How Finnish and Swedish Learners’ Academic Self-Control Relates to Time Spent Online in Class, Perceptions of Educator Qualities, and School Appreciation: A Cross-Sectional Comparison

Thomas Arnesen,Knut-Andreas Christophersen,Eyvind Elstad

doi:10.3390/educsci7030068

Thomas Arnesen, Knut-Andreas Christophersen + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci7030068

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Abstract

In school settings, self-control is central to the ability of learners to complete their academic work successfully. Learners’ self-control is directly influenced by the ways in which educators execute their work, including their instructional explanations, their classroom management, and the expectations that they express to their learners. Our research on this phenomenon investigated Finnish and Swedish learners in upper secondary schools. Not only is the use of digital technology very different in these two countries; the autonomy and status of educators are as well. This article compares the empirical significance of antecedents of learners’ academic self-control in the two national settings by surveying 2191 learners in Swedish and Finnish schools. Our analysis applies structural equation modeling to two cross-sectional datasets, and the results reveal that the associations between educators’ instructional explanations, classroom management, and their high expectations on the one hand and learners’ academic self-control on the other are stronger overall among Finnish students than among Swedish students. Furthermore, the association between digital technology use and learners’ perceptions of conflict between school norms and Internet opportunities are much stronger in the Swedish sample than the Finnish sample. Lastly, we discuss the meaning of these results and their possible implications for research and practice.

Highlights

Self-control is central to learners’ endeavors to achieve successful academic performance.Self-control typically refers to “the capacity for altering one’s own responses, especially to bring them into line with standards such as ideals, values, morals and social expectations, and to support the pursuit of long-term goals” [1] (p. 351)
We refer to self-control regarding academic work within a secondary school setting as “academic self-control”
The learners’ appreciation for school was slightly qualities and academic self-control more strongly associated with academic self-control in Sweden (b[val→per] = 0.30) than in Finland were

Summary

Introduction

Self-control is central to learners’ endeavors to achieve successful academic performance.Self-control typically refers to “the capacity for altering one’s own responses, especially to bring them into line with standards such as ideals, values, morals and social expectations, and to support the pursuit of long-term goals” [1] (p. 351). Self-control is central to learners’ endeavors to achieve successful academic performance. Self-control typically refers to “the capacity for altering one’s own responses, especially to bring them into line with standards such as ideals, values, morals and social expectations, and to support the pursuit of long-term goals” [1] We refer to self-control regarding academic work within a secondary school setting as “academic self-control”. Such self-control faces new challenges today, as learners very often have mobile phones or computers available to them in classroom situations [3]. Learners sometimes perceive a conflict between off-task online engagement and normative academic work in school. The extent, frequency and intensity of youth’ digital communication might indicate the development of a new participatory

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