From intentions and attitudes to achievement and success
6.5. Mastery and helplessness orientation patterns
they depend on the changing learning environments and situations. Such changes can be, for example, the transition from elementary school to junior high school (Anderman, & Maehr, 1994; Midgley, Eccles, & Feldlaufer, 1991; Midgley, Feldlaufer, & Eccles, 1989; Pajares, & Graham, 1999; Wigfield, Eccles, MacIver, Reuman, & Midgley, 1991).
In summa: Motivational styles are quite varied, and depend on many psychological, educational, environmental, social, and familial variables. Each such style has an influence both on classroom achievements and participation. In the rest of this chapter I will describe some more of these influencing ingredients.
“potential ability” loses some of its relevance as an indicator for future achievements when motivation orientation is taken into consideration.
6.5.3. Gender differences
There is a wide-spread belief that girls are not as persistent as boys when facing failure (Eccles, 1983; Eccles [Parsons], Adler, & Meece, 1984). Let us see if this belief has always proven true, and if not – what is the basis that has caused it.
Caldarone, George, Zachariou, & Picciotto (2000) have shown that gender differences in learned helplessness have a genetic basis. In their experiment, female mice showed a higher level of learned helplessness than male ones after an inescapable shock. Similar differences have been observed in rats (Steenbergen, Heinsbroek, Van Haaren, & Van de Poll, 1989). It should be noted, though, that no conclusions should be drawn about human behavior until solid research proves the connection between findings among animals and those among humans. Let us, thus, survey only studies about humans.
Dweck and her colleagues (1999; Licht & Dweck, 1984) have discovered that unlike among bright boys, bright girls in elementary school were more vulnerable to helplessness than girls with lower ability. Dweck’s explanation (1999) for this phenomenon is, that according to the study of Ruble, Greulich, Pomerantz, &
Gochberg (1993), for these girls the concept of their high ability was valid only when they recalled their last success; each time they were faced with a new challenge they felt threatened and many times preferred not to take the new challenge.
In summa: Research on gender differences in learned helplessness has shown mixed results. The main variables influencing these results have been: the subject matter or the educational domain; cultural and ethnic affiliation, and the time the study was conducted: gender differences regarding learned helplessness tend to diminish with time. Thus, we shall hereby concentrate on describing studies conducted not earlier than in the last decade of the second millennium, and classify them into the following categories: 1. Studies where girls were found to score higher than boys in learned helplessness; 2. Studies where boys were found to score higher than girls in learned helplessness; 3. Studies with mixed results; 4. Studies where no gender differences regarding learned helplessness were found.
6.5.3.1. Studies where girls were found to be more helpless than boys
Dickhaeuser & Stiensmeyer-Pelster (2002) have studied gender differences in computer-related attributions among 200 university students in Germany. In the first study measuring the helplessness level the results showed substantial gender differences in learned helplessness: females were significantly more helpless than males. In the second study where attributions to failure where investigated females were found to have lower expectation for success and a higher level of shame as a result of a failure than boys.
One of the reasons that in the year 2000 girls comprised no more than 10% of computers students in Germany (Science Policies in the European Union, 2000) might be their helpless behavior, and another one – their low expectancies. For verifying this hypothesis similar studies should be conducted in other countries, e.g.
in Israel, where the percentage of female computer students is over 30 (Statistics, Israel, 2002a). In addition, more studies should be conducted among university students to find out whether this outcome is typical to a “manly perceived profession”, whether it is typical to a certain age group (average: 24.22 years), also common to younger students (e.g. American typical students), or to non-traditional students (e.g.
returning students).
For the time being, the data about German students is partial, though not exactly resembling that of Dickhaeuser & Stiensmeyer-Pelster (2002). Ziegler, Schober, & Dresel, 2002, April) examined, among other things, the level of helplessness among German grade school students in the domains of mathematics and music. In contrast to previous expectations, no gender differences were found in the helplessness level of these students. The surprising result of this study was, however, the higher percentage of helpless students both in mathematics and in music: about 20% of the students.
Another finding that should be re-examined in different cultures concerns special populations. For example: Kline & Short, (1991) have found, that the level of helplessness among gifted girls increased from grades 1-4 to 4-6, and decreased even more from grades 4-6 to grades 9-12.
6.5.3.2. Studies where boys scored higher than girls in learned helplessness
Valas (2001) has studied three groups of 1580 3rd and 4th, 6th and 7th and 8th and 9th Norwegian school children and found that boys showed a higher level of academic learned helplessness than girls. Leo & Galloway (1994) conducted a study of motivation styles among 6 primary school teachers in England and their 169 students.
Although no gender differences were found regarding the adoption of helplessness behavior, teachers perceived boys as more helpless than girls both in mathematics and in English.
We can conclude, that there is not enough evidence that one gender has no advantage over the other regarding learned helplessness. From the Leo & Galloway (ibid) study we can also conclude, that there are differences in the perception of helplessness among teachers. Thus, since learned helplessness is – as it is referred by its name – a flexible variable, which changes, among other things, with time, more information about it should be obtained by longitudinal studies that could demonstrate its development in males as in females.
6.5.3.3. Studies with mixed results and studies where no gender differences regarding learned helplessness were found
Studies belonging to this category comprised the majority of those known in the relevant literature until the mid 80ies (Diener & Dweck, 1978, 1980; Dweck, 1975;
Dweck, & Reppucci, 1973; Eccles, 1983; Eccles [Parsons], 1984; Eccles (Parsons), Adler, & Meece, 1984; Nicholls, 1975; Rholes, Blackwell, Jordan, & Walters, 1980), as well as those found in the PsychInfo database for the years 1990-2002 under: “learned and helplessness and (gender and differences)”. Let us survey them by the ages of the participating students.
Lee (1999) has studied, among other things, gender differences regarding learned helplessness among 269 4th grade students from 14 classrooms in four schools in three American districts. Although there was substantial support to the assumption that ability level plays a role in helplessness across all subjects, no gender differences were found in any subject regarding failure outcomes. High achieving male and female students of language and math tended also to hold stable beliefs of their abilities and attribute successful outcomes to their high ability.
Rozell, Gundersen, & Terpstra (1998) collected data from 84 American undergraduates and examined the influence of gender, sex-role identity, gender of the
experimenter, and the quality of information on helpless behavior and behavior. No gender differences were found. It is interesting to note, though, that participants with androgynous or indifferent sex role performed best under helpless conditions, namely, those who were either characterizes by both female and male personal traits, or with hardly any gender characteristics were not influenced negatively regarding performance when helpless.
Blair (2000) studied helplessness behavior among re-entry college students, whose age was over 25. She found no gender differences in learned helplessness in this sample. Boggiano & Barrett (1991) studied 196 college students and 37 parents for finding gender differences in helplessness. They examined gender-based expectations by introducing vignettes that included either masculine or feminine sex-linked tasks performed by helpless and mastery-oriented children. Under conditions in which children’s behavior confirmed expectations, girls acted helplessly and boys acted in a mastery-oriented way; when children’s behavior violated expectancies girls acted in a mastery-oriented manner and boys in a helpless manner.
In summa: In contradiction to many previous studies, which indicated a higher level of learned helplessness among girls, especially regarding math and science, my survey does not support this assumption. However, further research is needed, taking into account variables such as age, level of education, and ethnic and cultural characteristics. Thus, it will be interesting to examine gender as well as religion, level of religiosity, grade, and class-type [single- versus mixed-sex] regarding helplessness, and its influence on both expected and actual mathematics grade.
6.5.4. The Israeli situation
Low believability in own mathematical abilities is typical to the female Israeli student. In spite of receiving higher grades than boys at all educational levels, girls tend to choose themselves out of learning this subjects at the highest possible level in high school. Low success rates in mathematics it typical to the Muslim students, and is common especially among boys. My study that will focus, among other things, on believability in own math abilities and learned helplessness will try to answer some of the main questions about the influence of these two psychological measures on both math participation and achievement not only among females versus males, Muslim versus Jewish students, students learning in mixed- versus single-sex classes, students
learning in religious- versus secular classes, and students learning in grades 7, 8, 9, and 10.