Educational Psychology

An International Journal of Experimental Educational Psychology

ISSN: 0144-3410 (Print) 1469-5820 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cedp20

Academic performance and assessment

Gregory Arief D. Liem

To cite this article: Gregory Arief D. Liem (2019) Academic performance and assessment,
Educational Psychology, 39:6, 705-708, DOI: 10.1080/01443410.2019.1625522

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Published online: 17 Jun 2019.

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EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
2019, VOL. 39, NO. 6, 705–708
https://doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2019.1625522

EDITORIAL

Academic performance and assessment

Scholars agree that students’ academic achievement is a ‘net result’ of their cognitive and
non-cognitive attributes (Lee & Shute, 2010; Lee & Stankov, 2016) as well as the sociocul-
tural context in which the learning process takes place (Liem & McInerney, 2018; Liem &
Tan, 2019). The present issue comprises eight papers that look into the extent to which
various cognitive, non-cognitive or psychological, and contextual factors contribute to the
academic achievement of learners with various sociodemographic and sociocultural back-
grounds. In a longitudinal study following Finnish young children from kindergarten to
Grade 2, Kytt€al€a, Kanerva, Munter, and Bjo €rn (2019) provide compelling evidence that,
although the individual progress of working memory skills is relatively stable during this
period of development, verbal and visuospatial aspects of the children’s working memory
develop relatively independently. Further, working memory skills at kindergarten is predict-
ive of academic performance at Grade 2, with the verbal aspect of working memory as a
more powerful predictor than the visuospatial aspect of working memory. Clearly, these
findings suggest that interventions designed to facilitate the development of working
memory or to address poor working memory skills should be done early, even before the
start of primary school.
Structural equation modeling (SEM) or other more specific techniques under this statis-
tical method (e.g. latent mean and path analyses) have indeed been an analytic approach
with growing popularity. This is evidenced in the next four studies with adult-aged learners
in this issue. In a study with undergraduate students in the Dominican Republic, Gutierrez
and Tomas (2019) investigated the relationships between autonomy support, self-efficacy,
school engagement, and three indicators of academic and non-academic wellbeing. Their
SEM shows that the effects of perceived teachers’ autonomy support on life satisfaction,
school satisfaction and academic performance are mediated by self-efficacy and school
engagement. In addition to its indirect effects, perceived teachers’ autonomy support also
directly predict life and school satisfaction. Together, not only do the findings support the
key propositions of self-determination theory, but they also highlight the importance of
teaching practices that seriously take students’ perspectives into account and these practi-
ces include ones that consider various student factors such as levels of ability interests, or
learning preferences.
In a study with Canadian undergraduate students, Quinn-Nilas, Kennett, and Maki (2019)
test a hypothesis that academic resourcefulness acts as a mediator in the link between
explanatory styles for failure and academic grades in two groups of students (direct entry
and transfer students). Latent mean analysis shows that, compared with transfer students,
direct entry students are more likely to attribute their academic disappointments to a lack
of effort, bad luck, and a lack of personal ability. Notwithstanding these differences, path
analysis shows a similar attributional process for both groups. In this process, ‘lack of effort’
and ‘task difficulty’ negatively predict academic resourcefulness, whereas ‘not lack of

ß 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

706 EDITORIAL

personal ability’ positively predicts academic resourcefulness which, in turn, predicts aca-
demic grades. Students in both groups, however, do not see ‘bad luck’ as an attribution
factor, which makes them more or less academically resourceful. Beyond the importance of
helping students see an association between effort and achievement, Quinn-Nilas et al.
believe in the value of self-management and academic success courses to coach students
effective strategies to do well in their studies.
In a study of Spanish undergraduates, Vizoso, Arias, and Rodrıguez Perez (2019) investi-
gate if the effects of optimism and coping strategies on academic performance are medi-
ated by academic burnout. Adaptive coping negatively predict emotional exhaustion and
cynicism and positively predicts academic efficacy. In contrast, maladaptive coping posi-
tively predict emotional exhaustion and cynicism and negatively predicts academic efficacy
which in turn positively predicts grade point averages. These findings hold important edu-
cational implications that training programs are designed to equip students with adaptive
coping skills, such as problem-focused coping, cognitive restructuring, seeking emotional
and social support and to help them learn how to manage their academic stress have the
potential to do well in enhancing students’ academic performance.
In view of its documents benefits for academic outcomes, mindfulness practice has now
gained growing attention in educational settings (Bender, Roth, Zielenski, Longo, &
Chermak, 2018). Departing from the more traditional non-cognitive, psychological predic-
tors of performance shown in the previous papers, Elphinstone, Whitehead, Tinker, and
Bates (2019) focus their investigation on the role of mindfulness in fostering academic per-
formance in a sample of Australian undergraduates. Specifically, the study shows that the
effects of mindfulness on final grades are mediated by the extent to which students are
academically engaged, able to adapt, and able to let go (non-attachment). Adaptability
and non-attachment also positively predict academic engagement which, in turn, predicts
academic performance. Given the significant role of non-attachment in this cognitive pro-
cess, Elphinstone et al. believe that the benefits of mindfulness interventions for educa-
tional outcomes may be heightened when students also learn to let go and to adapt their
cognitive, behavioural, and affective resources as they navigate their daily academic lives.
Performance anxiety is a key factor that contributes to student performance. Nu ~ez-
n
Pen~a and Bono (2019) examine the relationships between trait, mathematics, and test anxi-
eties and achievement in a group of Spanish undergraduates who undertake courses with
a high amount of mathematical contents. The study shows that higher levels of mathemat-
ics anxiety are associated with lower course grades, whereas higher levels of test anxiety
are associated with a higher number of errors in a multiple choice test. These results
underscore the importance of interventions seeking to reduce academic anxiety, especially
when students are facing a mathematics test. The authors propose that interventions that
specifically ask students to write down their worries before a test, guide students to do a
brief focused breathing exercise before a test and ask students to change the way they
interpret physically arousing responses they experience during a test situation, could do
well in helping students alleviate their anxiety related to mathematics.
Assessment as learning, which is a type of assessment that involves students to assess
their own learning process and product, is a viable way to promote students’ meta-cogni-
tive skills because students are able to help themselves monitor their learning progress. In
a quasi-experimental design conducted with American high school students, Jax, Ahn, and
Lin-Siegler (2019) seek to test if contrasting case-based instructional supports facilitate the
students’ accuracy in self-assessment and academic performance in physics. The study spe-
cifically compares three groups of students who are provided with (1) content knowledge
and contrasting good and poor solutions, (2) with content knowledge and good solutions
 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 707

only, and (3) with content knowledge only. Students in the contrasting case group improve
the accuracy of their self-assessment, the mastery of their content learning and the devel-
opment of their self-assessment strategies. These researchers believe that designing con-
trasting case examples and providing students with grading rubric – and incorporate them
into instruction – are a promising pedagogical approach to promoting the quality of stu-
dent learning and, in turn, achievement.
The capacity to view social issues with justice is an important cognitive competency for
health or helping professionals (e.g. those in counselling, psychology, nursing, medicine,
and education). In their paper, Marszalek, Barber, and Nilsson (2019) report on the develop-
ment of the Social Issues Advocacy Scale (SIAS) which comprises four subscales: political
awareness, political and social advocacy, confronting discrimination, and social issue aware-
ness. They then use participants’ scores on the SIAS to establish latent profiles of students
differing on their social issues related perspectives as well as to describe the profiles of
SIAS dimensions according to the degrees that students pursue, the fields of study that
students are in and the political orientations that students are affiliated to. Their study
shows that the SIAS is a valid and reliable tool that promises invaluable information for
the training and trainers in nurturing ‘social justice advocacy’ as a core competency that
health and helping professionals are expected to acquire and bring into their respective
professions.
In summary, each of the above studies has not only made a significant contribution to
our understanding about the role of cognitive, non-cognitive, and contextual factors in stu-
dent achievement, but they have also provided a springboard in bringing this area of
research to a greater height. I believe you will enjoy reading this issue and appreciate the
insights from each of the papers!

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

References
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Elphinstone, B., Whitehead, R., Tinker, S. P., & Bates, G. (2019). The academic benefits of ‘letting go’: The con-
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Gregory Arief D. Liem

Psychological Studies, National Institute of Education, Singapore
[email protected]