The Dimensionality of Reading Self-Concept: Examining Its Stability Using Local Structural Equation Models.

For results from large-scale surveys to inform policy and practice appropriately, all participants must interpret and respond to items similarly. While organizers of surveys assessing student outcomes often ensure this for achievement measures, doing so for psychological questionnaires is also critical. We demonstrate this by examining the dimensionality of reading self-concept-a crucial psychological construct for several outcomes-across reading achievement levels. We use Programme for International Student Assessment 2018 data (N = 529,966) and local structural equation models (LSEMs) to do so. Results reveal that reading self-concept dimensions (assessed through reading competence and difficulty) vary across reading achievement levels. Students with low reading achievement show differentiated responses to the two item sets (high competence-high difficulty). In contrast, students with high reading achievement have reconciled responses (high competence-low difficulty). Our results highlight the value of LSEMs in examining factor structure generalizability of constructs in large-scale surveys and call for greater cognitive testing during item development.

School principals' mental health and well-being under threat: A longitudinal analysis of workplace demands, resources, burnout, and well-being.

Schools are critical organisational settings, and school principals face extreme stress levels. However, there are few large-scale, longitudinal studies of demands and resources that drive principals' health and well-being. Using the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) framework, we evaluated longitudinal reciprocal effects over 3 years relating to job demands, job resources (resilience), job-related outcomes (burnout and job satisfaction), and personal outcomes (happiness and physical health) for a nationally representative sample of 3683 Australian school principals. Prior demands and resources led to small changes in subsequent outcomes, beneficial effects of resources, and adverse effects of demands, particularly for job-related outcomes. Furthermore, we also found reverse-reciprocal effects, prior outcomes (burnout and job satisfaction) influencing subsequent job characteristics. However, in response to substantively and theoretically important research questions, we found no support for Yerkes-Dodson Law (nonlinear effects of demands) or Nietzsche effects and inoculation effects (that which does not kill you, makes you stronger; manageable levels of demands build resilience). Relating our study to new and evolving issues in JD-R research, we offer limitations of our research-and JD-R theory and research more generally-and directions for further research in this essentially unstudied application of JD-R to school principals' mental health and well-being.

Overcoming Limitations in Peer-Victimization Research That Impede Successful Intervention: Challenges and New Directions.

Peer victimization at school is a worldwide problem with profound implications for victims, bullies, and whole-school communities. Yet the 50-year quest to solve the problem has produced mostly disappointing results. A critical examination of current research reveals both pivotal limitations and potential solutions. Solutions include introducing psychometrically sound measures to assess the parallel components of bullying and victimization, analyzing cross-national data sets, and embracing a social-ecological perspective emphasizing the motivation of bullies, importance of bystanders, pro-defending and antibullying attitudes, classroom climate, and a multilevel perspective. These solutions have been integrated into a series of recent interventions. Teachers can be professionally trained to create a highly supportive climate that allows student-bystanders to overcome their otherwise normative tendency to reinforce bullies. Once established, this intervention-enabled classroom climate impedes bully-victim episodes. The take-home message is to work with teachers on how to develop an interpersonally supportive classroom climate at the beginning of the school year to catalyze student-bystanders' volitional internalization of pro-defending and antibullying attitudes and social norms. Recommendations for future research include studying bullying and victimization simultaneously, testing multilevel models, targeting classroom climate and bystander roles as critical intervention outcomes, and integrating school-wide and individual student interventions only after improving social norms and the school climate.

Mastery-approach goals: A large-scale cross-cultural analysis of antecedents and consequences.

Mastery-approach (MAP) goals, focusing on developing competence and acquiring task mastery, are posited to be the most optimal, beneficial type of achievement goal for academic and life outcomes. Although there is meta-analytic evidence supporting this finding, such evidence does not allow us to conclude that the extant MAP goal findings generalize across cultures. Meta-analyses have often suffered from overrepresentation of Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) samples; reliance on bivariate correlations; and lack the ability to directly control individual-level background variables. To address these limitations, this study used nationally representative data from 77 countries/regions (N = 595,444 adolescents) to examine the relations of MAP goals to four antecedents (workmastery, competitiveness, fear of failure, fixed mindset) and 16 consequences (task-specific motivational, achievement-related, and well-being outcomes), and tested the cross-cultural generalizability of these relations. Results showed that MAP goals were: (a) grounded primarily in positive but not negative achievement motives/beliefs; (b) most strongly predictive of well-being outcomes, followed by adaptive motivation; (c) positively but consistently weakly associated with achievement-related outcomes, particularly for academic performance (ß = .069); (d) negatively and weakly associated with maladaptive outcomes; and (e) uniquely predictive of various consequences, controlling for the antecedents and covariates. Further, the MAP goal predictions were generalizable across countries/regions for 13 of 16 consequences. While directions of effect sizes were slightly mixed for academic performance, perceived reading, and PISA test difficulty, the effect sizes were consistently small for most countries/regions. This generalizability points to quite strong cross-cultural support for the observed patterns. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

A meta-analysis of the dark side of the American dream: Evidence for the universal wellness costs of prioritizing extrinsic over intrinsic goals.

Self-determination theory holds that the intrinsic and extrinsic content of people's aspirations differentially affect their wellness. An evidence base spanning nearly 30 years indicates that focusing on intrinsic goals (such as for growth, relationships, community giving, and health) promotes well-being, whereas a focus on extrinsic goals (such as for wealth, fame, and beauty) deters well-being. Yet, the evidence base contains exceptions, and some authors have argued that focusing on extrinsic goals may not be universally detrimental. We conducted a systematic review and used multilevel meta-analytic structural equation modeling to evaluate the links between intrinsic and extrinsic aspirations with indices of well-being and ill-being. Across 92 reports (105 studies), 1,808 effects, and a total sample of N = 70,110, we found that intrinsic aspirations were linked positively with well-being, r = 0.24 [95% CI 0.22, 0.27], and negatively with ill-being, r = -0.11 [-0.14, -0.08]. When the variety of extrinsic aspiration scoring methods were combined, the link with well-being was not statistically significant, r = 0.02 [-0.02, 0.06]. However, when extrinsic aspirations were evaluated in terms of their predominance in the overall pattern of aspiring the effect was universally detrimental, linking negatively to well-being, r = -0.22 [-0.32, -0.11], and positively to ill-being, r = 0.23 [0.17, 0.30]. Meta-analytic conclusions about the associations between goal types and wellness are important because they inform how individuals could shape aspirations to support their own happiness and how groups and institutions can frame goals such that their pursuit is for the common good. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Maternal Judgments of Child Numeracy and Reading Ability Predict Gains in Academic Achievement and Interest.

In a representative longitudinal sample of 2,602 Australian children (52% boys; 2% Indigenous; 13% language other than English background; 22% of Mothers born overseas; and 65% Urban) and their mothers (first surveyed in 2003), this article examined if maternal judgments of numeracy and reading ability varied by child demographics and influenced achievement and interest gains. We linked survey data to administrative data of national standardized tests in Year 3, 5, and 7 and found that maternal judgments followed gender stereotype patterns, favoring girls in reading and boys in numeracy. Maternal judgments were more positive for children from non-English speaking backgrounds. Maternal judgments predicted gains in children's achievement (consistently) and academic interest (generally) including during the transition to high school.

School-based interventions modestly increase physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness but are least effective for youth who need them most: an individual participant pooled analysis of 20 controlled trials.

OBJECTIVES: To determine if subpopulations of students benefit equally from school-based physical activity interventions in terms of cardiorespiratory fitness and physical activity. To examine if physical activity intensity mediates improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness. DESIGN: Pooled analysis of individual participant data from controlled trials that assessed the impact of school-based physical activity interventions on cardiorespiratory fitness and device-measured physical activity. PARTICIPANTS: Data for 6621 children and adolescents aged 4-18 years from 20 trials were included. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Peak oxygen consumption (VO2Peak mL/kg/min) and minutes of moderate and vigorous physical activity. RESULTS: Interventions modestly improved students' cardiorespiratory fitness by 0.47 mL/kg/min (95% CI 0.33 to 0.61), but the effects were not distributed equally across subpopulations. Girls and older students benefited less than boys and younger students, respectively. Students with lower levels of initial fitness, and those with higher levels of baseline physical activity benefitted more than those who were initially fitter and less active, respectively. Interventions had a modest positive effect on physical activity with approximately one additional minute per day of both moderate and vigorous physical activity. Changes in vigorous, but not moderate intensity, physical activity explained a small amount (~5%) of the intervention effect on cardiorespiratory fitness. CONCLUSIONS: Future interventions should include targeted strategies to address the needs of girls and older students. Interventions may also be improved by promoting more vigorous intensity physical activity. Interventions could mitigate declining youth cardiorespiratory fitness, increase physical activity and promote cardiovascular health if they can be delivered equitably and their effects sustained at the population level.

Illusory gender-equality paradox, math self-concept, and frame-of-reference effects: New integrative explanations for multiple paradoxes.

Gender-equality paradoxes (GEPs) posit that gender gaps in math self-concepts (MSCs) are larger-not smaller-in countries with greater gender equality. These paradoxical results suggest that efforts to improve gender equality might be counterproductive. However, we show that this currently popular explanation of gender differences is an illusory, epi-phenomenon (485,490 students, 18,292 schools, 68 countries/regions). Between-country (absolute) measures of gender equality are confounded with achievement and socioeconomic-status; tiny GEPs disappear when controlling achievement and socioeconomic-status. Critically, even without controls GEPs are not supported when using true gender-gap measures-within-country (relative) female-male differences, that hold many confounds constant. This absolute/relative-gap distinction is more important than the composite/domain-specific distinction for understanding why even tiny GEPs are illusory. Recent developments in academic self-concept theory are relevant to GEPs and gender differences, but also explain other, related paradoxes. The big-fish little pond effect posits that attending schools with high school-average math achievements leads to lower MSCs. Extending this theoretical model to the country-level, we show that countries with high country-average math achievements also have lower MSCs. Dimensional comparison theory predicts that MSCs are positively predicted by math achievements but negatively predicted by verbal achievements. Extending this theoretical model, we show that girls' low MSCs are due more to girls' high verbal achievements that detract from their MSCs than to their low math achievements. In support of the pan-human wide generalizability of our findings, our cross-national results generalize over 68 country/regions as well as multiple math self-belief constructs (self-efficacy, anxiety, interest, utility, future plans) and multiple gender-equality measures. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

A configural approach to aspirations: The social breadth of aspiration profiles predicts well-being over and above the intrinsic and extrinsic aspirations that comprise the profiles.

We conducted a person-centered analysis of the Aspiration Index to identify subgroups that differ in the levels of their specific (wealth, fame and image, personal growth, relationships, community giving, and health) and global intrinsic and extrinsic aspirations. In a Hungarian (N = 3,370; 77% female; age: M = 23.57), an Australian (N = 1,632; 51% female; age: M = 16.6), and an American sample (N = 6,063; 82.2% female; age: M = 21.86), we conducted separate bifactor exploratory structural equation models to disentangle the level of higher-order intrinsic and extrinsic aspirations from the shape of specific aspirations by using the resultant factor scores as indicators in latent profile analyses. The analyses yielded 3 replicable latent profiles: Disengaged from relationships and health (Profile 1); Aspiring for interpersonal relationships more than community relationships (Profile 2); and Aspiring for community relationships more than interpersonal relationships (Profile 3), with Profile 3 reliably experiencing the highest well-being. To demonstrate the incremental value of our approach to more traditional variable-centered methods, we used profile membership to predict well-being while controlling for the aspirations that comprise the profiles. Even in these conservative tests, profile membership explained additional variance in well-being. However, the real-life significance of the size of the incremental value appeared quite small. These studies make a unique contribution to the literature by identifying replicable latent profiles of aspiring, membership to which uniquely predicted well-being, over and above the constituent variables. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Development in relationship self-concept from high school to university predicts adjustment.

Helping students adjust to university life is a critical developmental issue. Using longitudinal data from 1652 German late adolescents, this research tested the effect of initial high-school parent, same-sex, and opposite sex self-concept and its change on university dropout intentions, study stress, and study satisfaction. High-school self-concept predicted all outcomes. Change across the postschool transition in parent and same self-concept also predicted most outcomes. Change in opposite sex self-concept predicted no outcome. We argue young people's relationship self-beliefs are critical for successful developmental transitions. Consistent with previous research, we argue that parents remain a vital relationship for late adolescents. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Physical activity and sleep are inconsistently related in healthy children: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Physical activity is considered an effective method to improve sleep quality in adolescents and adults. However, there is mixed evidence among children. Our objectives were to investigate this association in children and to examine potential moderating variables. Eight databases were systematically searched, and we included all study designs with a sample of healthy children ages 3-13 years-old. We identified 47 studies for meta-analysis. Overall, we found little association between physical activity and sleep (r = 0.02, 95% confidence interval = -0.03 to 0.07). There was a high amount of heterogeneity in the overall model (I2 = 93%). However, none of the examined variables significantly moderated the overall effect, including age, gender, risk of bias, study quality, measurement methodology, study direction, and publication year. Exploratory analyses showed some weak, but statistically significant associations for vigorous physical activity with sleep (r = 0.09, 95% CI = 0.01 to 0.17, I2 = 66.3%), specifically sleep duration (r = 0.07, 95% CI = 0.00 to 0.14, I2 = 41.1%). High heterogeneity and the lack of experimental research suggest our findings should be interpreted with caution. The current evidence, however, shows little support for an association between physical activity and sleep in children.

Is Self-Compassion Selfish? The Development of Self-Compassion, Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior in Adolescence.

Both self-compassion and empathy have been theorized to promote prosociality in youth, but there is little longitudinal data examining this possibility. We assessed self-compassion, empathy, and peer-rated prosociality yearly, in a cohort of 2,078 youth across 17 schools (M age at T1 = 14.65 years; 49.2% female), as they progressed from Grade 9-12. We utilized multi-level modeling to predict prosocial behavior, nested within students, classes, and schools. We found that self-compassion and empathy uniquely predicted peer-rated prosocial behavior. However, only empathy predicted increases in prosocial behavior across time. While self-compassion is not selfish, it does not appear to facilitate the development of kindness toward adolescent peers. Self-compassion may help to buffer against possible negative effects of empathic distress.

Discrimination as a frame-of-reference effect in overlapping friendship communities of ethnically diverse youth.

OBJECTIVES: To what extent is the frame of reference of overlapping friendship communities important for young people's feelings of discrimination and subjective well-being? That is, do youth feel better or worse to the extent that they feel less or more discrimination than their friends? METHOD: Participants (N = 898; Mage = 14.13; SDage = 3.37; 46% females; 46% Whites; 20% Indigenous; 34% other minorities) were high school students of three ethnically diverse, low socioeconomic status public schools in New South Wales, Australia. Cross-sectional data were collected to measure felt discrimination, mental health, subjective well-being, social support, and nominations of close friends. A state-of-the-art method of clustering links was used to identify overlapping friendship communities, and multiple membership multilevel models were run to examine whether community-level discrimination moderated the link between individual-level discrimination and well-being. RESULTS: When the community level discrimination was low, there was no well-being related cost or benefit of individual-level discrimination. But when the community-level discrimination was high, individuals in those communities who themselves felt low discrimination had better well-being than individuals who themselves felt high discrimination. CONCLUSIONS: We provide evidence for a frame-of-reference effect involving discrimination. Individuals' relative standing in their friendship communities with high group-level discrimination reliably predicted the individuals' well-being levels, regardless of ethnicity. The results highlight the importance of identifying overlapping friendship communities for understanding the dynamics of discrimination and well-being of ethnically diverse youth. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM), and Set-ESEM: Optimal Balance Between Goodness of Fit and Parsimony.

CFAs of multidimensional constructs often fail to meet standards of good measurement (e.g., goodness-of-fit, measurement invariance, and well-differentiated factors). Exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) represents a compromise between exploratory factor analysis' (EFA) flexibility, and CFA/SEM's rigor and parsimony, but lacks parsimony (particularly in large models) and might confound constructs that need to be kept separate. In Set-ESEM, two or more a priori sets of constructs are modeled within a single model such that cross-loadings are permissible within the same set of factors (as in Full-ESEM) but are constrained to be zero for factors in different sets (as in CFA). The different sets can reflect the same set of constructs on multiple occasions, and/or different constructs measured within the same wave. Hence, Set-ESEM that represents a middle-ground between the flexibility of traditional-ESEM (hereafter referred to as Full-ESEM) and the rigor and parsimony of CFA/SEM. Thus, the purposes of this article are to provide an overview tutorial on Set-ESEM, juxtapose it with Full-ESEM, and to illustrate its application with simulated data and diverse "real" data applications with accessible, heuristic explanations of best practice.

Type of screen time moderates effects on outcomes in 4013 children: evidence from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children.

BACKGROUND: Excessive engagement with digital screens is harmful to children's health. However, new evidence suggests that exposure at moderate levels may not be harmful and may even provide benefit. Therefore, our objective was to determine if there are curvilinear relationships between different types of screen time and a diverse set of outcomes, including health and education. METHODS: We address our objective using a repeated measures design. Children (N = 4013), initially aged 10-11 were assessed every 2 years between 2010 and 2014. Children's screen time behavior was measured using time-use diaries, and categorized into five types: social, passive, interactive, educational, or other. We used measures of children's physical health, health-related quality of life, socio-emotional outcomes, and school achievement. The analysis plan was pre-registered. Models were adjusted for gender, socio-economic status, ethnicity, number of siblings, and housing factors. RESULTS: There were linear associations between total screen time and all outcomes, such that more screen time was associated with worse outcomes. However, there was variability when examined by screen time type. Passive screen time (e.g., TV) was associated with worse outcomes, educational screen time (e.g., computer for homework) was associated with positive educational outcomes and had no negative relations with other outcomes. Interactive screen time (e.g., video games) had positive associations with educational outcomes but negative associations with other outcomes. In all instances, these significant associations were small or very small, with standardised effects < 0.07. We found little evidence of curvilinear relationships. CONCLUSIONS: The small effects of screen time on children's outcomes appear to be moderated by the type of screen time. Policy makers, educators, and parents should consider the type of screen time when considering the benefits and harms of use.

A monitoring system to provide feedback on student physical activity during physical education lessons.

School-based physical education (PE) provides opportunities to accumulate moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), but many students are insufficiently active during PE lessons. Providing teachers with feedback regarding their students' physical activity may increase the effectiveness of PE for achieving MVPA goals, but existing physical activity monitoring technologies have limitations in class environments. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop and validate a system capable of providing feedback on PE lesson MVPA. Equations for translating step counts to %MVPA were derived from measures in 492 students who concurrently wore an ActiGraph GT3X+ (ActiGraph) and Yamax pedometer (Yamax) during a PE lesson. To enhance feedback availability during PE lessons, we then developed a bespoke monitoring system using wireless tri-axial pedometers (HMM) and a smart device app. After developing and testing the monitoring system, we assessed its validity and reliability in 100 students during a PE lesson. There was a strong correlation of 0.896 between step counts and accelerometer-determined %MVPA and quantile regression equations showed good validity for translating step counts to %MVPA with a mean absolute difference of 5.3 (95% CI, 4.4-6.2). The physical activity monitoring system was effective at providing %MVPA during PE lessons with a mean difference of 1.6 ± 7.1 compared with accelerometer-determined %MVPA (7% difference between the two measurement methods). Teachers and students can use a smart device app and wireless pedometers to conveniently obtain feedback during PE lessons. Future studies should determine whether such technologies help teachers to increase physical activity during PE lessons.

Compulsive internet use and the development of self-esteem and hope: A four-year longitudinal study.

OBJECTIVE: Compulsive internet use (CIU) has been linked to decrements in mental health and well-being. However, relatively little is known about how CIU relates to evaluations of the self, and in particular, whether CIU is antecedent to or is a consequence of negative evaluations of one's social worth (self-esteem) and general efficacy (hope). To examine this, we explored the longitudinal relations between CIU and the development of self-esteem and hope among adolescents over a four-year period. METHOD: Two thousand eight hundred and nine adolescents completed measures yearly from Grade 8 (MAge = 13.7) to Grade 11. Autoregressive cross-lagged structural equation models were used to test whether CIU influenced or was influenced by self-esteem and hope. RESULTS: We found consistent support for a CIU-as-antecedent model. CIU preceded reductions in trait hope, and small reductions in self-esteem. In contrast, we did not find evidence for a CIU-as-consequence model: low self-esteem and hope did not predict increases in CIU over time. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that CIU has negative consequences for young people's feelings of goal-efficacy, and that interventions that address the compulsive use of the internet are likely to strengthen hope and self-esteem among young people.

Domain-specific physical activity and affective wellbeing among adolescents: an observational study of the moderating roles of autonomous and controlled motivation.

BACKGROUND: Abundant evidence demonstrates a relationship between physical activity and mental wellbeing. However, the strength of the relationship is not consistent. Factors contributing to variation in the strength of association are not well understood and, therefore, it remains difficult to optimize physical activity to ensure the strongest possible relationship with mental health. Self-determination theory suggests that more autonomously motivated behaviors lead to better mental health outcomes, when compared to more controlled behaviors. Therefore, we examined whether autonomous and controlled motivation moderated the relationships between physical activity and affective wellbeing within two domains (i.e., leisure-time and active travel). METHODS: Between February and April 2014, adolescents (N = 1632, M age = 12.94 years, SD = 0.54, 55% male) wore an accelerometer across seven-days and completed self-report measures of leisure-time physical activity and active travel. They also completed two measures of motivation (towards leisure-time physical activity and active travel) and an affective wellbeing measure. RESULTS: Structural equation modeling revealed that greater self-reported leisure-time physical activity was associated with greater positive affect (ß = .29) and less negative affect (ß = -.19) and that motivation did not moderate these relationships. Self-reported active travel had no linear relationship with affective wellbeing, and motivation did not moderate these relationships. Accelerometer-measured leisure-time physical activity had no relationship with positive affect but, had a weak inverse association with negative affect (ß = -.09), and neither relationship was moderated by motivation. Accelerometer-measured active travel had no association with positive affect; however, autonomous motivation significantly moderated this association such that active travel had a positive association with positive affect when autonomous motivation was high (ß = .09), but a negative association when autonomous motivation was low (ß = -.07). Accelerometer-measured active travel had no association with negative affect. Despite some significant moderation effects, motivation did not consistently moderate the relationship between all physical activity variables (leisure-time and active travel, and self-report and accelerometer) and affective outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Tailoring physical activity interventions and guidelines to prioritize leisure-time ahead of other life domains could benefit wellbeing. Promoting autonomous participation in active travel may also be associated with increased wellbeing among adolescents.

Development of Friendship and Task Values in a New School: Friend Selection for the Arts and Physical Education but Socialization for Academic Subjects.

Friends provide important social contexts for student development. Research has shown that adolescent friends are similar to each other in their interest and values for different school subjects. Yet our current understanding does not extend to knowing whether selection, deselection, or socialization processes are responsible for this phenomena. Without this knowledge, it is very difficult for parents, teachers, and schools to know how and when to intervene. This study investigated selection, deselection, and socialization effects on adolescent students' task values for academic (languages, math and science, and social sciences) and non-academic subject areas (the arts and physical education). A social network approach was used to examine two waves of annual data collected from school-based networks of adolescents in the first and second years of high school education in Finland (N = 1419; female = 48.6%; mean age at first measurement point = 16). The results revealed that adolescents tended to select friends with similar levels of task values (friend selection) for the arts and physical education, but friends did not become more similar in these areas over time (friend socialization). In contrast, there was evidence of friend socialization, but not friend selection, for the academic school subjects. Across all subjects, differences in task values did not predict friendship dissolution (friend deselection). These findings suggest that to a significant extent, students make agentic choices in developing friendship with schoolmates based on their task values in non-academic subjects. The resultant friend contexts that individuals created, in turn, affected their task values in academic subject areas. These results shed light on the complexity of friend effect mechanisms on task values at the subject domain-specific level.