Coding games are widely used to teach computational thinking (CT). Studies have broadly investigated the role of coding games in supporting CT learning in formal classroom contexts, but there has been limited exploration of their use in informal home-based settings. This study investigated the factors that motivated students to use a coding game…

This paper presents findings of an investigation on students' attitudes towards coding and its relationship with interest in STEM-related careers. A concurrent mixed-method research design involving a pre-intervention-intervention-post-intervention non-equivalent control group was adopted. A sample of 50 grade seven to nine South African students…

Predicting item difficulty is highly important in education for both teachers and item writers. Despite identifying a large number of explanatory variables, predicting item difficulty remains a challenge in educational assessment with empirical attempts rarely exceeding 25% of variance explained. This paper analyses 216 science items of key stage…

This longitudinal study aimed at examining the relationship between children's task persistence, mothers' academic help, and the development of children's literacy skills (reading and spelling) at the beginning of primary school. The participants were 870 children, 682 mothers, and 53 class teachers. Data were collected three times--at the…

The present study examined the amount, type, and quality of Tier 1 and supplemental reading instruction provided to 4th-grade struggling readers and whether specific elements of instruction predicted growth in reading skills. In all, 110 students identified as having reading difficulty who were receiving school-based reading instruction in 22…

Autonomy is the sense that one has control over one's actions within an environment or that one has some degree of choice over his or her own life. Autonomy support involves an individual who is in a position of authority, (e.g., parent, teacher, coach), taking the perspective of another (e.g. student, child), acknowledging their feelings, and…

Although children with autism spectrum disorder are frequently included in mainstream classrooms, it is not known how their social networks change compared to typically developing children and whether the factors predictive of this change may be unique. This study identified and compared predictors of social connectivity of children with and…

In an effort to promote best practices regarding mathematics teaching and learning at the preschool level, national advisory panels and organizations have emphasized the importance of children's emergent counting and related competencies, such as the ability to verbally count, maintain one-to-one correspondence, count with cardinality, subitize,…

Rural children are a largely understudied population in language and literacy research, despite the fact that these children often enter school with delays in their language development. Since most rural areas suffered from so-called selective rural outmigration, many parents in rural areas are lower or middle educated. The home literacy climate,…

Applied early adolescent researchers often sample students (Level 1) from within classrooms (Level 2) that are nested within schools (Level 3), resulting in data that requires multilevel modeling analysis to avoid Type 1 errors. Although several articles have been published to assist researchers with analyzing sample data nested at two levels, few…

This study investigated changes in teacher self-efficacy for inclusive practice using a mixed method research design. Participants were 417 in-service teachers in Hong Kong taking a 1-week basic teacher-training course about inclusive education. Data were collected pre and post participation in the course using the Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive…

Models of irregular word reading that take into account both child- and word-level predictors have not been evaluated in typically developing children and children with reading difficulty (RD). The purpose of the present study was to model individual differences in irregular word reading ability among 5th grade children (N = 170), oversampled for…

Parental socialization of children's sadness was examined through self-report, spouse report, and a parent-child sadness discussion task. A total of 79 two-parent, predominantly White, middle-class families participated with one child in grades 2-5 (44 sons; M = 9 years, 8 months). Analyses revealed that mothers and fathers respond differently to…

This study explores the incidence of poor comprehenders, that is, children identified as having reading comprehension difficulties, despite age-appropriate word reading skills. It supports the findings that some children do show poor reading comprehension, despite age-appropriate word reading, as measured with a phonological coding test. However,…

Conceptual change requires learners to restructure parts of their conceptual knowledge base. Prior research has identified the fragmentation and the integration of knowledge as 2 important component processes of knowledge restructuring but remains unclear as to their relative importance and the time of their occurrence during development. Previous…