Relationships among student characteristics, study activities, and achievement as a function of course characteristics*

A battery of instruments were administered to 1240 junior high, senior high, and college students to assess their academic aptitude, self-efficacy, achievement orientation, and course-specific study actities. Also assessed were characteristics of the 22 social science courses within which these students were enrolled. The results revealed (a) an increase in demand for information capacity between junior and senior high school and an increase in demand on integration activities between junior high school and college; (b) significant positive correlations between academic achievement and both academic aptitude and self-efficacy ratings; (c) an interaction, across grade levels, between achievement orientation scales and achievement; (d) different patterns of relationships between the student characteristic measures and study scales across grade levels; and (f) some indication that grade-related differences in course features may account for these grade-related differences in the pattern of correlations between student characteristics and study activities.

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