Wagner Lisa, Holenstein Mathias, Wepf Hannah, Ruch Willibald
Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Department of Psychology, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Front Psychol. 2020 Jul 16;11:1324. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01324. eCollection 2020.
While character strengths have been found to predict educational outcomes beyond broad personality traits and cognitive ability, little is known about their differential contribution to success and positive learning experiences in different school settings. In this study, we use trait activation theory to investigate the relationships of students' character strengths with achievement, flow experiences, and enjoyment in different learning situations (i.e., teacher-centered learning, individual tasks, and group work). In studying these relationships, we controlled for psychometric intelligence. Secondary school students ( = 255; 46.3% male; mean age = 14.5 years) completed a self-report measure of character strengths, the VIA-Youth (Park and Peterson, 2006b). Cognitive ability was assessed using a standardized intelligence test (PSB-R; Horn et al., 2003) at baseline. Three months later, students completed the Flow Short Scale (Rheinberg et al., 2003) adapted to the three learning situations and indicated their typical enjoyment of these situations. Both the students and their teachers ( = 18; 50% male; mean age = 44.8 years) provided ratings on school achievement in each of the three learning situations. Results indicate that, as expected, (a) certain character strengths (love of learning and perseverance) show consistent relationships with achievement and positive learning experiences (flow and enjoyment) above and beyond cognitive ability across all learning situations, whereas (b) other character strengths show differential trait-outcome relationships (e.g., the character strength of teamwork was predictive of achievement and positive learning experiences in group work). Taken together, these results suggest that different character strengths play a role in different school situations and that their contribution to explaining variance in educational outcomes is incremental to the contribution of cognitive ability.
虽然人们发现性格优势能够预测教育成果，且这种预测能力超出了广泛的人格特质和认知能力，但对于它们在不同学校环境中对成功和积极学习体验的差异贡献，我们却知之甚少。在本研究中，我们运用特质激活理论来探究学生的性格优势与不同学习情境（即以教师为中心的学习、个体任务和小组作业）中的成绩、心流体验及乐趣之间的关系。在研究这些关系时，我们控制了心理测量学意义上的智力因素。中学生（N = 255；46.3%为男性；平均年龄 = 14.5岁）完成了一份关于性格优势的自我报告测量工具，即青少年版的价值观与性格优势问卷（VIA-Youth，Park和Peterson，2006b）。在基线时，使用标准化智力测试（PSB-R；Horn等人，2003）评估认知能力。三个月后，学生们完成了针对这三种学习情境改编的简短心流量表（Rheinberg等人，2003），并表明了他们对这些情境的典型喜爱程度。学生及其教师（N = 18；50%为男性；平均年龄 = 44.8岁）都对三种学习情境中的学业成绩进行了评分。结果表明，正如预期的那样，（a）某些性格优势（热爱学习和毅力）在所有学习情境中都与成绩以及积极的学习体验（心流和乐趣）呈现出一致的关系，且这种关系超出了认知能力的影响；而（b）其他性格优势则表现出不同的特质-结果关系（例如，团队合作的性格优势在小组作业中能够预测成绩和积极的学习体验）。综合来看，这些结果表明不同的性格优势在不同的学校情境中发挥着作用，并且它们对解释教育成果差异的贡献是对认知能力贡献的增量。
