The effects of gender, expectations of success and social comparison on children's performance on a computer-based task

Richard Joiner, David Messer, Paul Light, Karen Littleton

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

Examined the effects of gender, expectations of success and social comparison on children's performance on a computer-based task. 32 boys and 30 girls (aged 10-11 yrs) were randomly allocated to either a high-expectation group or a low-expectation group and to 1 of 2 conditions either an individual condition or a social comparison condition. Children worked on their own in the individual condition. In the social comparison condition, they worked in the presence of three same-sex peers, who were working on comparable problems. The presence of comparable others facilitated the performance of girls who had high expectations of success, but was detrimental to the performance of girls with low expectations of success. The presence of comparable others had the opposite effect for boys. The implications of these findings for the use of computers in schools are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved).
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)319-326
Number of pages8
JournalEducational Psychology
Volume18
Issue number3
Publication statusPublished - 1998

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