I read the above-mentioned journal with great interest because it concerns teenagers and their inclinations in the classroom. As a secondary school teacher, I sometimes wonder about why some adolescents who are very conscientious and well-behaved in Sec 1 can end up being unmotivated students who usually have academic and behavioural issue as well as social relationships problems one they reach Sec 4. It was mentioned in the journal that “for many children, early adolescence marks the beginning of a downward trend in academic”.
This journal by Allison M. Ryan and Helen Patrick addresses those questions I had. It is interesting that there are many researches done to investigate adolescent and their development in terms of cognitive, social, emotional and psychosocial. It is also mentioned that “Optimal development for adolescents will occur in an educational context that is appropriately matched to their developmental needs.”
What are the needs of these teenagers? The author wrote that “adolescents have increased desire for autonomy, increased need for positive and supportive relationships with both peers and non-parental adults and increased self-consciousness and sensitivity regarding social comparisons.”
I realised that teachers have a vital role to play in the developments of these teenagers. Teachers have to understand that the students’ motivation, encouragement, and ultimately achievement are dependent on the fulfillment of their personal needs. This reminds me back to the big picture of learning environment showed to the class during our first session: The relationships between LE, Personal Needs, Human Behaviour and the Person itself.
Therefore, it is the teacher’s role to create a social climate within the classroom environment that is able to support students’ motivation, engagement and learning.
Questions:
The research uses a 5-point Likert scale employing a combined scale based on the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Survey (PALS) and Classroom Environment Scale (Moos & Tricket), 1974.
Sample items include “If my math teacher gets annoyed with me, I can usually work it out” and “I find it hard to get along with my math teacher” (reversed item). There is also a mention of another pair of ‘reversed’ items.
Why is there a need to create or administer items that are repeated in a reverse way?
From my understanding, items are already checked on their validity and reliability. In reality, is there a need to ensure the consistency of students answers?
11 years ago
1 comment:
Why is there a need to create or administer items that are repeated in a reverse way?
From my understanding, we need to do so that we can be more sure that respondents who gave the same response for both questions really mean what they say.
I have personally, as well as had friend, who sat for psychometric tests in which they ask you questions like whether you have any suicidal tendencies and they keep repeating this question. Some of us who deliberately answered yes still made it through to the next round of selections, so it really depends on the design and purpose of the survey.
In addition, I would like to comment about meeting students' personal needs first before they can learn. My take is that it is actually a dynamic two-way relationship as students who learn well will most certainly have most of their personal needs met in class, no?
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