Abstracts - Earli

students’ self-evaluations. The main purpose was to analyze the net effects of social comparisons,i.e., whether gains following above-average achievements or losses following below-averageachievements are more pronounced. In Study 1 (N = 382), the gains of above-average studentswere larger than the losses of below-average students (relative to average students). In Study 2 (N= 1349), the same pattern emerged with reading test scores as well as grades as achievementindicators. In an experimental replication, Study 3 (N = 81) found larger gains than losses in bothself-perceived competence and satisfaction with a test result. Findings are discussed against thebackground of the theory of social comparisons.Motivational and linguistic pathways to reading comprehension at grade 2Janne Lepola, Univ. of Turku, FinlandKaisa Aunola, Univ. of Jyväskylä, FinlandPekka Niemi, Univ. of Turku, FinlandMarja-Kristiina Lerkkanen, Univ. of Jyväskylä, FinlandThe aim of this 3-year longitudinal study was to examine the developmental relationship oflinguistic and motivational factors in predicting reading comprehension at grade 2. We willanalyse by means of Latent Growth curve Modelling (LGM) the extent to which readingcomprehension at grade 2 is predicted by the level of oral comprehension skills and motivation inkindergarten, on the one hand, and by their changes from kindergarten to grade 1, on the other,after controlling for the impact of word decoding at grade 1. The participants were 139 Finnishspeakingchildren. Kindergarten and grade 1 teachers rated children’s motivational tendencies, thatis, task orientation and social dependence at three time points. Analyses showed that thekindergarten levels of listening comprehension and comprehension of instructions had bothsignificant contributions to reading comprehension over and above the effect of word decoding.Moreover, the growth of oral language comprehension skills from kindergarten to grade 1positively predicted later level of reading comprehension. Finally, changes in task orientation andsocial dependence orientation from kindergarten to grade 1 were negatively related to later readingcomprehension, suggesting that children’s motivational responses to the beginning readinginstruction have far-reaching impact on reading achievement.The development of mastery motivation at age 10-16Krisztián Józsa, University of Szeged, HungaryThe development of mastery motivation is probably one of the most intensively investigated fieldsof mastery motivation research. Mastery motives force us to train and master a certain skill orability. Under adequate conditions, they operate as long as the challenge persists and as long asacquisition is not complete, i.e. until mastery has been reached. Although the literaturedemonstrates the necessity of research on school age groups, as well as empirical studies of thedevelopment of mastery motives, only a few such studies have been published. The aim of thepresent study is the investigation of mastery motivation among 10-16-year-old children (grade 4,6, 8 and 10) in a Hungarian context. Hungarian versions of the Dimensions of MasteryQuestionnaires were developed. The self-reported version of the DMQ and both mothers’ andteachers’ ratings were administered. The cross-sectional study involved more than 6000 students.Teacher ratings of 3200 students’ motives and parent ratings of 3700 students’ motives werecollected. The questionnaires have good psychometric properties. The interrater correlations weremoderate. It appears from the data that there is a rather pronounced difference of judgement onchildren’s motivation among the children themselves, their teachers and their parents. All threeraters (teacher, parent and child) indicated the reduction of mastery motives during the examined– 744 –