Rebecca Collie

How to predict if an immigrant student will succeed – and what you can do to help

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Many nations around the world have seen a steep rise in the size of their immigrant
populations, including their immigrant student populations. How educators respond to this
plays a big part in how immigrant students adjust to and thrive at school. There are many
success stories, but there continues to be immigrant students who underachieve, leave school early, and lose critical post-school education opportunities.

Immigrants have and will continue to play a major role in our nation’s social and economic
potential and so there is an ongoing need for research that identifies how to better help
immigrant students navigate the academic challenges facing them and support their academic
outcomes.

Our study

A recent study published in the international journal, Learning and Instruction, sought to do this. It applied the “academic and cultural demands-resources” (ACD-R) framework to investigate the academic, personal, and ethno-cultural factors that impact immigrant students’ academic success at school. The study harnessed the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) (2018) data of immigrant students in Australia and New Zealand, two nations that have traditionally been “settlement countries”, receiving migrants to live, work, and raise their families. PISA is a worldwide study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) of 15-year-old school students’ motivation, engagement, and academic performance in mathematics, science, and reading.

What is the ACD-R Framework?

Before looking at the study and its findings, a brief introduction to the ACD-R framework is in order. The ACD-R framework draws on “job demands-resources” (JD-R) theory and the “academic-demands resources” (AD-R) framework. As an introduction to the ACD-R framework we’ll describe the AD-R framework and refer the reader to other literature explaining the JD-R theory. 

Academic demands are aspects of learning or the learning context that can impede students’ academic development (for example, poor quality instruction, a heavy study load). Academic resources are features of learning or learning contexts that help students attain academic goals and growth (for example, instructional support, positive teacher-student relationship). In the AD-R framework there are also personal demands that are personal attributes acting as barriers to students’ academic development (for example, fear of failure, fixed mindset). There are also personal resources that are personal attributes positively impacting academic outcomes (for example, adaptability, academic buoyancy). 

The ACD-R framework is an extension of the AD-R framework in that it adds ethno-cultural demands and resources to the AD-R framework’s academic and personal demands and resources. Cultural demands are ethno-cultural contextual and/or personal challenges experienced by students from culturally and/or ethnically diverse backgrounds (for example, racism at school) and are associated with negative academic outcomes. Cultural resources are ethno-cultural contextual and/or personal strengths or assets (for example, cultural pride or confidence) that are associated with positive academic outcomes for students from culturally/ethnically diverse backgrounds. 

In the AD-R and ACD-R frameworks, demands and resources can also have buffering and boosting effects. Taking buffering effects as a case in point, there may be some cultural resources that reduce (buffer) the negative impacts of demands. For example, cultural pride (a cultural resource) may reduce the stressful effects of poor-quality teaching (an academic demand). 

Figure 1 shows the ACD-R framework.

Importantly, the AD-R and ACD-R frameworks aim to challenge potential deficit framing of students by locating their personal resources as central to their academic development. They also aim to reallocate the task of academic development from the disproportionate or sole responsibility of students (which risks “blaming the victim”) by emphasising the major role of contextual demands and resources in students’ academic outcomes.

Figure 1. The Academic and Cultural Demands-Resources (ACD-R) Framework

The study participants

Our study comprised 4,886 immigrant students from Australia (3,329) and New Zealand (1,557) who participated in the PISA (2018) survey. The average age of students was 15-16 years. Just over half were first-generation immigrants who had arrived in the country between the ages of 8 and 9 years; the other immigrant students were second generation (born in Australia/New Zealand and whose parents were both born overseas).

Assessing the Demands and Resources Framework

The central measures in the study were online PISA survey items about academic demands and resources, personal demands and resources, cultural demands and resources—as well as academic motivation, academic outcomes, and background attributes.

Academic demands were assessed via ‘learning-disrupted teaching’ (students’ experience of chaotic or disruptive learning and teaching conditions; sample item, “Students don’t listen to what the teacher says”). Academic resources were measured by ‘autonomy-supportive teaching’, ‘instrumental-supportive teaching’, and ‘warmth-supportive teaching’ (students’ experience of teaching that provided autonomy support, instrumental support, and relatedness support or warmth, for example, “The teacher listened to my view on how to do things”).

Personal demands were assessed via ‘fear of failure’ and ‘fixed mindset’ (students’ concerns about failure and their view that competence is relatively fixed, for example, “Your intelligence is something about you that you can’t change very much”). Personal resources were assessed through ‘perspective-taking’ and ‘adaptability’ (students’ ability to see others’ point of view and capacity to adjust in the face of change and uncertainty, for example, “I can change my behavior to meet the needs of new situations”). 

Cultural demands were assessed via ‘discrimination’ (negative orientations to and treatment of people from different ethno-cultural groups in the school, for example, “Teachers … say negative things about people of some cultural groups”). Cultural resources included ‘cultural communication skills’, ‘cultural interest’, and ‘cultural confidence’ (students’ capacity to communicate with other ethno-cultural groups, interest in other ethno-cultural groups, and sense of pride and confidence in their own ethno-cultural group, for example, “I am interested in how people from various cultures see the world”). 

Motivation was assessed via ‘self-efficacy’ and ‘valuing’ (students’ belief in their capacity to attain desired academic outcomes and their belief in the utility and importance of what they learn, for example, “Trying hard at school will help me get a good job”). 

Outcomes comprised two measures of engagement—‘persistence’ and ‘non-attendance’ (perseverance towards task completion and skipping school, for example, “Once I start a task, I persist until it is finished”). Outcomes also included ‘achievement’ (performance on the PISA mathematics, science, reading tests). 

In all our analyses we accounted (controlled) for student background characteristics (such as gender, home socio-economic status) and school characteristics (such as school staff/student ratio, school location).

Our findings

For this sample of immigrant students, our topline findings were that demands predicted lower motivation, resources predicted higher motivation, and motivation predicted positive academic outcomes. 

That said, of particular interest were the specific demands and resources that were salient in the study—and we turn to these findings now.

The first of these was that the cultural demands and resources played a more prominent role in predicting motivation and outcomes than the academic demands and resources. With regard to cultural demands, discrimination was associated with lower valuing, higher non-attendance, and lower achievement. With regard to cultural resources, cultural communication skills and cultural confidence were positively associated with both self-efficacy and valuing, while cultural interest was linked to higher self-efficacy.

For personal demands and resources, adaptability was the factor that stood out. It was associated with higher self-efficacy (in fact, the largest effect size in the study) and valuing. Indeed, adaptability was also the only resource that featured in the ACD-R buffering/boosting process: results indicated that when immigrant students experienced discrimination at school, adaptability was important for boosting their academic valuing in the face of this.

Ideas for action

The ACD-R framework lends well to targeted practical action. Here we focus on the salient cultural and personal demands and resources in the study: discrimination, cultural communication skills, cultural interest, cultural confidence, and adaptability.

To address cultural demands (discrimination), it is important that:

  • Teachers act as positive role models in their interactions with immigrant students, showing respectful and inclusive behaviour that sets an example for other students to emulate, and nurtures an inclusive and harmonious classroom environment 
  • Schools establish clear definitions and guidelines regarding intercultural relations and discriminatory attitudes and behaviours, including helping teachers and students know what racism is, defining racism, having clear processes for reporting racism in the school, and being clear about anti-discrimination legislation that schools and staff are bound by
  • Pre-service teacher training and ongoing professional development includes modules and in-servicing on cultural sensitivity, intercultural communication, and strategies for creating an inclusive classroom environment. 

To promote cultural resources (cultural communication skills, cultural interest, cultural confidence), educators can:

  • Teach oral communication skills, non-verbal and visual communication, active listening, and contextual communication to help immigrant students better express themselves and be better understood
  • Inspire two-way interest among immigrant and non-immigrant students by enhancing intrinsic value, such as by identifying the importance of learning more about someone or something from another culture
  • Affirm students’ cultural identity, meaningfully involve immigrant students’ cultural community at school, and ensure appropriate representation of staff from culturally and/or ethnically diverse backgrounds. 

For adaptability, students can be taught how to: 

  • Adjust cognition by thinking about a new situation in a different way (for example, considering the opportunities a new situation might offer)
  • Modify behaviour by seeking out new or more resources or information (for example., asking a teacher to help with a new situation).

To conclude

Our study of immigrant high school students has demonstrated that including cultural demands and resources alongside academic and personal factors accounts for important aspects of their motivation, engagement, and achievement—and has potential to add to practical directions for optimising immigrant students’ academic outcomes through school and beyond. 

From left to right: Andrew Martin is Scientia Professor, Professor of Educational Psychology, and Co-Chair of the Educational Psychology Research Group in the School of Education at the University of New South Wales, Australia.

He specialises in student motivation, engagement, achievement, and quantitative research methods. Rebecca Collie is Scientia Associate Professor in Educational and Developmental Psychology at the University of NSW. Her research interests focus on motivation and well-being among students and teachers, psychosocial experiences at school, and quantitative research methods. Lars Erik-Malmberg is Professor in Education at the University of Oxford. His research interests are in quantitative research methods and students’ academic development.

It would be so much better if we taught two ways. Here’s why

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From one school year to the next, students experience an escalation in the amount and difficulty of schoolwork. 

Researchers have tried to identify instructional approaches which would  reduce the cognitive burden on students, especially when they are in the early stages of learning—such as when they start a new academic year, a new subject, a new topic, etc. (Martin & Evans, 2018). 

Cognitive load theory (CLT) has outlined major tenets of instruction that can help manage the cognitive burden on students as they learn (Sweller, 2012). Drawing on key ideas under CLT, a recent practice-oriented instructional framework was developed—referred to as “load reduction instruction” (LRI; Martin, 2016). 

LRI is a pedagogical approach seeking to balance explicit instruction with independent learning as appropriate to the learner’s level of knowledge and skill. Through this balance, the cognitive load on students is eased as they learn. 

LRI has been examined in STEM classrooms, with results showing it is associated with positive academic outcomes in mathematics (Martin & Evans, 2018) and in science (Martin et al., 2020). In a new study published in Contemporary Educational Psychology (Martin et al., 2023), we expanded this research to the non-STEM domain by investigating LRI in English classrooms. 

What is load reduction instruction (LRI)?

LRI’s principles have been developed to accommodate students’ working memory and long-term memory (Martin & Evans, 2018). Working memory is a space for information that students are consciously and currently aware of, and where they focus their present attention (Baddeley, 2012). Working memory is very limited in duration and capacity—e.g., a retention of around three to five  items (Cowan, 2010). In contrast, long-term memory has substantial duration and capacity. Long-term memory is where information is encoded so it can be retrieved later (Baddeley, 2012). 

Learning is said to occur when information is moved from working memory and encoded in long-term memory (Sweller, 2012), for later retrieval and use. 

If students’ working memory is over-burdened, they are at risk of misunderstanding the content, falling behind in the lesson, or learning only part of the necessary knowledge or skill. Given this, researchers have suggested that explicit instruction should be applied in the early stages of learning to reduce the cognitive burden on students when they are novices (Mayer, 2004). Then, as students develop the necessary knowledge and skill, they move to more independent learning (Kalyuga, 2007). LRI adopts these guidelines to comprise the following five principles (see Figure 1):

  • Principle #1: Difficulty reduction in the initial stages of learning, as appropriate to the learner’s level of prior knowledge and skill
  • Principle #2: Support and scaffolding
  • Principle #3: Structured practice
  • Principle #4: Feedback-feedforward, combining corrective information with specific improvement-oriented guidance 
  • Principle #5: Guided independent application

Figure 1. Load Reduction Instruction (LRI) Framework – adapted with permission from Martin (2016).

Extending LRI to English

There is a  reason for the early focus on maths for LRI research. Maths is taught in a highly sequenced way, where each task escalates in difficulty. That particular set of attributes was considered a good initial test for the sequenced and scaffolded instructional approaches for which LRI argues.

Following “proof of concept” in mathematics (Martin & Evans, 2018), the focus moved to science because it was considered a highly challenging (cognitively burdensome) subject for many students and also amenable to sequenced linear, structured, and scaffolded instruction—such as LRI (Martin et al., 2020). Both sets of studies confirmed the five principles of LRI in mathematics and science and significant links between LRI and students’ motivation, engagement, and achievement. 

These were promising findings so researchers sought to explore LRI in non-STEM subjects — especially in subjects where challenging tasks can be less well-defined and relatively more unstructured, such as in English, where it can be harder to sequence an escalation in difficulty, than in mathematics, for example. In our new study we explored LRI in English (and mathematics). 

Our Study Methods

Participants were 1,773 high school students and their teachers in 94 English and 93 mathematics classrooms. Students were in years seven to 10, with an average age of 14 years. Nearly 60 per cent of the cohort were boys. Just over 60 per cent of the schools were single sex, all in independent schools in NSW. In both English and mathematics, women comprised just over 60 per cent of the teachers. Average years of experience for English teachers was 13 years and for mathematics teachers was 15 years. In English and mathematics classrooms, we administered: the Load Reduction Instruction Scale – Short (LRIS-S; Martin et al., 2020) to students and teachers (a survey tool capturing the five LRI principles in a classroom); a measure of students’ prior learning; students’ effort by way of the Effort Scale – Short (Nagy et al., 2022); and students’ achievement in each subject via an achievement test.

What Did We Find?

We found that student- and teacher-reports of LRI practices were associated with greater student effort and achievement in English and in mathematics. The findings extend prior research in STEM subjects by showing there are also academic benefits in English when load reduction instruction occurs. As described earlier, students with low prior learning need more help to ease cognitive load (Sweller, 2012) and our study confirmed this in both English and mathematics, with teachers mainly doing so via Principle #1 (difficulty reduction).

Concluding Thoughts

For decades there has been some tension between predominantly explicit instructional approaches and predominantly constructivist approaches (Tobias & Duffy, 2009). 

Our findings suggest that framing the two as mutually exclusive may impede student learning. Under LRI, both are compatible, including in English and mathematics: after reducing the burden on working memory via explicit approaches, teachers can encourage students to apply that knowledge and skill in more independent ways as appropriate to their students’ levels of competence (see also Kalyuga, 2007). Taken together, our study provides a more comprehensive perspective on LRI as relevant to the subjects and classrooms within which instruction and learning take place.

Andrew Martin, PhD, is Scientia Professor, Professor of Educational Psychology, and Co-Chair of the Educational Psychology Research Group in the School of Education at the University of New South Wales, Australia. He specialises in student motivation, engagement, achievement, and quantitative research methods.

Paul Ginns is Associate Professor of Educational Psychology in the School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney. Paul uses numerous research methodologies (for example, experimental and survey-based research) and analytic methods, including general linear models, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, structural modelling and meta-analysis, to investigate student learning.

Robin Nagy is a PhD candidate in Educational Psychology at the University of NSW. His PhD focuses on high-school students’ academic effort. Robin has over 25 years’ experience as a teacher and in school leadership, having taught in the UK, Thailand and Australia, and as a Professional Learning Consultant for the Mathematical Association of NSW.

Rebecca Collie, Ph.D., is Scientia Associate Professor in Educational and Developmental Psychology at the University of NSW. Her research interests focus on motivation and well-being among students and teachers, psychosocial experiences at school, and quantitative research methods.

Keiko Bostwick, PhD, is a Research Officer in the School of Education at the University of New South Wales, Australia. She specialises in student motivation, teacher and classroom effects, and quantitative research methods.

Importance of social and emotional competence for teachers, for very young children and for at-risk students: latest research

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Teachers and researchers are increasingly aware of the importance of social and emotional competence in the classroom and beyond, including for health, education, and employment outcomes into adulthood. Social and emotional competence refers to the skills that help us to interact in positive ways with others and manage our own emotions. These skills are varied and include among others our relationships skills, confidence, coping skills, self-regulation and self-awareness.

Curriculum designed to teach social and emotional competence is known as social and emotional learning. The Australian Curriculum Frameworks emphasise the importance of social and emotional learning from the early years and throughout schooling.

A growing body of research has investigated the importance of social and emotional competence for students and there are promising results for social and emotional learning programs already being used in schools in Australia and abroad. Resources are available for Australian teachers to implement social and emotional learning in their classrooms.

In this blog post we will focus on our recent research work in three areas of social and emotional competence that we believe need more attention: the importance of social and emotional competence in the early years of schooling, for at-risk students, and for teachers.

Developing Social Emotional Competence in the Early Years

During the early preschool years, children are beginning to learn more about social emotional competencies such as self-awareness, self-regulation, and social awareness. Nurturing these skills is important for positive developmental outcomes and there is now a growing body of research seeking effective ways to do so.

For example, in one of our studies Investigating Social and Emotional Competence in the Early Years, among children in the four-year-old age group we identified a range of coping social and emotional competencies that young children could implement when faced with challenge or things that worried them. It was then possible to develop visual tools to teach age-appropriate coping social and emotional competencies to children in the pre-school setting such as for situations like saying goodbye to a parent at pre-school and fear of the dark.

It was also possible to identify adaptive and maladaptive social and emotional competencies that seemed to be especially salient in young children’s coping.

Adaptive behaviours are those that help a child adjust to and cope with different situations in their environment, such as at home and at school. So adaptive social and emotional competencies are a set of behaviours that a child would use to help them adjust and cope. Maladaptive behaviours are those that interfere with everyday activities and a child’s ability to cope. So maladaptive social and emotional competencies are a set of behaviours a child would use that interrupt or interfere with everyday activities.

  • In the adaptive dimension children used strategies such as “Play”, “Chat to Friends” and “Work Hard”.
  • In the maladaptive dimension children used strategies considered to be more distressing for the child or caregiver. These included an emotional expression dimension that reflected emotions such as “Lose it”, “Cry or scream”, and “Keep away from other children”. They also included an emotional inhibition dimension that reflected internalised emotions such as “Keep feelings to self”, “Get sick”, and “Don’t let others know how they are feeling”.

It was clear that those who used adaptive coping social and emotional competencies also experienced positive mental health and there was a link between maladaptive social and emotional competencies and some aspects of poor mental health. For example, maladaptive coping social and emotional competencies were linked to anxiety, peer related difficulties, and conduct problems.

Intervention research, research that is designed to assess the efficacy of a particular intervention, has also identified ways to teach adaptive social and emotional competencies such as coping. For example, a five-week early years coping program, COPE-R (COPE-Resilience), was designed to teach social and emotional competencies such as caring for others, communicating openly, politeness, empathy, and sharing in classroom activities.

In our study we found that:

  • children as young as four can articulate a range of coping strategies;
  • children’s social and emotional competencies can be measured through parent reports;
  • children can be taught to use more positive coping skills and fewer negative coping skills; and,
  • social and emotional learning programs of instruction can be utilised to teach both personal coping skills and prosocial skills.

The Role of Social and Emotional Competence in At-risk Students’ Academic Wellbeing 

The bulk of research into social and emotional competence has focused on so-called “mainstream” student populations (e.g., using whole-class samples, whole-school samples, national and international samples). As noted above, social and emotional competence is associated with important personal and academic wellbeing outcomes for these students. Relatively less attention has been directed to social and emotional competence among ‘at-risk’ groups. These are groups of students who are at risk of dropping out of school or experiencing difficulties in their lives as they grow and develop (such as students with ADHD or learning difficulties).

Our research program’s focus on “at-risk” status has examined students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

In one of our recent studies, ADHD Personal and Interpersonal Agency, and Achievement: Exploring Links from a Social Cognitive Theory Perspective, we investigated social and emotional competencies for students with ADHD. We found that self-efficacy, that is the child’s confidence in their own ability to succeed, and positive interpersonal relationships with teachers were significantly associated with academic outcomes.

Notably, we also found that these two factors played a far more substantial role in academic wellbeing for students with ADHD than for students without ADHD. On the one hand, this was quite an encouraging finding in that it identified specific ways to help improve the academic wellbeing of students with ADHD. On the other hand, however, the finding was of some concern because students with ADHD are typically lower in self-efficacy and have poorer interpersonal relationships, leading to lower academic wellbeing. Taking both together, we identified a clear need to improve these social and emotional competencies among students with ADHD.

For improving students’ academic self-efficacy, we suggested that teachers:

  • Adapt lessons and activities to maximise opportunities for students’ success—with this success being a basis for building self-efficacy
  • Break lessons and activities into smaller, more manageable sections to optimise opportunities for completion and a sense of competence
  • Individualise instruction and learning activities where appropriate and necessary
  • Develop students’ goal-setting skills that allows students to work towards competence experiences

For improving teacher-student relationships, we suggested that teachers:

  • Implement the “connective instruction” framework that seeks to optimise students’ interpersonal connection with teachers (students better connecting with the teacher him/herself), the substantive connection with teachers (students better connecting to the subject matter and academic tasks and activities), and the pedagogical connection with teachers (students connecting to how the teacher communicates and delivers subject matter)
  • Build students’ awareness of social cues through social skills training
  • Be more patient and tolerant of differences and diversity in the classroom
  • Participate in professional development aimed at assisting at-risk students and their relationships with these students

Social and Emotional Competence and Teachers

Thus far we have focused on promoting social and emotional competencies among students. Alongside attention to students’ social and emotional competencies, we argue that teachers’ social and emotional competence is also crucial. This is because:

Given that social and emotional competence is highly relevant to teachers’ work, what does this mean for schools and teachers?

  • At an individual-level, professional development focused on teachers’ social and emotional competence is an avenue that is gaining support for improving teachers’ wellbeing and their ability to create a more positive and supportive classroom environment. For example, mindfulness-based professional development programs involve training in emotional skills (e.g., role plays to help teachers to recognise and be aware of their emotions), mindfulness (e.g., deliberate practice of present moment awareness), and caring and compassion (e.g., mindful listening to others without judgement).
  • At a school-wide level, it is also important to create an environment where teachers’ social and emotional competence is supported. This lays a foundation for teachers’ own wellbeing and in turn their students’ learning. 

The burgeoning awareness of the importance of social and emotional competence for children is having an effect in our schools, helping our children thrive in their classrooms and beyond. To date, most of this attention has focused on mainstream students. We believe our research and work focusing attention on young children, at-risk students, and teachers, for whom additional attention is important, will further promote positive and healthy individuals and schools.

 

The research cited here is in an edited volume by Erica Frydenberg, Andrew Martin and Rebecca Collie, Social and Emotional Learning in Australia and the Asia-Pacific, published by Springer Nature in Singapore in 2017 and to be launched today, Wednesday 29th July, at the 2017 Australian Association for Research in Education Conference in Canberra. The authors will be participating in a symposium after the launch.

 

Rebecca Collie, B.Ed. (Hons), M.A., Ph.D., is a Research Fellow in Educational and Developmental Psychology at the University of NSW. Her research interests focus on motivation and well-being among students and teachers, teachers’; and students’; psychosocial experiences at school (perceptions of school climate, job satisfaction, etc.), and quantitative research methods. Through her research, Rebecca aims to promote positive work environments and experiences among teachers as well as engagement and learning among students. She conducted her master’s and doctoral studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and her undergraduate education at the University of Melbourne. She has also worked as a primary school teacher in Melbourne. For more about Rebecca’s publications visit here.

 

Professor Andrew Martin, PhD, is Scientia Professor, Professor of Educational Psychology, and Co- Chair of the Educational Psychology Research Group in the School of Education at the University of New South Wales, Australia. He specialises in student motivation, engagement, achievement, and quantitative research methods.

 

 

 

Erica Frydenberg is an educational, clinical and organizational psychologist who has practiced extensively in the Australian educational setting. She is a Principal Research Fellow and Associate Professor in psychology in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education. She is an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society. Erica has authored and co-authored over 150 academic journal articles and chapters in the field of coping, developed psychological instruments to measure coping in children, adolescents and adults and authored and co-authored 15 books on topics ranging from early years through to adolescence and parenting. She has received numerous Australian Research Council and philanthropic grants, has been engaged widely as a consultant and has received many awards. For more about Erica visit her website.

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