Promotion of academic achievement of junior high school students through enhancing their self-efficacy by a contrived success experience Kazuo Mori & Akitoshi Uchida Tokyo University of Nagano Sairyo Junior High School Agriculture and Technology DIV05-OC10 Academic achievement, 13:00-14:30 July 10 th, 2014, Room 203 Floor 2

A Vicious Circle in School High Achievement High Self-efficacy High Motivation Low Achievement Low Self-efficacy Low Motivation High Achievement High Self-efficacy High Motivation In order to cut the vicious circle… We need to let them get a high achievement score… 2

Therefore, schoolteachers… give easy tasks to low achieving students. However, it is self-evident to them as well as their classmates that those tasks are easy ones. Getting a high score itself… does not suffice for promoting their self-efficacy. For getting a confidence, they need to get a higher score than their classmates. Then, how can we let low achieving students to get higher scores than their classmates? If they would, they’d not have been low achieving students! 3

Crucial Point: Anagram Tasks STIPUD (Easy task) Thirty anagrams with five Japanese letters ・ Ten tasks were prepared with two levels of difficulty ・ Twenty were used for both conditions PSITDU (Difficult task) 4 Research Purpose To examine whether a contrived success on anagram tasks in junior high school students may promote their subsequent academic achievement through enhanced self-efficacy.

Method ： The fMORI Technique LCD projector (EPSON LP-700) The G fragment and the R&B fragments are projected together onto the same screen. Two pairs of polarizing sunglasses can separate the G fragment and the R&B fragments. T S Red & Blue Green 5 Since the Green and the other two (Red and Blue) LCD panels are placed perpendicularly in the projector, either the Green or the Magenta fragments can be separately blocked by polarizing filters. (See Mori, 2007, for details.)

High achievers Method ： Participants ・ Easy-Task condition: 78 students Four to six students from each class, 78 (35 boys and 43 girls) in total, were chosen from the percentile ranks on the recent achievement tests. ・ Difficult-Task condition: 227 students The 227 students (121 boys and 106 girls) were selected from the percentile ranges, corresponding to the percentile ranks of the target students. ・ There were 617 students participated in total, including those in these experimental conditions. 6

Only four to six students in each class wore the sunglasses which allowed the viewers to see the easy tasks. LCD projector Method: Task Presentation 7

Experimental Procedure ・ Each task was presented for 10 seconds with a 5 sec. interval. ・ Ten common tasks were followed by another ten common tasks with ten critical tasks randomly mixed among them. ・ Lastly, only the well-performing students were asked to raise their hands in the class to indicate their number of correct answers. General instructions Ten common tasks and ten critical tasks were randomly presented. Appreciation of those who did well in the class. 8

Self-efficacy Rating As expected, the students in the Easy Task condition performed well. 9 Participants predicted their own success on a 5-point scale in answer to the question; “How well will you perform in the word reconstruction game?” ・５＝ Very well ・４＝ Well ・３＝ Neutral -- Average ・２＝ Poorly ・１＝ Very poorly Number of Tasks Solved

Results ： Self-efficacy Change Easy Task Performers experienced an enhanced self-efficacy after their success on the tasks. The effect lasted one year or more. 10

Results ： Academic Achievement The target boys raised their academic achievement scores statistically higher than their counterparts. No significant differences were found among the girls. Please note that the gradual decline of the other groups are only illusionary (Mori & Uchida, 2012) 11

References Mori, K. (2007). Projecting two words with one machine: Presenting two different visual stimuli using just one projector without viewers’ noticing the duality. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 811–815. Mori, K. & Uchida, A. (2009). Can contrived success affect self-efficacy among junior high school students? Research in Education, 82, Mori, K. & Uchida, A. (2012). The leading group effect: Illusionary declines in scholastic standard scores of mid-range Japanese junior high school pupils. Research in Education, 87, Acknowledgments This research was supported by Grants-in-Aid from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science to AU (Grant No ) and to KM (Grant No & ). We obtained the informed consent of the principal and vice-principal of the junior high school before we conducted this experimental research. It was approved by the ethical committee of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology in We also explained the presentation trick directly to the participants one month after the anagram tasks. We wish to express our thanks to the principal and teachers of Shinonoi Nishi Junior High School, Nagano, Japan, for the opportunity to conduct this experiment and to the students for participating in the experiments. We also thank Kazue Ohta, Kosuke Goto, and Yu Satoh of Shinshu University for their help during the anagram task administrations. We are indebted to Rebecca Ann Marck for her superb work in editing the English manuscript. 12