Which Skills Predict School Success? Socioemotional Skills and the Achievement Gap

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dc.contributor.advisorO'Neal, Colleen Ren_US
dc.contributor.authorBoyars, Michal Y.en_US
dc.contributor.departmentCounseling and Personnel Servicesen_US
dc.contributor.publisherDigital Repository at the University of Marylanden_US
dc.contributor.publisherUniversity of Maryland (College Park, Md.)en_US
dc.date.accessioned2017-01-24T06:48:10Z
dc.date.available2017-01-24T06:48:10Z
dc.date.issued2016en_US
dc.description.abstractThis cross-sectional study examined the relations of four socioemotional skills with academic achievement among ethnic minority (e.g., Asian, Black, Latino/a, and multiethnic) and White elementary school students. Method: Participants included public school upper elementary students (N = 257; Mage = 9.71; 58% female; 10% Black, 5% Asian, 6% Latino/a, 12% multiracial; 61% White). Measures included student-reported grit, growth mindset, engagement, and emotion regulation, in addition to a student literacy achievement performance task (Test of Silent Reading Efficiency and Comprehension, TOSREC) and student reading achievement scores (Measures of Academic Progress in Reading; MAP-R). Results: Across all analyses, socioemotional skills were more related to literacy achievement for ethnic minority students than for White students. While simple regressions supported several skills’ relation to achievement for both groups of students, multiple regressions suggested that grit was the sole significant predictor of achievement, and it was only predictive of minority students’ achievement. Although literacy achievement differed between the full samples of ethnic minority and White students, moderation analyses indicated that this achievement gap disappeared among high grit students. Yet, while these regression and moderation results suggested grit’s unique role as a predictor, SEM analyses suggested that the magnitude of all of the socioemotional skills’ prediction of achievement were more similar than different. These findings support a novel but cautious approach to research on socioemotional skills and the achievement gap: results suggest that the skills operate differently in students of different ethnicities, with grit playing a uniquely predictive role for minority students. The skills, however, may be more similar than not in the strength of their association with literacy achievement.en_US
dc.identifierhttps://doi.org/10.13016/M29R82
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/19011
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledEducational psychologyen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledPsychologyen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledEducationen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledAchievement Gapen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledEngagementen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledLiteracyen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledMotivationen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledSocial Emotionalen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledSocioemotionalen_US
dc.titleWhich Skills Predict School Success? Socioemotional Skills and the Achievement Gapen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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