Thérèse Bouffard

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at University of Quebec in Montreal

To feel unconditional love and acceptance from parents is a need which fundamental character is widely recognized. This article presents the results of a longitudinal study which first objective is to identify trajectories of change in perceived parental support conditional on academic success over a 5-year period. The second objective examines whe...

Si plusieurs théories avancent que la perception de compétence tient un rôle central dans la motivation et le rendement scolaires, la direction de leurs relations n'est pas consensuelle. Cette étude longitudinale couvrant la transition primaire-secondaire examine cette question. Dès la 5 e année du primaire et une fois l'an durant les 4 années suiv...

Many girls believe they have little natural ability in computer science and girls' perception of self-efficacy beliefs for programming is generally low. Offering engaging hands-on programming activities could be a beneficial strategy to increase girls' self-efficacy beliefs for programming since it has the potential to offer them exposure to master...

The entry of students into middle school constitutes a life transition that involves adaptive challenges at the psychological, academic and social levels. The provision of autonomy support and avoidance of controlling tactics by parents can be effective resources to help the students through this transition. The purpose of the present study was two...

Si plusieurs théories avancent que la perception de compétence tient un rôle central dans la motivation et le rendement scolaires, la direction de leurs relations n’est pas consensuelle. Cette étude longitudinale couvrant la transition primaire-secondaire examine cette question. Dès la 5e année du primaire et une fois l’an durant les 4 années suiva...

Despite recent calls for more peer support initiatives aimed at promoting mental health in postsecondary institutions, those initiatives remain scarce. In this study, a multisite randomized controlled trial was designed to assess the effect of an online peer support intervention based on acceptance and commitment therapy using mental health and sch...

L'illusion d'incompétence, ou biais négatif d'auto-évaluation, est souvent nuisible à l'apprentissage. Les élèves qui sous-estiment leur compétence présentent, comparativement aux autres, une motivation moindre, des attentes de réussite moins élevées, des attitudes plus négatives envers l'école et des performances inférieures à leur capacité. En re...

Many girls believe they have little natural ability in computer science and girls’ perception of self-efficacy beliefs for programming is generally low. Offering engaging hands-on programming activities could be a beneficial strategy to increase girls’ self-efficacy beliefs for programming since it has the potential to offer them exposure to master...

The nature of the links between students’ motivation and their perception of parental concern about school performance is still controversial, and whether these links affect long-term self-directed learning behaviors and academic performance remains unclear. We tested the reciprocal associations between parental concern about performance and studen...

Cette étude propose que le biais de mémoire vers les souvenirs d’échecs chez des préadolescents contribue au développement d’un biais négatif d’auto-évaluation et à l’anxiété d’évaluation, qui médiatisent la relation entre le biais de mémoire et les symptômes dépressifs chez des adolescents. 826 élèves (423 filles) entre 10 et 15 ans, ont répondu à...

Research on the self-evaluation bias of students' school competence has focused mainly on its correlates for students' school adaptation. This study focused on teachers' theories about students with a positive or negative bias in their self-evaluation of competence. French students enrolled in the third and fifth grades of elementary school (sample...

For many students, the transition from elementary to secondary school is a time of concern and hope for their functioning in their future environment. Because of the uncertainties about the demands of the future environment, it also coincides with the emergence of impostorism for some. This study examined 578 students (306 girls) who responded to q...

La transition du primaire au secondaire est, pour plusieurs élèves, porteuse d'inquiétudes et d'espoirs envers le fonctionnement de leur futur milieu. En raison des incertitudes devant les exigences du futur milieu, elle coïnciderait aussi chez certains avec l'émergence d'un sentiment d'imposture. Cette étude examine chez 578 élèves (306 filles) ay...

Overestimation and underestimation of students’ own competence result from social comparison in the classroom. There is some evidence that secondary school students compare their results with those of one or two same-sex others who perform slightly better than themselves. The first objective of this study was to replicate these findings among young...

Certains élèves se perçoivent comme étant moins bons ou meilleurs qu’ils ne le sont effectivement à l’école. On parle dans ce cas d’un biais dans l’auto-évaluation de leur compétence scolaire. Plusieurs études ont montré qu’un biais d’auto-évaluation de compétence scolaire est lié à l’adaptation et à la réussite scolaire des élèves. Cependant, peu...

Little is known about how implicit theories of intelligence and perceived competence are related. This study examines whether concern over mistakes mediates this relationship. A total of 508 students (255 girls) in grade 4 or 5 completed self-reported surveys for four consecutive years. Each year, the results of the mediation analysis indicate that...

The goal of this longitudinal study was to explore the familial and personal characteristics that are potentially shared by two related phenomena observed in students: negative bias in self-evaluation of academic competence and impostorism. Specifically, this study aimed to examine whether the same set of characteristics (parental overprotection, c...

This paper aims to clarify the determinants of teachers’ judgment of their pupils’ competence. While this judgment is strongly related to pupils’ actual performance, the influence of other less objective factors such as the average achievement level of a class, pupils’ scholastic history or their gender has also been highlighted (e.g., Dompnier, Pa...

Data from a large study (PISA, 2015) involving more than 132,000 children and 22,000 of their teachers, in 16 nations, were used to investigate how teachers convey self-efficacy to students when they teach and whether this is culturally grounded. Using a multilevel data analysis framework, we aimed to: (1) test a path linking teacher and student se...

The main aims of this study are to examine : 1-whether the self-evaluation bias of academic competence and importance of mathematics results mediates the links between social comparison and teachers’ judgment 2-if the adaptive effect of a student self-evaluation positive bias on teacher’s judgment of student academic performance could be extended t...

Negative bias of self-evaluation is widely recognized as harmful to learning. The effects of the classroom context on boys' and girls' learning performances are well known. We examined reading performance differences between boys and girls with a negative or a positive self-evaluation bias in a classroom context strongly/weakly evaluative. First, w...

Academic self-evaluation bias is the gap between pupils' true competence and how they evaluate it. Having a negative bias of self-evaluation is deleterious for learning. We examined whether teachers recognize pupils having such a bias, and judged differently their competence, motivation and behavior, depending on their beliefs about their bias. Sel...

The aim of this multisite randomized controlled trial was to determine whether an intervention based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) was efficacious in improving university students' psychological flexibility, mental health, and school engagement. Students were recruited in four Canadian universities and randomly assigned to an intervent...

When children perceive a conditional support, they only feel loved and encouraged for their ability to meet others’ standards. This may lead them to develop high sensitivity to errors and anxiety and low perception of competence. In this study, we examined the relationship between the perceived conditional support from teacher and children’s self-p...

Short summary : Whatever their competence, students may erroneously estimate it and present either a positive or a negative bias of self-evaluation. The aim of this study was to examine if students’ self-evaluation bias correlates differently to their motivation and their perception of parental feedback toward their school achievement. Participants...

Using a longitudinal approach spanning nine years of children's formal education, this study investigated the developmental trajectories of self-evaluation bias of academic competence. The study also examined how parenting styles were associated with the trajectories of bias in mid-primary school, and how those trajectories predicted academic outco...

Cette étude s’intéresse à deux phénomènes relevant d’une perception erronée de sa compétence : le sentiment d’imposture et le biais négatif d’auto-évaluation. En situation d’apprentissage, le sentiment d’imposture se définit comme la conviction de l’élève que sa compétence est surestimée par autrui tandis que le biais négatif d’auto-évaluation corr...

The first goal of this study was to determine whether biased self-evaluation of school competence was positively associated with biased self-evaluation of social competence. The second goal was to determine whether biased self-evaluations of school and social competence measured at Time 1 predicted variables related to functioning in these domains...

Evolution conjointe des trajectoires du biais d'autoévaluation de compétence en mathématiques et de la pression et insatisfaction parentale perçue chez les élèves de primaire.

Several studies have established links between self-evaluation bias of school competence and adaptation or success at school (Bouffard & Narciss, 2011). Self-regulation could be considered as a measure of adaptation because it represents the cognitive and behavioral engagement in learning (Zimmerman, 1986, 1989). Given that teachers’ feedback and e...

Cette etude longitudinale de 6 ans comportait trois objectifs specifiques : 1) verifier la stabilite temporelle du biais negatif d’autoevaluation de competence et du sentiment d’imposture 2) examiner, a chaque annee, les relations entre les deux phenomenes et 3) verifier si la persistance d’un biais negatif d’autoevaluation est reliee au developpem...

L’objectif de l’etude etait d’examiner, chez des eleves de premiere secondaire (n = 295), la relation entre leurs biais d’autoevaluation de competence relatifs a l’orthographe grammaticale et leur performance, en tenant compte de leur sexe. Nous avons administre une dictee permettant d’obtenir des scores de performance en orthographe grammaticale,...

In Canada, an increasing number of students at higher education struggle with difficulties related to stress, anxiety and burnout (Dyrbye, Thomas, & Shanafelt, 2006). • Such difficulties undermine not only their wellbeing and quality of life (Brackney & Karabenick, 1995), but can also significantly jeopardize their learning and lead to dropout (Bou...

Le sentiment d’imposteur (SI) est défini comme la croyance qu’ont des personnes compétentes de ne pas l’être vraiment. Celles-ci ont l’impression que les autres les surestiment, vivent dans la peur continuelle d’être démasquées et ont un système de défense anxiogène (Clance & Imes, 1978). Des études se sont intéressées aux effets du SI sur le fonct...

En contexte scolaire, l’appropriation par l’élève de sa réussite est centrale pour sa perception de compétence. Inversement, lorsque l’élève attribue sa réussite à des facteurs externes tels que la chance, cela ne lui permet pas d’améliorer sa perception de compétence et nuit à sa motivation scolaire. Plusieurs auteurs suggèrent que l’incapacité à...

Many university students experience psychological health issues that undermine their academic success. In this quasi-experimental study, 90 (N = 90) students from 3 universities in Quebec (Canada) participated in a group intervention based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). A pretest-posttest switching-replication design including 3 measur...

The main aim of this study is to verify whether pupils' perceived school competence mediates the link between their school achievement and their parents self-efficacy related to their educational support. Five hundred and sixty-six pupils from the 4th and 5th grades reported their school perceived competence and their parents reported their self-ef...

Cette etude a deux objectifs : 1) examiner le jugement porte par les enseignants sur le caractere utile ou nuisible des biais d’autoevaluation de competence de leurs eleves et 2) verifier si ce jugement etait lie a la qualite de la relation rapportee par eux et leurs eleves. 49 enseignants de 6e annee du primaire et leurs 277 eleves (128 filles) on...

The first goal of this study was to determine whether biased self-evaluation of scholastic competence was positively associated with biased self-evaluation of social competence. The second goal was to determine whether biased self-evaluation of competence in each domain measured at Time-1 predicted variables related to functioning in these domains...

Paper at the EARLI Conference 2015

L’étude portant sur le jugement des enseignants concernant le niveau scolaire des élèves a pointé de nombreux facteurs impactant le jugement scolaire (e.g. Bressoux & Pansu, 2003). Des travaux récents ont montré que les enseignants avaient des représentations bien arrêtées concernant les élèves présentant un biais positif ou négatif de leur compéte...

Some people doubt their own abilities and believe that others overestimate their capacities. They have the constant feeling of misleading others, and live in fear of being unmasked. These are the people we refer to when we talk of those who feel like impostors, a phenomenon known to significantly undermine psychological well-being. According to Kol...

This paper presents a study conducted with elementary school pupils (aged 9-10 years) and investigates the relationship between their perception of conditional positive and negative support from parents and teachers, and their self-perceived scholastic competence.

Le sentiment d’imposteur (SI) est défini comme la croyance d’une personne compétente de ne pas l’être vraiment et d’être surestimée par les autres. Cette croyance s’accompagne de la peur continuelle d’être démasquée et le développement, à long terme, d’un système de défense exigeant et anxiogène. Le SI a surtout été étudié à l’âge adulte et les étu...

Les travaux sur les biais d'auto‐évaluation de sa compétence scolaire ont surtout insisté sur le caractère préjudiciable ou non à l'adaptation psycho‐scolaire et sociale de l'élève (Bouffard & Narciss, 2011 ; Bouffard, Pansu, Boissicat, 2013). Si la controverse sur les effets du biais positif d'auto‐évaluation persiste encore dans la littérature (b...

L’anxiete d’evaluation est en contexte scolaire une emotion perturbante en ce qu’elle detourne l’attention de l’eleve de la tâche au profit de ruminations sur soi. Le but de cette etude est d’examiner le role de la perception par les eleves d’un soutien conditionnel de leurs parents dans le developpement de l’anxiete d’evaluation. L’hypothese a tes...

The present study was aimed at examining the three following objectives. 1) To draw the individual developmental trajectories of bias in self-evaluation of scholastic competence and the cognitive errors over a period of three years; 2) To test the interdependence of the two phenomena by examining their coevolution with joint developmental trajector...

Background: Manganese neurotoxicity is well documented in individuals occupationally exposed to airborne particulates, but few data are available on risks from drinking-water exposure. Objective: We examined associations of exposure from concentrations of manganese in water and hair with memory, attention, motor function, and parent- and teacher...

Étude du lien entre le soutien conditionnel parental et enseignant (positif et négatif) perçu par des élèves de primaire et la perception de compétence scolaire, l’anxiété d’évaluation et le perfectionnisme négatif.

This study conducted among 544 adolescents (M = 15.1 years, SD = .82) examined whether perceived social support from parents and peers mediated the relationship between biased self-evaluations of social competence and internalizing problems. The results showed negative links between bias in self-evaluation and depressive symptoms, social anxiety an...

Background: It is well established that children's self-evaluation bias of competence is related to the quality of parent-child emotional relationship. Such biases are linked to children's academic functioning and achievement. Links have also been established between the quality of parent-child emotional relationship and children's academic functi...

Past research has referred to either the concepts of self-regulation or deliberate practice to explain the relationships between learning strategies and musical achievement and performance. In addition, even though most scholars agree that formal practice time plays an important role in musical achievement, empirical investigations have failed to s...

La perception qu’une personne a de sa compétence dans divers domaines peut être erronée, et plus positive ou négative qu’elle le devrait. Ces biais d’auto-évaluation peuvent avoir des conséquences sur des aspects du fonctionnement dans le domaine spécifique du biais (Bédard, et al., 2008). Un biais d’auto-évaluation de compétence scolaire aurait de...

The present study was aimed at examining the three following objectives. 1) To draw the individual developmental trajectories of bias in self-evaluation of scholastic competence and the cognitive errors over a period of three years; 2) To test the interdependence of the two phenomena by examining their coevolution with joint developmental trajector...

La perception qu’un élève a de ses capacités scolaires est une évaluation subjective qui reflète son degré de certitude d’avoir les ressources nécessaires pour réaliser ses apprentissages (Bandura, 1986; Bouffard, et al., 2003). Cette perception peut être erronée, et être plus positive ou négative qu’elle le devrait. Ces biais d’auto-évaluation ont...

De nombreuses recherches soulignent le caractère bénéfique du soutien des adultes signifiants (parents et enseignants) sur l’adaptation scolaire des élèves (Wentzel, 1998 ; Klem & Connell, 2004). Cependant, la qualité de ce soutien, en particulier l’absence de caractère conditionnel, est une dimension essentielle (Harter, Marold et Whitessel, 1992)...

Examen des relations entre la perception, par l’élève, d’un soutien parental qui ne dépendrait pas de sa performance scolaire et la perception des feedbacks de ses parents.

Étude du lien entre le soutien conditionnel des adultes signifiants et la perception de compétence scolaire des élèves

Cet article présente une revue des travaux ayant examiné la question des biais d’auto-évaluation de compétence cognitive ou scolaire chez des élèves et des étudiants. Dans une première partie, nous aborderons la question de la mesure des biais d’auto-évaluation. Dans une seconde, nous présenterons quelques rares études qui ont tenté d’identifier le...

According to the literature, among social comparison mechanisms, identification with an upward target would be the most frequent mechanism that students report to use. However, it remains unclear how the identification and the contrast mechanisms contribute to the construction of pupils’ scholastic perceived competence. The aim of this study was to...

Although the evidence suggesting a positive relationship between mindfulness and wellbeing is rapidly accumulating, the mechanisms by which this relationship operates remain unclear. This study explored the relationship between mindfulness, wellbeing and a self-regulatory process, namely personal goal setting. It was hypothesized that people report...

The general objective of the two studies reported in this paper was to validate a scale of mechanisms of comparison of academic self for 8–13 year-old pupils. The instrument focuses on four mechanisms of social comparison based on identification and contrast related to an upward or a downward target. A first study among a sample of Quebecer pupils...

La classe est un lieu particulièrement propice à la comparaison sociale et participe, via les cibles de comparaison choisies, à façonner les perceptions de compétence scolaire des élèves (Boissicat et al., 2012). À ce jour, les résultats des études ayant porté sur la relation entre la comparaison sociale en classe et les perceptions de compétence s...

The idea of successful development is used as the conceptual platform for a proposal that three basic principles of developmental science be expanded. Specifically, we propose that (a) developmental science needs to be reframed as a guide for what successful development is and how it is manifested at different times of the life course; (b) that the...

This paper aims to investigate to what extent a bias in self-evaluation is an enduring characteristic among children, and whether there is a relationship between the trajectory of children's self-evaluation bias over a five-year period and their psychosocial adjustment. 462 children (200 boys) in Grade 3 (mean age = 8.6 years old) or Grade 4 (mean...

Manganese is an essential nutrient, but in excess it can be a potent neurotoxicant. Despite the common occurrence of manganese in groundwater, the risks associated with this source of exposure are largely unknown. Our first aim was to assess the relations between exposure to manganese from drinking water and children's intelligence quotient (IQ). S...

L’idée selon laquelle les pairs exercent, via le processus de comparaison sociale, un rôle capital dans les perceptions de soi n’est pas nouvelle en psychologie (Festinger, 1954). Ce processus général fermement ancré dans le comportement humain proviendrait d’un besoin fondamental chez l’être humain de s’auto-évaluer. C’est donc au travers des comp...

Introduction. - Self-perceptions of competence are involved in motivational processes explaining that although pupils' capacities are comparable, their academic achievement differs greatly. In general, pupils with an illusion of scholastic incompetence exhibit a set of negative characteristics concerning their academic functioning. Objective. - Thi...

The first objective of this study was to examine whether a relationship exists between types of goal orientation, self-regulatory processes and school performance and the second was to examine how students' self-regulation and academic performance differ according to their profiles resulting from combining learning and performance goals orientation...

Background. It is now widely recognised that student's self-perceptions of competence have an effect on their behaviours and learning. Previous studies have shown that children only gradually develop the ability to evaluate accurately their own competence. One possible explanation for this is that younger children have not reached a level of cognit...

This article presents the findings of three studies aiming to develop and validate a French-language scale of adolescents’ self-esteem conditions, the Adolescents’ Self-Esteem Conditions Scale (ASECS). Designed for young people from the beginning to the end of adolescence, the 30-item scale measures to which extent youths base their self-esteem on...

This paper presents the results of the validation of an instrument designed to assess the impostor feeling amongst children and adolescents. The first study was conducted with samples of students aged 10 to 17. It allowed showing that all the eight items loaded on a single factor that explains 57.6% of the variance. The test-retest procedure allowe...

Cette étude vise à estimer l’ampleur de l’effet de l’environnement scolaire sur la motivation et le rendement scolaire de 7 433 élèves de la première à la cinquième secondaire provenant de 54 écoles publiques du Québec. Les résultats des analyses multiniveaux montrent que la variance expliquée dans la motivation des élèves par l’effet de l’école va...

This study concerns the influence of social contexts on young children's communication. The aim was to show that, at a very young age, children take into account the conversational context and certain conventions governing social relations. Iranian children's request behaviours were analyzed in three situations: (a) the adult immediately complies (...

La comparaison sociale est généralement définie comme un processus de pensée mettant en relation des informations sociales avec le soi (Wood, 1996). Depuis la première formulation théorique énoncée par Festinger (1954) ce phénomène a été largement étudié. Pour Festinger en se comparant à autrui, l’individu chercherait à répondre à un besoin fondame...

The first objective of this study was to examine the presence of the impostor phenomenon (IP) among 740 students aged 10 to 12 years old. The second objective was twofold: (1) to examine the link between the impostor feelings and the propensity to use social comparison and (2) to examine whether this feeling is related to the processes of identific...

The first objective of this study is to determine whether the illusion of incompetence schema is related to the presence of other dysfunctional schemas, such as dysfunctional attitudes related to success, to dependence on others and to self-control. The second objective is to examine whether these schemas are related to the occurrence of cognitive...

Recent research (Vallerand et al., 2003) has supported the existence of two types of passion for activities: a harmonious and an obsessive passion. The purpose of this investigation was to study the processes likely to lead to the development of passion. Three studies using correlational and short-term longitudinal designs with varied populations r...

Wood (1996) définit la comparaison sociale comme un processus de pensée mettant en relation des informations sociales avec le soi. Ce processus est étudié depuis 1954 avec la théorie de Festinger (1954) postulant qu’en nous comparant à autrui, nous répondons à un besoin fondamental et adaptatif : l’auto-évaluation. Les motivations à se comparer son...

This study was aimed at 1) examining the psychometrics properties of an instrument allowing to measure four aspects of social comparison: upward identification, upward contrast, downward identification and downward contrast; and 2) investigating the links between social comparison mechanisms and pupils’ perceived competence when controlling for IQ....

The aim of the present study was to further examine the impact over time of single‐sex and coeducational school environments on girls’ motivation in language arts and mathematics. Two cohorts comprising 340 girls (7th to 9th grade; 9th to 11th grade) from eight coeducational and two single‐sex schools were followed during a period of three academic...

This paper reports results from two studies aimed at examining whether perception of social acceptance and actual social acceptance differ according to the presence of an illusion of scholastic incompetence. Results of both studies conducted in Belgium and in Quebec (respectively 179 and 543 participants) show that children’s illusion of scholastic...

Among the numerous studies aimed at examining the link between appearance satisfaction and self-esteem at adolescence very few, except Zumpf and Harter (1989), have specifically examined the directionality of the relation. Hence, the first goal of this study was to examine the distribution of adolescents, according to their gender and grade level,...