This study examined above average high school readers and high school readers with learning disabilities in order to better understand the impact of twelve years of formal education on reading skills and strategy use while reading expository text. This study examined reading strategies related to knowledge construction, monitoring, and evaluating…

The present study aimed to analyze sex differences in arithmetical performance in a large-scale sample of 390 children (193 boys) frequenting grades 1-9. Past research in this field has focused primarily on average performance, implicitly assuming homogeneity of variance, for which support is scarce. This article examined sex differences in…

Equally able students have lower academic self-concepts in high-achieving classrooms than in low-achieving classrooms. This highly general and robust frame of reference effect is widely known as the Big-Fish-Little-Pond Effect (BFLPE; Marsh, 1987). This study contributes to research aiming to identify moderators of the BFLPE by investigating the…

This study evaluated whether schema-based instruction (SBI), a promising method for teaching students to represent and solve mathematical word problems, impacted the learning of percent word problems. Of particular interest was the extent that SBI improved high- and low-achieving students' learning and to a lesser degree on the indirect effect of…

This retrospective study examined L1 achievement, intelligence, L2 aptitude, and L2 proficiency profiles of 208 students completing two years of high school L2 courses. A cluster analysis was performed to determine whether distinct cognitive and achievement profiles of more and less successful L2 learners would emerge. The results of…

It is argued that it is unnecessary to propose that Confucian values explain the high achievements in math and science of the North East Asian peoples, and that these can be satisfactorily and more parsimoniously be explained by their high IQs.

It is argued that Stankov's proposal to view unforgivingness as underlying the combination of high educational achievement, anxiety, and self-doubt is an original way of summarizing Confucian score patterns. However, it is argued that the proposal cannot explain why reading scores in Confucian countries are not higher than in other countries and…

This commentary reflects upon Lazar Stankov's thesis which regards "unforgiving nature of Confucian Asian societies" as the driving force underpinning academic success of students from these societies. The commentary considers theoretical perspectives put forward by Jian Wang and Emily Lin (2008), and by Chiu and Klassen (2010) as two alternative…

Stankov (2010) has offered an original and provoking theory to account for higher achievement, anxiety, and self-doubt among Asians. Unfortunately, several empirical and conceptual gaps must be closed before the author can make a convincing argument on the relationship between "unforgiving" Confucian culture and high achievement/test…

In "Unforgiving Confucian culture: A breeding ground for high academic achievement, test anxiety and self-doubt?" Stankov (in press) provides three reasons for caution against over-glorifying the academic excellence of Confucian Asian learners, namely that it may lead to a reluctance to change their rote learning approach which is not conducive to…

This paper reviews findings from several studies that contribute to our understanding of cross-cultural differences in academic achievement, anxiety and self-doubt. The focus is on comparisons between Confucian Asian and European regions. Recent studies indicate that high academic achievement of students from Confucian Asian countries is…

High-achieving (HA) and low-achieving (LA), learning disabled (LD), and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) high school students were followed over two years of L2 study and compared on measures of L1 literacy (reading and writing) in elementary school, L1 cognitive ability, L2 aptitude, oral and written L2 proficiency, and L2 word…