Abstracts - Earli

effects ought to be taken into account when evaluating alternative curriculum policies. The relativeeffectiveness of departments appeared to have very little effect on students’ choices.Impact of students’ and their schoolmates’ achievement motivation on the status and growth inmath and language achievement of boys and girls across grades seven through eightEva Van de gaer, Catholic University, Leuven, BelgiumJan Van Damme, Catholic University, Leuven, BelgiumGeorges Van Landeghem, Catholic University, Leuven, BelgiumThe present study focuses not only on the impact of students’ achievement motivation, but also onthe influence of achievement motivation of fellow students on status and growth in language andmath achievement across Grades seven and eight. The achievement motivation of schoolmatesmay create a learning environment that facilitates or impedes learning above and beyond whatwould be expected on the basis of the individual student’s achievement motivation, intelligenceand background characteristics. Data from the LOSO-project, a longitudinal study in secondaryeducation, have been analyzed using multilevel linear growth curve modeling. It turns out that theeffect of achievement motivation, both of individuals and in groups, should not be neglected inexplanations of individual progress in achievement, even when ability and backgroundcharacteristics such as the socio-economic status, age, sex and home language have beencontrolled for. In addition, the data suggest that especially boys with poor achievement motivationat the start of secondary education are at risk of falling behind with regard to languageachievement in the subsequent years.Cognitive development in Dutch primary education: The impact of individual background andclassroom compositionHans Luyten, University of Twente, Enschede, NetherlandsKim Schildkamp, University of Twente, Enschede, NetherlandsA sample of 815 Dutch pupils from 49 classes were followed from grade 3 (age 6) through grade 7(age 11) of primary education. Every six months test scores were obtained for spelling andmathematics. This resulted in 9 test scores per subject for each pupil. Different growth trajectorieswere estimated for three categories of pupils, namely socio-economically disadvantagedimmigrant pupils, Dutch socio-economically disadvantaged pupils and others. Socio-economicdisadvantage was measured by means of the educational level of the pupils’ parents. Therelationship between classroom composition and cognitive development was analysed as well. Theresults of the multilevel analyses with repeated measures indicate similar patterns for spelling andmathematics with regard to the impact of individual background. For both subjects a substantialdisadvantage is observed already in grade 3 (age 6) for both the immigrant and Dutchdisadvantaged pupils. The size of this difference changes only to a limited extent from grade 3 to7, but the Dutch disadvantaged pupils appear to lag a little further behind than their immigrantcounterparts. Classroom composition shows no significant effect for spelling, but classes with ahigh proportion of disadvantaged pupils show a modest disadvantage for mathematics early ingrade 3, which is quickly reduced, however. Still, in grade 7 the differences between classes withhigh and low proportions of disadvantaged pupils appear to widen again. The findings show thateducational disadvantages related to low socio-economic status are already apparent at the earlystages of primary education and reducing these advantages calls for strategies that focus on veryyoung children. Additional disadvantages related to aggregate student backgrounds appear tooccur especially at the final stages of Dutch primary education.– 305 –