Abstract
Research indicates that affective attitudes such as liking of a subject and confidence in one’s ability within a subject predict academic performance. Generally, immigrant minority students have positive attitudes and often have low academic performance. This study examines the self-efficacy and liking of subjects of New Zealand students and analyses the relationship of those attitudes towards academic performance in mathematics, writing, and reading by self-reported ethnicity. Data were obtained from the norming samples from the Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning project in New Zealand. Of special interest are the relationships between attitude and performance for Pasifika and Tongan students in New Zealand. Tongan and Pasifika students had positive attitudes, but their mean scores were not significantly different to other ethnic groups except in writing for Tongan students. Tongan and Pasifika students did have lower academic performance than majority and Asian immigrant students in all three subjects. The correlation between liking and self-efficacy was fundamentally zero for Tongan and Pasifika students, while it was weakly positive for majority and Asian immigrant students. Together these results question the power of self-efficacy and liking attitudes to predict academic performance for immigrant students from agrarian or traditional societies. Further, the data suggest that ‘school effects’ are most likely explanations for this relationship, rather than lack of attachment, opposition, or deficiency theories.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Abu-Hilal, M. (1992). A structural model for the direct and indirect effects of sex, math anxiety on attitudes and achievement in mathematics.Journal of Faculty of Education (Almansoura University), 20, 35–53.
Bandura, A. (1986). Form thought to action: Mechanisms of personal agency.New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 15(1), 1–17.
Bishop, R., Berrymen, M., Tiakiwai, S., & Richardson, C. (2003).Te Kotahitanga: The experiences of year 9 and 10 Maori students in mainstream classrooms: Ministry of Education, New Zealand.
Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. Richardson, G Richardson (Ed.),Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. (1992).An invitation to reflexive sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Bowlby, J. (1988).A secure base: Parent — child attachment and healthy human development. New York: Basic Books.
Bowlby, J. (2005).The making and breaking of affectional bonds. London, New York: Routledge.
Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (1976).Schooling in capitalist American: Educational reform and the contradictions of economic life. New York: Basic Books.
Carter, W., Carter, J., & Sottile, J. M. (2001).Science achievement and self-efficacy among middle school age children as related to student development. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Eastern Educational Research Association, Hilton Head, SC. (Eric Document Reproduction Service No. ED458119).
Cohen, L. (1977).Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioural Sciences. New York: Academic Press.
Coleman, J. (1961).The adolescent society: The social life of the teenager and its impact on education. New York: Free Press.
Coleman, J. (1990).Foundations of social theory. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Embretson, S. E., & Reise, S. P. (2000).Item response theory for psychologists. Mahwah, NJ: LEA.
Fordham, S., & Ogbu, J. U. (1986). ‘Black students’ school success: Coping with the ‘burden of acting white’.The Urban Review, 18, 176–206.
Hallinan, M. T. (1983). Commentary: new directions for research on peer influences. In J. Epstein & N. Karweit (Eds.),Friends in school. New York: Academic Press.
Hattie, J. A. C., Brown, G. T. L., Keegan, P. J., MacKay, A. J., Irving, S. E., Cutforth, S., Campbell, A., Patel, P., Sussex, K., Sutherland, T., McCall, S., Mooyman, D., & Yu, J. (2004).Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning (asTTle) version 4, 2005: Manual. Wellington, NZ: University of Auckland/ Ministry of Education/ Learning Media.
Hattie, J. A. C., Brown, G. T. L., & Keegan, P. J. (2003). A national teacher-managed, curriculum-based assessment system: Assessment Tools for Teaching & Learning (asTTle).International Journal of Learning, 10, 771–778. Retrieved October 5, 2005, from http:// gavintlbrown. cgpublisher.com/product/pub.37/prod.295
Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback.Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81–112.
Hoyle, R. H. (1995). The structural equation modeling approach: Basic concepts and fundamental issues. In R. H. Hoyle (Ed.),Structural equation modeling: Concepts, issues, and applications (pp. 1–15). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hoyle, R. H., & Duvall, J. L. (2004). Determining the number of factors in exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. In D. Kaplan (Ed.),The SAGE handbook of quantitative methodology for social sciences (pp. 301–315). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Johnson, M., Crosnoe, R., & Elder, G. (2001). Student attachment and academic engagement: The role of ethnicity.Sociology of Education, 74, 318–340.
Josephs, R., & Schroeder, D. (1997).The self-protective function of the learning curve. Mississippi: University of Texas at Austin.
Kao, G. (2001). Race and ethnic differences in peer influences on educational achievement. In E. Anderson & D. S. Massey (Eds.),Problem of the century: Racial stratification in the United States. New York: Russell Sage.
Kao, G., & Tienda, M. (1988). Educational aspirations among minority youth.Americam Journal of Education, 106, 349–384.
Linnenbrink, E. A., & Pintrich, P. R. (2003). The role of selfefficacy beliefs in student engagement and learning in the classroom.Reading and Writing Quarterly, 19, 119- 137.
Ministry of Education. (2004).Pasifika peoples in New Zealand education: A statistical snapshot 2004. Wellington, NZ: Ministry of Education.
Moulton, K. D., Brown, S. D., & Lent, R. W. (1991). Relations of self-efficacy beliefs to academic outcomes: A meta-analytic investigation.Journal of Counselling Psychology, 38, 30–38.
Nakhid, C. (2003). Comparing Pasifika students’ perceptions of their schooling with the perceptions of non — Pasifika teachers using the ‘Mediated Dialogue’ as a research methodology.New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 38(2), 207–226.
O’Brien, V., Martinez-Pons, M., & Kopala, M. (1999). Mathematics self-efficacy, ethnic identity, gender, and career interests related to mathematics and science.Journal of Educational Research, 92(4), 231–235.
Ogbu, J. U. (1978).Minority education and caste: The American system in cross-cultural perspectives. New York: Academic Press.
Orfield, G., & Eaton, S. E. (1996).Dismantling desegregation: The quiet reversal of Brown v. board of education. New York: New Press.
Pajares, F. (1996). Self-efficacy beliefs in academic settings.Review of Educational Research, 66, 543–578.
Pajares, F., & Schunk, D. (2001). Self-beliefs and social success: self-efficacy, self-concept, and school achievement. In R. Riding & S. Rayner (Eds.),Perception (pp. 239–266). London: Ablex Publishing.
Phillips, G., McNaughton, S., & MacDonald, S. (2001).Picking up the pace: Effective literacy interventions for accelerated progress over the transition into decile 1 schools. Auckland, NZ: The Child Literacy Foundation and Woolf Fisher Research Centre.
Satherley, P. (2006).Student outcome overview 2001-2005: Research findings on student achievement in reading, writing and mathematics in New Zealand schools. Wellington, NZ: Ministry of Education, Research Division.
Schunk, D. (1981). Modeling and attributional effects on children achievements: a self-efficacy analysis.Journal of Educational Psychology, 73, 93–105.
Schunk, D. (1996).Self-efficacy for learning and performance. Paper presented at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association, New York, NY. (Eric Document Reproduction Service No. ED394663)
Stanat, P., & Christensen, G. (2006).Where immigrant students succeed — A comparative review of performance and engagement in PISA 2003. Berlin: Max Planck Institute for Human Development.
Statistics, N. Z. (2006).Ethnicity. Wellington, NZ: Statistics New Zealand.
Steele, C., & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype thread and the intellectual test performance of African-Americans.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 797- 811.
Steiger, J. H. (2000). Point estimation, hypothesis testing, and interval estimation using the RMSEA: Some comments and a reply to Hayduk and Glaser.Structural Equation Modeling, 7(2), 149–162.
Sturrock, F., & May, S. (2002).PISA 2000: The New Zealand context-the reading, mathematical and scientific literacy of 15 year-olds. Wellington: Ministry of Education.
Suarez-Orozco, C., & Suarez-Orozco, M. M. (2001).Children of immigration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Tinto, V. (1993).Leaving college: Rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Vogt, W. P. (2005).Dictionary of statistics & methodology: A nontechnical guide for the social sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Walker, B. J. (2003). The cultivation of student self-efficacy in reading and writing.Reading & Writing Quarterly, 19, 173–187.
Willams, T., Willams, K., Kastberg, D., & Jocelyn, L. (2005). Achievement and affect in OECD nations.Oxford Review of Education, 31(4), 517–545.
Willis, P. E. (1977). Learning to labour: How working classkids get working-class jobs. Westmead, UK: Saxon House.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Otunuku, M., Brown, G.T.L. Tongan students’ attitudes towards their subjects in new zealand relative to their academic achievement. Asia Pacific Educ. Rev. 8, 117–128 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03025838
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03025838