Secondary School Students in Singapore.

by

Chong Wan Har

National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore,

Ian D. Smith

University of Sydney,

and

Lim Kam Ming

National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Correspondence address: K. M. Lim at kmlim@nie.edu.sg

In a knowledge-based economy, an effective learner takes greater self-direction, independence and initiative in the learning process and, thus is required to draw on personal motivational resources to manage and perform. This paper seeks to examine the role of self-regulatory processes in relation to academic learning and aspects of social competence that involve the regulation of one's social behaviour. The social aspects of self-regulation are relatively unexplored when compared with the extensive research on academic self-regulation and academic achievement. Developing such regulatory skills is particularly critical for students at the secondary school level when the syllabi are more cognitively demanding and regulation of one's behaviour towards effective learning is increasingly called upon. However, such skill development must be considered within the context of motivational processes such as self-efficacy, self-concept and affiliation-based motives of the students. The role and relevance of these self-belief systems in an "East meets West" cultural context like Singapore is examined in this paper. The relationships between academic and social self-regulation, and the students' self-beliefs will be discussed in the light of findings from a correlational study of some 1300 lower secondary school students in Singapore.

To adapt to this age of information and technological advances, students will have to assume more self-direction and initiative in learning. This process not only allows the individual to draw on personal motivational resources to manage and perform, but also reinstates one's control over learning and life processes, thereby reinforcing antecedents of personal agency. As such, when learning processes are aimed at strengthening self-efficacy, improving self-concept and helping students move toward a more internal locus of control, a better platform is provided for individuals to make lasting changes in their beliefs about learning. This ability to regulate one's learning and motivate oneself towards desired goals is particularly critical at the secondary school level where the syllabi are evolving towards a more cognitively demanding context.

Self-regulatory processes have primarily been linked to the study of academic achievement. Some research has indicated that such processes do not appear to influence academic performance alone (Patrick, 1997). Social competence, which involves skills in social goal setting, problem-solving capabilities, feelings of social support and trust and ability to exercise self-control in the face of social pressure, is found to require the execution of self-regulatory skills, thereby influencing academic outcomes (Wentzel, Weinberger, Ford & Feldman, 1990). Since both academic and social learning share common self-regulatory features, it would appear that promoting the development of either aspect of behaviour should have an impact on the other domain.

Research has also shown that self-regulation can be effective in influencing educational outcomes if an individual has positive beliefs about his ability to negotiate and achieve optimal learning. Self-efficacy has been found to influence students' motivation in regulating cognitive and social processes. Students high in efficacy beliefs are better able to regulate their own learning activities, master difficult learning tasks and influence their academic motivation, interest and achievement performance. Such positive self-beliefs also impact on one's ability to regulate affect in social relations and vulnerability to peer pressure (Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara & Pastorelli, 1996).

While self-efficacy is primarily concerned with "cognitively perceived capability of the self" (Bong & Clark, 1999, p 141) in a specific behavioural domain, self-concept is distinctively focused on cognitive and affective self-descriptions and self-evaluations in more general domains of behaviour. In the educational context, enhancing one's self-concept is critical to balance psychosocial development, particularly for those in adolescent years as they try to ascertain their identities, find meaning in what they are doing, and have a sense of worth in their existence. Western research has consistently shown a positive and significant relationship between academic self-concept and academic achievement (Marsh, 1992). Similarly, there are indications that the positive association may extend to the social domain of functioning (Trusty, Watts, & Lim, 1995).

A small number of cross-cultural studies have suggested that the relationship between self-beliefs in learning, motivation and achievement, and self-regulation is not a straightforward one, suggesting that such beliefs may have greater predictive power in individualistic rather than collective societies, such as many Asian countries. Markus and Kitayama (1991), for instance, have suggested that there are different cultural determinants of achievement in Western and Asian societies. Cheng (1997) in constructing an indigenous self-concept instrument for Hong Kong adolescents - Chinese Adolescent Self-Esteem Scales (CASES) – found support for Shavelson’s hierarchical, multifaceted model in providing a valid structural framework of self-concept for Hong Kong students, but also highlighted the significance and relevance of a family and moral dimension in conceptualizing the Chinese self-concept, underlining the salience of moral and ethical values in the Asian self-construal. Further evidence of the influence in different kinds of cognitive and psychological processes valued across cultures was found by Smith and Chang (1999) in a cross-cultural study involving Singaporean and Australian tertiary students in education and engineering, in which Singaporean students made significantly more reference to a family self-concept in reporting their self-esteem measure than their western counterparts. Specifically, Cheung and Lau (1985) has shown that in the Hong Kong context, higher self-esteem was associated supportive, cohesive families that encourage open communication, greater independency and self-sufficiency, and place greater moral and religious emphasis on values and issues, amongst other adaptive functions.

In Asian societies, academic achievement is a way of honouring the family and is often considered the filial duty of a good son or daughter. Making one's family proud, saving face (Salili, 1995), and avoiding shame or unhappy consequences may be a greater incentive for individual success than a personal sense of achievement. Eaton & Dembo (1997) demonstrated that fear of failure rather than efficacy beliefs elicit a stronger motivation to succeed academically in a group of Asian-American students, whereas Anglo-American students were motivated more by their level of self-efficacy. Similarly, in terms of social behaviour, the Asian emphasis is to conform and "fit in" with others and on the importance of harmonious interdependence with them (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Affiliation-based motives, characterised by being collectivistic and socially oriented in nature, may offer a more useful explanation for Asian students' self-regulatory efforts towards academic achievement and social competence.

This paper, therefore, sets out to examine the role of self-processes in the self-regulatory functioning of lower secondary school students in Singapore. The correlational findings from this paper constitute one aspect of a broader study aimed at examining the motivational, academic, social and self-regulatory variables in academic learning and social outcomes.

A survey questionnaire with the following five sub-scales was administered to a sample of 1304 thirteen-year-old secondary one students. A pilot study (N=684) has validated the various sub-scale items for local use.

1) Academic efficacy (AE) In the context of this study, students were asked to judge their capability to organise or exercise control over their performance, that is, efficacy in schoolwork. Five questions from the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) Post-secondary and Secondary versions (Pintrich & De Groot, 1990) were selected for this sub-scale. The Cronbach alpha internal reliability coefficient obtained for this sub-scale was 0.71.

2) Academic self-regulation (ASR) was measured by the degree to which various cognitive and metacognitive and self-regulatory learning strategies were adopted by students in negotiating their schoolwork. This sub-scale was assessed with the post-secondary version of the MSLQ constructed by Pintrich, Smith, Garcia and McKeachie (1991), and secondary version (Pintrich and De Groot, 1990). The eleven learning strategy items selected were classified into three categories: cognitive, metacognitive and resource management strategies. The Cronbach alpha obtained was 0.78.

3) Social efficacy (SE) measured how well the student assesses his ability to manage interpersonal relationships and responds to group pressure in specific situations. Bandura's Multidimensional Efficacy Scale (Bandura, 1990) was adapted for use in this study. The five questions yielded a Cronbach alpha of 0.58.

4) Social self-regulation (SR) tested the ability to monitor and regulate one's social interactions. The items measured four distinct behavioural domains: beginning social skills, interpersonal effective management of peer relationships, anger management, impulse control, social goal setting and planning (Weinberger, 1991). The Cronbach alpha obtained was 0.71 for the seventeen-item sub-scale.

5) Affiliation-based motivation (AM) Self-perceptions of family influences on academic and social behaviours were measured with a sub-scale constructed by the first author. The first aspect of the sub-scale measured the fear of academic failure that would produce parental disapproval or negative consequences for future employment. The other aspect measured social compliance was seen as behavioural adherance to social rules and role expectations for fear of bringing shame and disgrace to the family. The seven-item sub-scale yielded a Cronbach alpha of 0.78.

6) Self-Concept (SC) The items were taken from Cheng’s (1997) CASES in which self-concept from the intellectual, moral, social, family domains were sampled. The 18-item sub-scale obtained a Cronbach alpha of 0.81.

The pencil and paper self-reported questionnaire used a 4-item Likert scale, with a score of 1 being Not True of Me to 4 being Very True of Me.

1304 thirteen-year-old secondary one students attending the Special, Express, Normal Academic and Normal Technical streams, from six secondary schools were surveyed. Streaming was determined by the students’ national examination results obtained at the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), conducted at the end of six years of primary education in Singapore. Students in the Special and Express streams are expected to complete their secondary education in four years. Students in the Special stream obtained top scores in the examination. Those with low PSLE scores will take the Normal track, completing theirs in five years. 697 boys and 607 girls were sampled. The schools were distributed in the central, eastern and western regions of the island

The questionnaire was administered by the first author during school hours and where necessary, assisted by the form teacher of the class. All testing occurred in March to May 2000.

Table 1 presents the correlations between the various variables.

The mean scores of all motivational and self-regulatory variables are above the scale mid-points, indicating that the students generally reported relatively high levels of functioning in the respective domains. The high mean scores on academic self-regulation and intellectual self-concept are consistent with that found in local research (Chang and Smith, 1999). On the other hand, high mean scores on affiliation-based motives suggest that students generally perceived a higher than average level of fear of academic failure and social compliance towards parental expectations.

(1) Is there a relationship between social and academic self-regulatory processes?

There is a moderately positive correlation between academic and social self-regulation at

r = 0.56 (p < .01). Correlations between various sub-domains measured in both domains also revealed moderate associations in most instances. On the other hand, academic self-regulation and anger management yielded a negative but weak relationship (r = -.14; p < .01). This suggests that higher perceived use of self-regulatory processes is associated with lower anger management scores.

The inter-correlations among motivational beliefs are low to moderately positive, ranging from .28 (between social efficacy and self-concept) to .50 (between affiliation-based motives and self-concept). This is with exception to the relationship with general self-concept, which is a measure of self-esteem. Dimensions of moral, family, intellectual and social self-concepts yielded significantly positive and moderate relations with each other, efficacy beliefs and affiliation-based motives.

Academic efficacy correlates positively and moderately with social efficacy (r = .31 p< .01, but more so with moral self-concept (r = .48, p < .01) than other dimensions of the self-concept construct, accounting for 23% of the variance. Social efficacy displayed the highest associations with moral self-concept (r = .34), and affiliation-based motives (r = .33), but non-significantly with intellectual self-concept (p < .05).

Of the motivational variables, affiliation-based motives appeared to be most closely correlated with family self-concept (r = .59, p < .01) and moral self-concept (r = .46, p < .01).

Correlations between the various motivational and self-regulatory variables were also moderate, ranging from .33 (between social efficacy and academic self-regulation; intellectual self-concept and social self-regulation) to .56 (between social self-regulation and moral self-concept; academic efficacy and academic self-regulation).

Specifically, academic self-regulation was most substantially correlated with academic efficacy (r = .56, p< .01), moral self-concept (r= .54, p < .01), affiliation-based motives (r = .48, p < .01) and intellectual self-concept (r = .47, p < .01).

Social self-regulation was most closely associated with moral self-concept (r = .56), affiliation-based motives (r = .50) and social self-concept (r = .49). Of the five social self-regulatory dimensions measured, social goal setting was found to have consistently moderate and positive correlations with the motivational variables, particularly with moral self-concept (r = .53, p < .01) and affiliation-based motives (r = .49, p < .01).

A statistical forward multiple regression was performed between the motivational variables as independent variables, and academic and social self-regulation as dependent variables.

Academic efficacy accounted for 31% (F (1, 1302) = 585.487) of the unique variance in predicting academic self-regulation. The combination of affiliation-based motives, all domains of self-concept except for the general aspect, and social efficacy accounted for the remaining 15%.

Moral self-concept accounted for 31% (F (1, 1302) =588.185) of the unique variance in the prediction of social self-regulation. Affiliation-based motives, social and general self-concepts, social and academic efficacy accounted for the remaining 16%.

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

The results of this study highlight the association between academic and social self-regulatory processes, and students' beliefs about their academic and social competence. The ability to monitor and regulate one's social interactions appears to share similarities with the self-regulation of academic work, suggesting "an underlying process that is shared for an individual's self-regulation of academic and social engagement "(Patrick, 1997, p. 209). Dimensions of behaviour measured in the two competencies appeared to have tapped several underlying cognitive and metacognitive processes that contribute to both effective academic and social self-regulatory functioning. Educators should, therefore, pay closer attention to students' social development and appreciate the dual function of the self-regulatory process in facilitating learning and successful engagement in the classroom.

The study also provides further support to motivational research about the mediating role of students' self-beliefs in self-regulatory processes. Academic efficacy and moral self-concept accounted for substantial unique variance in the prediction of academic and social self-regulation respectively. The moderate correlations between efficacy beliefs, specific domains of self-concept and affiliation-based motives suggest that successful regulation of academic work and social competence may require a combination of these factors at work. In particular, it underlines the salient role of family and moral values in students’ construal of themselves and in influencing their motivation (Cheng, 1997). This study therefore contributes to the existing evidence (Cheng, 1997; Smith & Chang, 1999) to suggest that motivational beliefs do elicit different responses in different cultural contexts.

The significant association between academic efficacy in schoolwork and social efficacy to be effective with peers further underlines the importance for educators to regard students' social relationships more seriously, emphasizing that school is more than being about academic achievement (Patrick, 1997; Wentzel, Weinberger, Ford & Feldman, 1990). An implication arising from this finding to the low ability classroom is that teachers may need to adopt instructional and management practices that encourage and support the students' perceived social efficacy as a means to enhance self-regulatory capability and optimize learning outcomes. These practices could include encouraging cooperation and participation from all students, providing opportunities for positive interactions through teamwork and underlining the role of self in successful learning.

CONCLUSION

This research underscores the importance of appreciating different kinds of cognitive and psychological processes that may be valued across cultures and shows promising results on the relationships between academic and social processes in thirteen-year-old students' learning. In particular, it has highlighted that, besides advocating direct strategies for enhancing academic performance and achievement motivation, teacher structuring of related social processes in the school and classroom could further support such outcomes. Similarly, an awareness of inhibitory motivational forces (as with the high level of fear of academic failure and social compliance towards parental expectations) should be helpful to educators in considering appropriate motivational strategies to counter learning blocks. At the same time, this research provides validation of the usefulness of motivational constructs conceptualized in the Western context in an "East meets West" Asian context like Singapore. While a fear for academic failure may be appropriate in motivating students and enhancing competence, facilitating students’ efficacy beliefs in successful school engagement should be helpful in complementing any excessive reliance on such affiliation-based motives in learning. Further investigative research considering the positive use of self-beliefs to facilitate motivation and learning in the Singapore educational context should be worthwhile.

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3. Moral SC .47 -.02 .48 .43 .46 .54 .56

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N=1304.

* Correlation significant at .05 level (2-tailed)

All other correlations significant at .01 level (2-tailed)