Believing that difficulty signals importance improves school outcomes by bolstering academic possible identities, a recursive analysis.

ABSTRACT: Identity-based motivation theory predicts that how sure students are of attaining their academic possible identities (possible identity certainty) interacts recursively with the inferences they make thinking about schoolwork feels hard-this is important for me (difficulty-as-importance) and this is just not for me (difficulty-as-impossibility). Recursivity implies bidirectionality across time points. To date, studies primarily from the U.S. and China only document a shift up or down from one time to a second time. We address this method gap with a three-time-point, two-month study during a secondary school transition (Chinese students N = 818, Mage = 12, 44% female). We obtained prior grades (T0) and placement test scores (T1+). Students filled out questionnaires at critical junctures: a m

SUBMITTER: Burbidge A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11493252 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature