ERIC Number: EJ1116126
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0022-2194
EISSN: N/A
Reading Achievement, Mastery, and Performance Goal Structures among Students with Learning Disabilities: A Nonlinear Perspective
Sideridis, Georgios D.; Stamovlasis, Dimitrios; Antoniou, Faye
Journal of Learning Disabilities, v49 n6 p631-643 Nov-Dec 2016
The purpose of the present study was to examine the hypothesis that a nonlinear relationship exists between a performance-classroom climate and the reading achievement of adolescent students with learning disabilities (LD). Participants were 62 students with LD (Grades 5-9) from public elementary schools in northern Greece. Classroom climate was assessed using the "Patterns of Adaptive Learning Styles." Achievement in reading was assessed using a normative reading assessment. Data were analyzed by means of catastrophe theory in which the behavior is predicted as a function of two control variables, the asymmetry factor and the bifurcation factor. Reading achievement (word identification) was predicted by students' ability to decode pseudowords (asymmetry variable) and by a mastery or performance motivational discourse (bifurcation factor). Results indicated that in classrooms with a performance goal structure, the cusp model fit the data and accounted for 54% of the variance in real word identification. In this condition, the association between pseudoword reading and real word reading was nonlinear. When a mastery climate was tested as a bifurcation variable, results indicated that its effect was nonsignificant and that instead the linear model fitted the data more adequately. Thus, increases in a classroom's performance motivational discourse are associated with sudden, unpredictable, and discontinued changes in students' reading performance.
Descriptors: Mastery Learning, Reading Achievement, Goal Orientation, Learning Disabilities, Performance, Adolescents, Foreign Countries, Classroom Environment, Predictor Variables, Statistical Analysis, Accuracy, Longitudinal Studies, Decoding (Reading), Elementary School Students, Secondary School Students, Hypothesis Testing, Public Schools, Motivation
SAGE Publications and Hammill Institute on Disabilities. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: http://sagepub.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education; Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Greece
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: Patterns of Adaptive Learning Survey
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A