Class-average achievement negatively predicts student enjoyment across math, science, and reading (the Happy-Fish-Little-Pond Effect), with the reading effect trivially small¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r2 · q3 · i1 small
Currency · newest study 2023 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i1 Class-level achievement negatively predicted student-level enjoyment in all three domains: math (β = -.173), science (β = -.124), reading (β = -.070, considered trivial). → Basarkod 2023

Evidence¶

Basarkod 2023¶

Basarkod, G., Marsh, H. W., Guo, J., Parker, P. D., Dicke, T., & Pekrun, R. (2023). The Happy-Fish-Little-Pond Effect on Enjoyment: Generalizability Across Multiple Domains and Countries. https://osf.io/kb29h/

q3 · i1 · associational · r2

Three-level multilevel models on TIMSS-PIRLS 2011 data with class-average achievement computed after grand-mean centering of student achievement, controlling for SES, gender, and age. The article reports the printed betas for the three domains.

"Class-level achievement negatively predicted student-level enjoyment in all three domains, confirming Hypothesis 3. There was a larger effect for math enjoyment (β = -.173), followed by science (β = -.124) and reading (β = -.070)."

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Achievement Emotions — outcome: instruction changes it
• Interest — outcome: instruction changes it

Related Claims¶

• Student-level achievement positively predicts enjoyment in math, science, and reading among fourth graders — related
• The effect of student achievement on enjoyment is largely consistently positive across 37 countries, while the size of the negative class-average effect varies from country to country — related
• Including control and value variables substantially reduced the effects of student- and class-level achievement on enjoyment, consistent with control-value theory — related