A question of cause and effect – How educational settings at the primary and secondary level interact with intelligence, motivation and anxiety
(2016) Focus on the Learner — Location: Konin/Poland (17.October.2016)
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- Between 2013 and 2015, a singular situation arose in the German federal state of Baden-Württemberg as students were passing the same final exams in English as a Foreign Language (EFL), but had attended different educational settings both at the primary and the secondary level. Data on intelligence (cf. PSB-R 6-13, Horn 2003) as well as motivation and anxiety (cf. FLM 7-13, Petermann & Winkel 2007) were collected from 420 learners in Year 11, forming part of an L2 database (cf. Möller 2015). Following changes to the curriculum (cf. MKJS 2001: 7), some learners had participated in two years or even four years of EFL education at the primary level, while others had not been offered EFL lessons at all. No significant differences were found for cognitive capacities, but learners who had been exposed to EFL teaching at the primary level scored higher with respect to aspects of motivation. Conversely, these learners exhibited lower levels of exam anxiety. As parents had not been able to choose a particular programme for their child at the primary level, we assume EFL lessons to have caused the observed effects. At the secondary level, some learners had opted for participation in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in addition to their regular EFL education. These students outperformed their non-CLIL peers on several verbal and non-verbal scales of the intelligence test, which confirms previous findings (cf. Fehling 2009: 59). Likewise, CLIL learners displayed greater orientation towards performance and success. Both above-average cognitive capacities and motivation are explicitly stated as a requirement in the CLIL curriculum (cf. MKJS 2008: 6). Our findings therefore confirm that CLIL is selective (cf. Zydatiß 2007). However, CLIL participants paid a price for their perceived advantages: They developed a significantly higher level of fear that their success would lead to negative consequences.
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Möller, V. (2016). A question of cause and effect – How educational settings at the primary and secondary level interact with intelligence, motivation and anxiety. Focus on the Learner, Konin/Poland. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/172174