To be or not to be? Pupils' explanations of the malleability of their academic competencies

Abstract

Purpose: The present study set out to examine the grounds on which pupils explain their possibilities of improving their competencies in mathematics and Finnish.

Sample: A total of 103 girls and boys of the third grade (age nine years) and the sixth grade (age 12 years), children of academically and vocationally educated parents, were interviewed.

Design and method:  The children were asked to rate their potential for improving their academic competencies on both intrapersonal and normative criteria and to give reasons for their ratings. The reasons given were content-analysed based on the data itself.

Results: Effort was the most frequently cited explanation by far, and the ratings on intrapersonal criteria were explained with partly different factors and in more variable ways than those on normative criteria.

Conclusions: The findings suggest that reference to effort is an explanation that helps the pupil to deal with the threat of a low academic self-concept determined on normative grounds and thus to retain a quantum of hope in regard to her/his prospects of personal development.

Keywords:

• malleability of competencies
• children's explanations
• school subjects
• grade-level
• gender
• parents' educational level