Mindfulness and Motivational Conflict: Discovering the Diagnostic Function of Feeling Torn

in Ostafin, Brian; Robinson, Michael; Meier, Brian (Eds.) The Handbook of Mindfulness and Self-Regulation: Cognitive Neuroscience, Social Personality, Clinical, and Applied Perspectives (in press)

When viewed from a self-regulation perspective, it is tempting to see motivational conflict as something inherently negative and dysfunctional, and hence, something that should be avoided or immediately ... [more ▼]

When viewed from a self-regulation perspective, it is tempting to see motivational conflict as something inherently negative and dysfunctional, and hence, something that should be avoided or immediately resolved. In the present contribution, we argue that experiences of motivational conflict, such as feeling that you want to do something else or that you should be doing something else, can be an important source for self-regulation, and as such can trigger processes of self-insight (e.g., What do I authentically value?). Heightened self-insight may then eventually increase an individual’s potential to proactively shape one’s life for the better, for example, by engaging in more autonomously-motivated behavior. We discuss how being mindful may contribute to this form of self-regulation. We also discuss the role of motivational conflict and its mindful processing for identity development in adolescent and emerging adulthood, when individuals are about to discover who they are and to decide who they want to be. [less ▲]

European Public School Report 2023: Preliminary results on student population, educational trajectories, mathematics achievement, and stakeholder perceptions

Report (2023)

• Luxembourg is a highly diverse country in terms of the socioeconomic, sociocultural, and linguistic composition of its population. This diversity is reflected in the national education system with an ... [more ▼]

• Luxembourg is a highly diverse country in terms of the socioeconomic, sociocultural, and linguistic composition of its population. This diversity is reflected in the national education system with an increasing share of students speaking a language other than Luxembourgish and/or German at home. In order to deal more adequately with the increasing language diversity of the student population and to counter educational inequalities that presumably result (at least in part) from a curriculum that places high language expectations on a growing number of students, the Luxembourgish government has broadened the educational offer by introducing European public schools (EPS). These schools follow the European curriculum and allow students to select one main language of instruction among the offered language sections (i.e., German, French, and English). • By combining data from different sources (e.g., administrative student data, expert interviews with stakeholders, achievement scores in mathematics from the Luxembourg School Monitoring Programme “Épreuves Standardisées” - ÉpStan), the present report offers preliminary results on EPS in Luxembourg. They consist of (1) the societal demand for EPS; (2) the composition of the student population in EPS; (3) the perception of EPS by school management teams and parents, and tangible education outcomes in the form of (4) educational trajectories; and (5) academic achievement in mathematics among EPS students compared to their peers in schools following the Luxembourgish curriculum. Described below are the key preliminary findings for each of these aspects: (1) Since 2016, a total of six EPS have opened in different locations across Luxembourg and the amount of students attending EPS has increased considerably at both primary and secondary school level. With the number of applicants surpassing the number of places currently available in EPS, it can be concluded that there appears to be high demand for EPS. (2) With students having a low socioeconomic status (SES) and/or students speaking Portuguese at home taking up the offer of EPS less frequently than high SES students and/or students speaking French or English at home, the student population in EPS differs from the student population in schools following the Luxembourgish curriculum (e.g., nationality, language primarily spoken at home, SES). (3) School management teams and parents report a rather positive perception of EPS, with the extended linguistic offer (i.e., possibility to select a language section) being the main reason why parents select EPS for their child. (4) Looking at the educational trajectories of EPS students, preliminary results offer a tentative indication of EPS students showing less school delay than their peers in school following the Luxembourgish curriculum and high continuity in their educational trajectories (i.e., the vast majority of students remains in EPS instead of changing curriculum). (5) With regard to achievement in mathematics at primary school level, the present report indicates that students in EPS perform better than their peers in schools following the Luxembourgish curriculum. At secondary school level, EPS students perform better than their peers in Enseignement secondaire général - voie d'orientation (ESG) and in Enseignement secondaire général - voie de préparation (ESG-VP), while staying below the performance of Enseignement secondaire classique (ESC) students. Although low SES students or Portuguese speaking students in EPS show better achievement scores than their respective peers in schools following the Luxembourgish curriculum it is not yet possible to draw strong conclusions based on these preliminary findings as these student groups currently take up the EPS offer less frequently than their peers considered as advantaged in the context of schooling. Their number is currently too small to allow more robust and in-depth statistical analyses. • The present report’s findings, especially regarding the tangible educational student outcomes, however, must be considered as tentative due to important methodological limitations. Indeed, the small numbers of students in EPS, particularly so for student groups with specific background characteristics (e.g., low SES students, Portuguese speaking students), do not allow separate analyses based on language section, for example. Thus any identified pattern could be sensitive to the inclusion or exclusion of outliers (e.g., students with particularly high or low ÉpStan scores). In addition, the comprehensive EPS school system at secondary school level (i.e., common track) is compared to the ability-based tracked school system of schools following the Luxembourgish curriculum, which limits the interpretability of secondary school data. Regarding the academic achievement tasks in mathematics, it should be noted that they were developed using education standards of the Luxembourgish curriculum. It is thus possible that achievement was underestimated for EPS students (e.g., assessment of mathematical concepts that have not yet been introduced in EPS). To this date, the ÉpStan administered in EPS only assessed academic achievement in mathematics for which a bigger overlap between curricula is assumed than for language subjects (e.g., German, French). Current psychometric shortcomings (e.g., different timepoints of language introduction within the language section in EPS, task development, comparability of tasks) do not yet allow to assess academic achievement in language subjects. • Considering that the ÉpStan do not currently include a measure that operationalises the learning environment, the present report is unable to draw any conclusions regarding which EPS aspect contributes decisively in explaining the observed differences in educational outcomes. Nevertheless, three potential explanations are presented for further exploration: better linguistic fit in EPS (i.e., students learning to read and write in their native or a related language), structural differences between school offers (e.g., primary and secondary education within one institution, the institutionalized quality assurance and flexibility in teacher recruitment in EPS), and the differences in the composition of the student population (i.e., lower uptake rate of the EPS offer by low SES students and Portuguese speaking students). • The finding that low SES students and Portuguese speaking students take up the EPS offer less frequently than their high SES peers and French or English speaking students, and that the EPS student population differs from the student population in schools following the Luxembourgish curriculum, could potentially result out of three main hurdles: namely (1) the application of selection criteria considering that the demand for EPS is surpassing the number of available places (i.e., the linguistic and/or academic profile of applying students is taken into consideration); (2) lacking system knowledge regarding the characteristics of Luxembourg’s education system among all actors involved in education (which makes it difficult to take informed decisions on a student’s education); and (3) potential organizational challenges that hamper the uptake of the EPS offer (e.g., geographical location of the EPS). • In light of the tentative result that students in EPS show better educational outcomes than many of their peers in schools following the Luxembourgish curriculum, two main implications for educational policy can be deduced. First, the student composition of EPS could be diversified in a targeted manner. This could be achieved, for example, by a) encouraging EPS to target student groups considered as disadvantaged in the context of schooling (e.g., low SES students) more effectively, and by b) fostering an encompassing system knowledge (e.g., characteristics, similarities and differences of the two school offers) among all actors involved in education (e.g., teachers, parents, educational advisors, school psychologists) to allow parents to take an informed decision on their child’s education. A second implication would be to introduce certain characteristics of EPS in schools following the Luxembourgish curriculum (e.g., extending the linguistic offer as in the French literacy acquisition pilot project currently implemented in four C2.1 classes). • By progressively integrating EPS into the well-established Luxembourg School Monitoring Programme, the ÉpStan will allow for a more in-depth analysis of potential educational outcome differences between EPS and schools following the Luxembourgish in the future. With the aim of providing reliable data for evidence-based policy making in the field of education, the results from the ÉpStan could in turn be used for the creation of school offers in which all students can make use of their full academic potential irrespective of their individual background characteristics (e.g., SES, language background). [less ▲]

Conclusion and Implications

in European Public School Report 2023: Preliminary Results on Student Population, Educational Trajectories, Mathematics Achievement, and Stakeholder Perceptions (2023)

Using Whole Trait Theory to unite trait and state mindfulness

in Journal of Research in Personality (2023), 104

Mindfulness has been studied as a momentary state and as an enduring trait, yet little research has reconciled these accounts. We draw from Whole Trait Theory (WTT) to conceptualize (the descriptive side ... [more ▼]

Mindfulness has been studied as a momentary state and as an enduring trait, yet little research has reconciled these accounts. We draw from Whole Trait Theory (WTT) to conceptualize (the descriptive side of) trait mindfulness as a person-specific density distribution of mindful states. In preregistered secondary analyses of three samples – daily diaries with adolescents (1,505 observations) and experience sampling with undergraduates (1,889 and 3,962 observations) – we examined density distributions of mindful awareness and mindful nonjudgment states. Consistent with WTT, mindful states (a) fluctuated considerably within persons and across contexts, and (b) density distributions of these states were stable over time. WTT offers precision to the construct of trait mindfulness while emphasizing its sensitivity to contexts and its connection with mindful states. [less ▲]

Context Stability in Habit Building Increases Automaticity and Goal Attainment

in Frontiers in Psychology (2022)

In this paper, we investigate the effects of context stability on automaticity and goal attainment in intentional habit building. We used hierarchical growth curve modeling and multilevel mediation to ... [more ▼]

In this paper, we investigate the effects of context stability on automaticity and goal attainment in intentional habit building. We used hierarchical growth curve modeling and multilevel mediation to test our hypotheses on two datasets. In Study 1, N = 95 university students (N = 2,482 habit repetitions) built new study habits over a period of 6 weeks with manipulated context stability. One group was instructed to constantly vary the context of their habit repetitions by changing rooms and times and the other group was instructed to keep the context of habit performance stable. In Study 2, N = 308 habits (N = 2,368 habit repetitions) from N = 218 users of a published habit building app were analyzed without manipulating but measuring context stability. We found the same pattern in both datasets: Context stability predicted more automaticity and higher habit repetition goal attainment. We also found that the effect of context stability on habit repetition goal attainment was partially mediated by automaticity in both datasets. These results show that context does not only act as a trigger for habit instigation but also has an ongoing effect on habit execution. [less ▲]

From self-concept to -knowledge to -regulation: A proposal based on students’ domain-specific academic self-concepts and achievements

Speeches/Talks (2022)

We initially tested whether besides possessing a positive self-concept, possessing an accurate self-concept has an incremental effect on students’ school adaptation. As self-knowledge index, we calculated ... [more ▼]

We initially tested whether besides possessing a positive self-concept, possessing an accurate self-concept has an incremental effect on students’ school adaptation. As self-knowledge index, we calculated ipsative profile correlations between 9th grade students’ academic self-concepts (i.e., how well students think they do) in the domains Math, German, and French and their respective achievement test scores in these domains (i.e., how well students actually do). We then related students’ self-knowledge to their general performance across these tests, their school satisfaction, and their perceived quality of the teacher-student relationship, assuming that accurate self-concepts lay the foundation for adaptive self-regulation processes (e.g., building on strengths and remedying or accepting weaknesses). In a first sample (N = 6279), we found that self-knowledge explained an incremental amount of variance in school adaptation above and beyond students’ general and domain-specific self-concepts in multiple regression analyses. The better aligned students’ self-concept profile was with their actual achievement profile, the better their performance across these domains, the more satisfied students were with schooling, and the better their relationship with their teachers. Except for school satisfaction, these findings were replicated in another cohort of 9th grade students (N = 6493), and they remained robust when we used rang-correlation instead of Pearson-correlation to derive our self-knowledge index. Notably, both indices seemed largely independent from students’ self-concepts and, on average, students seem to better “know” about their academic abilities compared to other aspects of their personality. We discuss necessary improvements to further substantiate the adaptive role of self-knowledge in self-regulation. [less ▲]

The quizzing effect depends on hope of success and can be optimized by cognitive load-based adaptation

in Learning and Instruction (2022), 77(online first), 101526

It is well established that quizzing fosters learning. However, some gaps in the literature relating to the fit of quizzing to learner characteristics and learner perceptions during quizzing still need to ... [more ▼]

It is well established that quizzing fosters learning. However, some gaps in the literature relating to the fit of quizzing to learner characteristics and learner perceptions during quizzing still need to be addressed. The present study focuses on two of these aspects: achievement motives and perceptions of cognitive load. First, quizzing entails that learners’ performance is judged against some standard of excellence. This might make it appealing and effective for learners with high hope of success and low fear of failure in particular. Second, it is an open question whether providing quiz questions that are adapted to learners’ perceived level of cognitive load during quizzing would be beneficial. To address these questions, we randomly assigned learners to either non-adaptive quizzing, adaptive quizzing, or note-taking. We found that quizzing benefits concerning learning outcomes were moderated by hope of success. Furthermore, the adaptation via cognitive load ratings substantially increased the quizzing effect. [less ▲]

Adaptive Practice Quizzing in a University Lecture: A Pre-Registered Field Experiment

in Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition (2021)

Providing quiz questions has emerged as a powerful means to support learning. However, it is still unclear whether adaptive practice quizzing will enhance beneficial effects in authentic contexts. To ... [more ▼]

Providing quiz questions has emerged as a powerful means to support learning. However, it is still unclear whether adaptive practice quizzing will enhance beneficial effects in authentic contexts. To address this question, university students (N = 188; n = 155 female) were randomly assigned to employ either adaptive practice quizzing, nonadaptive practice quizzing, or note-taking following three consecutive sessions of a standard psychology university lecture for undergraduate pre-service teachers. In the adaptive practice quizzing condition, quiz questions were adapted to learners’ expertise via cognitive demand ratings, whereas in the non-adaptive condition quiz questions followed a fixed sequence. Students in the adaptive practice quizzing condition outperformed those in the nonadaptive condition after a two-week delay, but not after a one-week delay. Exploratory mediation analyses show that performance on the quiz questions during the learning phase seems to be partly responsible for this effect. [less ▲]

Interfered by unaccomplished academic tasks: The role of success expectations

in Learning and Motivation (2021), 76

Characteristics of concurring action alternatives can influence the experience and behavior in a focal action. In two scenario studies we investigated the role of success expectancies of an unaccomplished ... [more ▼]

Characteristics of concurring action alternatives can influence the experience and behavior in a focal action. In two scenario studies we investigated the role of success expectancies of an unaccomplished academic task as a relevant motivational characteristic to explain the experience and behavior during a focal leisure activity. Students imagined themselves in scenarios which were experimentally manipulated by varying the presence of a motivational conflict and the description of the concurring action. They anticipated what they would experience in these situations. Results indicate that students experience more impairments in situations of motivational conflict than when there is no conflict. Even more important, when success expectancies for the unaccomplished academic task were described as low, the anticipated impairments were higher than when expectations were described as high. Influencing expectations is discussed as one starting point for handling negative consequences of motivational conflicts due to academic tasks. [less ▲]

Mindfulness and Academic Emotions: A Field Study During a Lecture

in Learning and Individual Differences (2021)

The aim of the present study was to examine whether mindfulness and academic emotions are beneficially related in specific learning situations. For that purpose, we conducted a field study during two ... [more ▼]

The aim of the present study was to examine whether mindfulness and academic emotions are beneficially related in specific learning situations. For that purpose, we conducted a field study during two lecture sessions in which we measured momentary mindfulness and academic emotions of N = 105 university students repeatedly, resulting in N = 551 measurements. As expected, multilevel analyses indicated that students who were more mindful during the lecture felt more positive and less negative activating emotions, better valence, and were more optimistic about an upcoming exam. In contrast to our hypotheses, trait mindfulness was not found to be related to current academic emotions. Multilevel mediation analyses point towards an indirect effect of trait mindfulness via momentary mindfulness during the lecture sessions. These findings suggest that mindfulness is of high relevance to academic emotions which in turn are important for learning, achievement, and well-being. [less ▲]