When do underachievers feel taken seriously? : Creating “quality time”

Abstract

Dealing with diversity in education plays an important role for studentsí learning success. Especially in school it is of particular relevance how many learning opportunities are generated during class. In a certain way diversity calls for a strategic use of instructional time and a reasonable distribution of learning opportunities, especially if teachers are confronted with ability-achievement-discrepancies such as underachievement. Furthermore, against the background of emotion theories it is important to know about studentsí experiences during class ñ whether they feel taken seriously, whether they have enough time to reflect on subject matters and whether they are challenged in an adequate way. As many studies concerning learning emotions focus on retrospective questionnaires it seems promising to explore studentsí subjective experiences during class using experience sampling procedures. Within a video study in a Bavarian business school 84 students were investigated during altogether 32 accounting lessons. Besides measuring personal initial conditions by questionnaires and a knowledge test, during class we measured studentsí states in equally spaced intervals by using Continuous State Sampling. Analysing the influence of several parameters on the feeling of being taken seriously we carried out a multilevel model. By controlling for gender and age, the findings show that sufficient time slots to reflect on subject matter and a strategic use of instructional time significantly affect the feeling of being taken seriously. Wasted time periods meanwhile affect experienced appreciation significantly negative. But above all we found a significant interaction between ability-achievement-discrepancy and participation in classroom talk concerning perceived esteem.