Browsing by Author "Schreck, Salli"

The aim of the present study was to examine changes in pupils' performance in the cross-curricular learning-to-learn (LTL) assessment during the follow-up period between the sixth and ninth grade in 2013-2016. Furthermore, the aim was to examine how other variables explain the ninth-graders' assessed task-performance. According to Finnish LTL research tradition the learning-to-learn skills were defined as cognitive competences and learning-related attitudes. The present study's data is a part of longitudinal data drawn from a nine-year LTL study in Helsinki in 2007-2016, conducted by the Centre for Educational Assessment at the University of Helsinki. The aim of the study was to examine how pupils' (N = 952) cognitive competences, learning-related self-concepts and motivational beliefs developed during the lower secondary school. Additionally, the differences between sexes and also between three groups based on pupils' GPA were examined. The data was analyzed statistically: the comparisons were made by traditional methods and the path modelling was used to examine the other variables' effects on the ninth graders' task-performance. The study showed that during the lower secondary school the pupils improved their task-performance in LTL assessment 5 percentage units, on average. The effect size (Cohen d) of the improvement for the whole sample in all assessed cognitive tasks was 0.33. The development of the reasoning skills varied a bit according to the sixth grade's school achievement: pupils with weak GPA seemed to improve more than others. The cognitive competences of boys and girls instead developed similarly. The learning-related attitudes declined slightly during the lower secondary school but were still relatively positive in the end of the ninth grade. The sixth grade's task-performance proved to be the strongest predictor of the ninth grade's task-performance. The learning-related self-concept had a small independent effect on the test score. In the present study the sex did not have independent effect on the test score; nevertheless, it was connected to school grades (girls were slightly better) and to the self-concept (boys were slightly better). GPA, the earlier task-performance, sex and the learning-related self-concept together explained 50 percent of the share of accounted for variance in ninth graders' cognitive competences.