Children's Achievement Expectations as a Function of Social Reinforcement, Sex of S, and Test Anxiety

24 8- and 9-year-old children of each sex and at low and high levels of anxiety as measured by the Test Anxiety Scale for Children (N = 96) were divided equally into 6 experimental groups according to the type of pretraining (success, failure, or no pretraining experience) and reinforcement conditio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Child development 1969-06, Vol.40 (2), p.547-557
Main Authors: Hill, Kennedy T., Dusek, Jerome B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Achievement
Adults
Analysis of variance
Anxiety
Child
Children
Defensiveness
Educational Measurement
Elementary school students
Female
Humans
Male
Puzzles
Reinforcement, Social
Set (Psychology)
Sex Factors
Sex linked differences
Social reinforcement
Test anxiety
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Summary:24 8- and 9-year-old children of each sex and at low and high levels of anxiety as measured by the Test Anxiety Scale for Children (N = 96) were divided equally into 6 experimental groups according to the type of pretraining (success, failure, or no pretraining experience) and reinforcement condition (social reinforcement or nonreinforcement from 1 of 2 males) in a subsequent angle-matching task. The Ss' achievement expectations were assessed prior to and following the experimental task. Major results were: (a) Following social reinforcement, expectations increased, the effect being stronger for girls than boys. (b) Following nonreinforcement, achievement expectations remained stable for both sexes. (c) Initial achievement expectations correlated negatively with test anxiety for girls. (d) Change in achievement expectation correlated positively with test anxiety for boys in the social reinforcement condition. The sex difference in the facilitating effects of social reinforcement on achievement expectations was considered as being part of a possible Sex of S by Sex of E interaction. It is suggested that sex differences in learning and cognition may be greater than has been recognized.
ISSN:0009-3920
1467-8624
DOI:10.2307/1127422