Promoting hope in minoritized and economically disadvantaged students

Minoritized and economically disadvantaged (MED) students encounter a host of detrimental factors within the academic setting (e.g., racism, classism, low expectations). In order for them to be successful, ways must be found to help them achieve academically despite their disadvantageous academic environments. Recent research indicates that hope theory might provide a pathway for MED students to have a higher chance at success. In this review, how hope has the potential to take on a special significance for MED students as well as how it can be leveraged to increase their odd of academic and life success is discussed. In addition, recent research centered around promoting hope in MED students, both formally and informally, is reviewed. Altogether, this review has implications for cultivating hope in schools.

A multimethod examination of hope and adolescent STEM career expectancies

INTRODUCTION

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields are growing rapidly and understanding adolescent's interest and hope for pursuing a STEM career is essential for additional growth and opportunity collectively and individually. Hope is a cognitive-motivational construct that includes three components: hopeful future expectations (HFEs), intentional self-regulation (ISR), and connection, and is associated with academic achievement and career pursuit; it has not been examined in relation to STEM. This study fills a gap in the literature by taking a multimethod approach to understanding the association between adolescents' hope and STEM career interests.

METHODS

Participants were 639 middle- and high-school adolescents in the southwestern United States who quantitatively reported their hope and STEM career interests and provided qualitative descriptions of reasons for wanting to pursue a STEM career.

RESULTS

Quantitatively, HFEs significantly and positively predicted STEM career interest. Relations were examined by gender and school level. For middle-school girls, ISR significantly predicted STEM career interest, for middle-school boys and high-school girls, HFEs positively significantly predicted STEM career interest, but results of high-school boys were nonsignificant. Qualitatively, adolescents mentioned reasons aligning with HFEs and ISR as motivations for pursuing a STEM career, as well as prosocial motivations. Additionally, they discussed their interest in a STEM career as a way to pursue other goals such as financial stability.

DISCUSSION

Findings highlight the possibility of hope as a malleable motivation for STEM career pursuit. Our findings support the components of hope as a salient associate of early STEM career interest, with adolescents who have high HFEs and ISR being particularly apt to say they would like to pursue a STEM career. Our results support the active development of hope among US adolescents as a catalyst toward personal and global success.

The Implicit Achievement Motive in the Writing Style

Linguistic theories and research indicate that unconscious processes should influence the content, but moreover also the way how things are expressed. As the first is well researched and the second is almost neglected, I want to assess how the writing style of a person is related to the implicit achievement motive and its two components hope of success (HS) and fear of failure (FF). Therefore, thematic apperception test/picture story exercise responses of 2942 persons were analyzed regarding the three writing style features (1) syntax, (2) nominal/verbal writing, and (3) function words. According to the assumptions, the results of two independent measures (Stanford Parser and LIWC) show that a verbal fluent writing style with simple syntax is associated with HS, whereby FF-motivated people show nominal writing with interjections, conjunctions, and complex punctuations.

Truancy: The relevance of resilience-related internal assets, student engagement and perception of school success in youth living with parents and in residential care

BACKGROUND

School absenteeism is associated with multiple negative short and long-term impacts, such as school grade retention and mental health difficulties.

OBJECTIVE

The present study aimed to understand the role of resilience-related internal assets, student engagement, and perception of school success as protective factors for truancy. Additionally, we investigated whether there were differences in these variables between students living in residential care and students living with their parents.

METHODS

This study included 118 participants aged 11 to 23 years old (M = 17.16, SE = 0.26). The majority were female (n = 61, 51.7 %) and Portuguese (n = 98, 83.1 %), with half living in residential care. In this cross-sectional study, participants responded to self-report questionnaires. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to understand the factors associated with truancy.

RESULTS

There were no group differences in resilience-related internal assets and their perception of school success. On the contrary, participants in residential care reported more unexcused school absences, more grade retentions, higher levels of depression, and lower levels of student engagement. Moreover, hierarchical linear regression controlling for key variables (i.e., living in residential care or with parents, school grade retention, and depression) showed that perception of school success and resilience-related internal assets significantly contributed to truancy.

CONCLUSIONS

Results are discussed in the context of universal and selective interventions. These interventions can foster individual strengths and provide opportunities for every student to experience success. Consequently, they promote engagement and reduce the likelihood of school absences, especially for those in more vulnerable situations such as youth in residential care.

Hope Across Socioeconomic Status: Examining Measurement Invariance of the Children's Hope Scale Across Socioeconomic Status Groups

There has been a growing interest in research on hope in recent years. The Children’s Hope Scale (CHS) is the most commonly used scale to evaluate goal-related hopeful thinking in children and adolescents. Socioeconomic status (SES) strongly influences an individual’s experiences from childhood and throughout adult life. This study aimed to evaluate the measurement invariance of the CHS across SES. The sample consisted of 1934 Chinese youths (50.4% females) with a mean age of 12.96 (SD = 2.686). An overall family SES score was obtained by totaling the Z scores for family monthly income and parents’ education level. The results supported the single-factor model as the baseline model across each SES group. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis revealed that full measurement invariance did not hold. One factor loading and one intercept were non-invariant. There were also significant differences in latent factor means and raw scores of the CHS across the two groups. The CHS had a stronger convergent validation in the higher SES group than lower SES group. The results suggest that researchers and practitioners should exercise caution when comparing differences in hope measured by the CHS between groups with different SES. We provide more robust statistical evidence in terms of SES differences, indicating that children and adolescents from higher SES backgrounds shower greater hopeful thinking compared with those from lower SES backgrounds.