home Environment Influence Achievement?  Despite the importance of school environment, aspects of the home are better predictors of academic achievement:  Parents’ values and expectations  Parents’ general approach to parenting  Quality of the home environment provided (cultural capital, social capital)

12. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 12 How Do Friends Influence Achievement?  Friends are the most potent influence on adolescents’ day-to-day school behaviors such as doing homework and exerting effort in class  Friends do not always undermine success  Having friends who earn high grades and aspire to further education appears to enhance adolescents’ achievement  Typically, peer influences on achievement in the United States are far more negative than positive  By middle school, adolescents are increasingly worried about their friends’ reactions to school success  Students did not want their classmates to know that they worked hard in school, even though they knew it would be helpful to convey this fact to their teachers

13. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 13 What Is Educational Achievement?  Educational achievement is defined in three ways  School performance (grades earned)  Academic achievement (performance on standardized tests)  Educational attainment (years of schooling completed)

14. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 14 How Does SES Affect Educational Achievement?  Compared to lower-class peers, middle-class adolescents:  Score higher on basic tests of academic skills  Earn higher grades in school  Complete more years of schooling  Reasons for worse school performance of poor youth?  They begin school with a distinct academic disadvantage (scoring lower on tests of basic skills)  Genetic (lower IQ) and environmental (less cultural and social capital) disadvantages

15. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 15 Are There Ethnic Differences in Educational Achievement?  African-American and Hispanic- American students achieve less than white students  Educational achievements of all groups lag behind Asian-American students  Many Asian American adolescents believe that the only way to succeed in mainstream American society is through educational achievement  Sense of obligation to parents does not seem to predict school achievement Insert DAL photo

16. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 16 Are There Ethnic Differences in Educational Achievement?  Asian Americans’ success may be because they:  are intrinsically motivated  spend more time on homework  spend less time watching TV and socializing  Contrary to popular belief, Asian- American students:  Are not subject to greater anxiety, depression, or stress  Report more positive moods when studying than other groups Insert DAL photo

17. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 17 Has Educational Achievement Changed Over Time?  Trends in academic achievement (what students know) have not paralleled trends in educational attainment  Students stay in school longer but are not learning more

18. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 18 Has Educational Achievement Changed Over Time?  American students fare poorly in international comparisons, despite the fact that spending on education in the United States is among the world's highest  Reasons given for poor achievement in the United States  Teachers aren’t spending enough time on basic instruction  Textbooks have become less challenging  Parents do not encourage academic pursuits at home  Students choose their own classes  Grade inflation – good grades without hard work

19. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 19 Dropping Out of High School  National dropout rate has remained ~25% since 1970s  Hispanic Americans drop out at more than twice the rate of white or African Americans  Dropping out is the culmination of a long process (repeated academic failure and alienation from school)  Interventions that focus on guided discussions of options are promising

20. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 20 How Do Adolescents Develop Occupational Plans?  Super’s Theory  Occupational plans develop in stages  Crystallization (ages 14 to 18)  Individuals begin to formulate ideas about appropriate work  Specification (ages 18 to 21)  Recognizes the need to specify vocational interests  Begins to seek appropriate information to do this  Involves an integration of influences from one’s past with one’s hopes for the future  Labor force changes have pushed this process back to later ages – now crystallization may begin in late college years and specification not until mid-20s

21. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 21 What Influences Occupational Plans?  John Holland’s perspective: The role of personality  Self-Directed Search  Work Values  The different sort of rewards individuals seek from their work  Contemporary adolescents have unrealistic and overly ambitious ideas about these rewards