THE ALLEVIATION OF LEARNED HELPLESSNESS IN POOR READERS THROUGH MODELED OPTIMISM AND COMPETENCY TRAINING: A SELF-EFFICACY ANALYSIS.
Item
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Title
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THE ALLEVIATION OF LEARNED HELPLESSNESS IN POOR READERS THROUGH MODELED OPTIMISM AND COMPETENCY TRAINING: A SELF-EFFICACY ANALYSIS.
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Identifier
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AAI8312375
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identifier
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8312375
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Creator
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STEKEL, KAREN WARD.
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Contributor
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Barry J. Zimmerman
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Date
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1983
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Education, Educational Psychology
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Abstract
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The present study examined several variables that were hypothesized to be related to the poor reading performance of sixty, fourth- and fifth-grade children according to a social learning theory. Two variables were identified for study: first, children's lack of reading competence and second, their negative self-efficacy beliefs. It is well known that these poor readers' lack of basic skills leads to repeated failure experiences. These experiences have been found in prior research to foster feelings of helplessness in reading. Self-efficacy theory specifies several points of intervention in this failure-helplessness cycle. Direct and vicarious treatments have been developed by social learning theorists to improve children's motivation and performance. These changes are assumed to come about because of increases in children's self-efficacy.;In the present research, children were taught a semantic rule for affix use. Competency training was carried out through direct instruction on related stem words and affixes. Self-efficacy was manipulated through exposure to an optimistic or pessimistic model learning the same task. It was found that children receiving competency training outperformed their untrained peers on transfer measures of affix use. These results were also evident during transfer testing after a one day delay. The children exposed to the optimistic model made higher self-efficacy judgments than those who saw the pessimistic model during both transfer and delayed transfer testing; however, only the difference during the delayed transfer phase achieved statistical significance. The relationship between self-efficacy measures and task performance was unexpectedly found to be low. This outcome was suggested to be due to inflated self-efficacy judgments by the children. The self-efficacy ratings were found to vary based on the successfulness of the children's performance however. These findings were discussed in the context of self-efficacy theory and prior research. Limitations of the present study were noted and suggestions for future research were offered. Implications for education were described.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Educational Psychology
