Shaping individual competitiveness: The role of discipline, parental expectations, and participation in extracurricular activities

Purpose

This research seeks to extend previous research into student discipline and competitiveness, at the macro or national level, to the micro or individual level. The role of factors with the potential to impact individual competitiveness, namely the expectations of the mother and the father, the importance of school discipline played in primary and secondary schools, and past participation in sport and music were examined.

Design/methodology/approach

Data from a sample of current university students and recent graduates representing Western (the United States) and Asian regions (South Korea and China) were analysed using multiple regressions to establish the explanatory power of independent variables in the competitiveness model, including testing for moderation effects of country of birth.

Results

The study found that personal discipline is significantly associated with individual competitiveness. The importance placed on discipline in primary schools was found to predict individual competitiveness as were parents' expectations, yet with nuances in terms of maternal and paternal expectations. Surprisingly, neither participation in music nor discipline at secondary school was found to significantly associate with individual competitiveness. At the same time, the study did find moderating effects of country of birth and the number of years students played sport in predicting competitiveness.

Originality/value

Guided by the Ecological Systems Theory and the notion of the Pygmalion effect, we develop a framework of factors that shape an individual's competitiveness. The results make several theoretical contributions by establishing new drivers of individual competitiveness, and as such illuminating the importance of discipline during schooling and how parental expectations drive performance. Implications for employers, educational institutions, and parents are outlined and directions for further research are offered.

Communication between Parents and Teachers of Special Education Students: A Small Exploratory Study of Reddit Posts

Communication between teachers and parents is an important research topic in the field of special education. Although this type of communication is fraught with challenges such as conflict and lack of trust, there are also some success factors such as collaborative two-way communication and the use of appropriate technologies to facilitate communication. In this paper, we set out to explore this topic in more depth, by examining the experiences of parents and teachers of special-needs students when it comes to communication. A small exploratory qualitative study of social media posts from Reddit is performed. The aim is to shed light on the experiences of parents and teachers. The findings show that both parts of this dyadic relationship have mixed experiences, but the general sentiment is skewed towards the negative. These findings are discussed in relation to the literature on parent-teacher communication.

The effect of formal statistical courses attitudes on learning outcomes in a cohort of undergraduate dental students

INTRODUCTION

Whilst statistical knowledge is essential for dental students' academic or professional careers, only a few studies have measured the attitudes of these students towards statistics courses. This study aimed to investigate the attitudes of a cohort of dental students towards a formal statistical course and explore the factors that are potentially related to these attitudes.

METHODS

A survey was performed amongst dental students of 2017 entry at Fujian Medical University, China. The questionnaire covers three aspects: demographic characteristics, educational background and attitudes towards formal statistics courses.

RESULTS

A total of 103 dental students enrolled for the survey, and the response rate was 100.0%. 44.7% of dental students had positive attitudes towards formal statistics courses with an overall average of 25.7 (SD = 2.2, out of 30). Students' computer skills, expectations of course achievement, attention in class and learning atmosphere of the class were significantly associated with the attitudes towards formal statistics courses. Moreover, students with positive attitudes experienced a greater improvement in the statistical cognition and application ability of statistical methods after the course than those with negative/neutral attitudes. Additionally, a positive correlation was observed between students' attitudes and achievement in the examination.

CONCLUSION

These results suggest that attitudes are critical to the learning effectiveness in formal statistics courses amongst undergraduate dental students. All the educators involved should monitor the students' attitudes in the teaching process and make effective interventions to improve students' attitudes towards formal statistics courses.

A quantitative study of test anxiety and its influencing factors among medical and dental students

Objective

The study was conducted to assess test anxiety and its influencing factors on medical and dental students.

Methods

A cross-sectional study was conducted among students from three private and public medical and dental colleges in the Punjab province of Pakistan. The survey included statements about the demographic profile of the study participants and used the Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI) by Spielberger.

Results

The study included 680 students with a mean age of 20.93 ± 1.76 years. About half the sample (51.8%) scored high on test anxiety (TAI score > 45), and the mean TAI score was slightly higher for the dental (47.75 ± 11.45) than medical students (46.42 ± 12.79). Female students had a significantly higher mean TAI score (48.45 ± 12.79) than male students (41.85 ± 8.91; p < 0.001). The students from private colleges had a significantly greater test anxiety score (50.15 ± 13.23) than students from public colleges (42.88 ± 9.7; p < 0.001). Students whose parents were graduates from a college or university perceived significantly increased test anxiety than those of parents with no/school education (p < 0.001). A female gender (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) 2.10, 95% CI:1.37, 3.22), being a private college student (AOR 2.88, 95% CI:1.90, 4.38), and having a mother with a college or university education (AOR 2.05, 95% CI: 1.25, 3.35) were significantly associated with high on test anxiety.

Conclusion

In our study cohort, test anxiety was common among medical and dental students. A female gender, being a student from a private college, and having a mother with a high education were significantly associated with high test anxiety. The study findings may guide the development of programs that can reduce students’ test anxiety and potentially improve their education.

Family Socioeconomic Status, Parent Expectations, and a Child's Achievement

This study investigates how a family's socioeconomic status (SES) affects a child's educational achievement and differentiates the direct effects of SES on these experiences from the indirect ones as they are mediated by the school. This distinction is an important one as it is in the latter realm where social policy can have an impact. The data are from a nationally representative sample of children enrolled in kindergarten in the US in the Spring of 2000. The percentage of the parents expecting their child to earn at least a Bachelor's degree rises with family SES. However, the percentage of high-SES parents of low-achieving students expecting their child to earn at least a Bachelor's degree is higher than that for low- and middle-SES parents of high-achieving students. Ordinary least squares regression analyses using a mediation model were used to distinguish direct from indirect effects of the family's SES score on achievement. Unexpectedly, the direct effects are greater than the indirect ones.