Working paper
English Language Learners, self-efficacy, and the achievement gap: understanding the relationship between academic and social-emotional growth
2019
Description
Due in part to the challenges associated with learning a new language, English Language Learners (ELLs) typically begin school with lower achievement than their non-ELL peers, and those achievement gaps often close slowly if at all. A separate body of research shows that achievement is associated with social-emotional learning constructs like self-efficacy, yet this relationship has rarely been examined for ELLs. In this study, multivariate models that jointly estimate growth in achievement and self-efficacy during middle school are used to see how underlying developmental processes relate for ELLs. Results indicate that self-efficacy tends to decline for all students despite growth in math and reading, and that achievement and self-efficacy are much lower for ELLs. Further, there is evidence that slower growth in math and reading for ELLs is associated with their low self-efficacy at the beginning of middle school (self-efficacy mediates the association between ELL status and achievement growth). Implications for closing achievement gaps between ELLs and non-ELLs are discussed.
See MoreAssociated Research
Presentation
Related Topics
COVID’s impact on science achievement: Trends from 2019 through 2024
This new report examines the pandemic’s impacts on academic achievement and gain in Science and continues ongoing research by NWEA® analyzing the degree to which the COVID-19 pandemic, and its associated school closures, influenced student learning.
Products: MAP Growth
Topics: COVID-19 & schools, Equity, Growth
Technical Brief – COVID’s impact on science achievement: Trends from 2019 through 2024
This is the accompanying technical brief to the new report (Covid’s impact on science achievement: Trends from 2019 through 2024) that examines the pandemic’s impacts on academic achievement and gain in Science and continues ongoing research by NWEA® analyzing the degree to which the COVID-19 pandemic, and its associated school closures, influenced student learning.
Products: MAP Growth
Topics: COVID-19 & schools, Equity, Growth
Reconciling Recent Evidence on Academic Recovery in the US from 2022 to 2023
A new analysis comparing latest NWEA and the Education Recovery Scorecard results to understand pandemic recovery, so far, and look at differences and similarities in those results.
Products: MAP Growth
Topics: COVID-19 & schools, Equity, Growth
NWEA research report examining the impacts of the pandemic’s disruptions to learning and the status of academic recovery. This report features data from the 2023-24 academic year and underscores that unfinished learning continues to be a challenge due to lower achievement gains compared to pre-pandemic trends. This report is part of series tracking the on-going impacts.
Products: MAP Growth
Topics: COVID-19 & schools, Equity, Growth
NWEA research report examining the impacts of the pandemic’s disruptions to learning and the status of academic recovery. This report features data from the 2023-24 academic year and underscores that unfinished learning continues to be a challenge due to lower achievement gains compared to pre-pandemic trends. This report is part of series tracking the on-going impacts.
Products: MAP Growth
Topics: COVID-19 & schools, Equity, Growth
High dosage tutoring for academically at-risk students
This brief provides a review of the research on high dosage tutoring as an intervention strategy for supporting at-risk students. It highlights the benefits and the non-negotiable factors for effective implementation and usage.
Topics: COVID-19 & schools, Equity, Growth, Informing instruction
Typical learning for whom? Guidelines for selecting benchmarks to calculate months of learning
To describe the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on students, researchers have translated test scores into months of learning to claim how many months/years students are behind in school. Despite its perceived accessibility, there are major downsides to this translation. To inform future uses by researchers and media, we discuss in this brief how to calculate this metric as well as its trade-offs.
Topics: COVID-19 & schools, Equity, Growth, Growth modeling, Seasonal learning patterns & summer loss
