Self‐regulation, goal orientation, self‐efficacy, worry, and high‐stakes math achievement for mathematically gifted high school students¹

This article is based on a doctoral dissertation submitted to the faculty at University of Southern California by John R. Malpass. Harold F. O'Neil, Jr., directed the work.

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The work reported herein was supported in part under the Educational Research and Development Center Program, cooperative agreement number R117G10027 and CFDA catalog number 84.117G, as administered by the Office of Educational Research and Development, U.S. Department of Education. The findings and opinions expressed in this work do not reflect the position or policies of the Office of Educational Research and Improvement or the U.S. Department of Education.

Our study used a structural equation modeling framework to investigate the effects of gender, self‐efficacy, learning goal orientation, self‐regulation, and worry on high‐stakes mathematics achievement in a sample of mathematically gifted, primarily Asian American, high school students. It is one of the few studies that investigated the joint effect of such variables in a high‐stakes environment (i.e., an Advanced Placement calculus exam). Our analyses showed that self‐efficacy is positively related to math achievement, is moderately and positively related to self‐regulation, and is highly and negatively related to worry, and that learning goal orientation (or intrinsic value) is positively related to self‐regulation and worry but is not related to self‐efficacy or high‐stakes mathematics achievement. With respect to gender, young men were less worried and had higher self‐efficacy for math than young women. Finally, self‐regulation was negatively related to worry, but surprisingly, was not related to high‐stakes mathematics achievement.

Notes

This article is based on a doctoral dissertation submitted to the faculty at University of Southern California by John R. Malpass. Harold F. O'Neil, Jr., directed the work.

The work reported herein was supported in part under the Educational Research and Development Center Program, cooperative agreement number R117G10027 and CFDA catalog number 84.117G, as administered by the Office of Educational Research and Development, U.S. Department of Education. The findings and opinions expressed in this work do not reflect the position or policies of the Office of Educational Research and Improvement or the U.S. Department of Education.