Conférence: «Research on motivation and metacognition in Greece: Educational and developmental aspects»

Eleftheria N. Gonida est professeure associée au Department and School Psychology, School of Psychology, Aristotle University of Thessalonik de Grèce. Elle est  actuellement chercheure à la University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

 <In this presentation I will focus on three studies examining motivational and metacognitive processes. First, two studies on achievement goal theory and contextual influences such as family and school influences will be presented. The first study has been focused on perceived parent goals and their contribution to student achievement goal orientation and engagement in the classroom during adolescence. A sample of 427 seventh, ninth and eleventh graders were asked to complete self-report questionnaires and multi-sample path analysis indicated the developmental differences across adolescence in terms of the pattern of relationships among the variables under examination. In the second study on achievement goal theory the role of perceived school goal structures and parent goals in predicting adolescents’ goal orientations and their behavioral and emotional engagement in the classroom was co-examined. Surveys were given to a sample of 271 seventh- and ninth-grade students and path analyses indicated how the two contexts as perceived by the students themselves predict learning patterns such as engagement in the classroom. Finally, a longitudinal study attempting to examine the developmental dynamics between children’s developing cognitive and metacognitive performance in an early developmental period such as preschool and first elementary school grade will be presented. The sample consisted of 127 children who were individually tested three times using a broad set of cognitive and metacognitive measures (logical thinking and school-type mathematical tasks). Latent growth curve analysis indicated a number of findings concerning individual differences in the initial level and in the mean rate of the subsequent growth of cognitive performance and metacognitive awareness as well as the dynamics of change over time. The results of all studies will be discussed in relation to current theory and implications for promoting adaptive patterns of learning in the school and the family context will be pointed out.>