Background: Creativity is an important ability for problem-solving in both personal life and academic learning. Few creativity studies have investigated the development of children's creativity in disadvantaged rural areas or compared the rural-urban differences through digital game-based creativity learning. Understanding such differences can…

Expressive writing (EW), or writing about one's thoughts and feelings, has been posited to reduce the working memory (WM) load that pressure and anxiety can impose on test-takers. The mechanisms of EW are far from clear, however, and social and developmental questions about its role in shaping children's engagement with academic contexts remain.…

Drawing on the data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K:2011), this paper used structural equation modeling to investigate the relations among emotional capital (behavioral engagement, school belonging, grit, peer social support, and life satisfaction), approaches to learning, and reading achievement…

This study examines the usage and effectiveness of Lexercise, a hybrid reading intervention program combining weekly literacy intervention with structured independent practice, in supporting reading skill development among struggling readers. Analysis of 198 students in grades 2-6 during the 2023-2024 school year revealed strong adherence to the…

This paper reports a design and implementation of a STEM enrichment programme infused with affective elements designed for Hong Kong students. Specifically, it features a design-thinking approach to develop solutions to a self-selected problem addressing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Around 30 upper primary school (grades 5 to…

Several factors seem important to understand the nature of mathematical learning. Byrnes and Miller combined these factors into the Opportunity-Propensity model. In this study the model was used to predict the number-processing factor and the arithmetic fluency in grade 4 (n = 195) and grade 5 (n = 213). Gender, intelligence and affect (positive…

Gender and prior knowledge may affect students' performance and motivation when simulations and games are used for learning. Accommodations should be made for students of different genders and with different levels of prior knowledge. A simulation digital game about the food chain concept geared for elementary school students was developed for…

School closures induced by the COVID-19 pandemic led to concerns about student learning. This paper evaluates the effect of school closures on student learning in Uzbekistan, using a unique dataset that allows assessing change in learning over time. The findings show that test scores in math for grade 5 students improved over time by 0.29 standard…

Individual differences (IDs) play an important role in the second language learning process and explain the varied experiences of the L2 learner. The two major IDs, language aptitude and motivation, can be primary factors in one's ultimate proficiency. While language aptitude is largely fixed, motivation is malleable and can aid in overcoming…

This paper presents an ethnographic study analyzing the influence of students' social backgrounds on students' entitlement and agency in relation to floor rights. Classroom interactions were video-recorded, and interviews were conducted in a socially diverse fifth-grade in Israel. Descriptive statistics and micro-analyses of participation patterns…

In Swedish compulsory school, individual development plans (IDPs) are mandatory for all students up to 6th grade. The purpose is to summarize and facilitate pupils' learning and tune instruction to national standards. In this study, 233 IDPs drawn up for 5th grade pupils were analyzed with focus on qualities that have been found to impact…

To investigate the relationship between Chinese children's character and word reading, 62 third and 50 fifth grade children in Hong Kong were asked to read single characters and words that were comprised of these characters. Results showed that words helped children to recognize characters for both grades of children. Compared to older children,…

The visual working memory forms the basis for cognitive processes in learning, and it is therefore of interest to gain greater insight into gender and age differences in visual working memory among pupils. In this study, we wanted to see if there are differences between children in first, third, fifth, seventh and ninth grade in Norwegian schools…

In order to advance our understanding of educational processes, we present a tutorial of intraindividual variability. An adaptive educational process is characterised by stable (less variability), and a maladaptive process is characterised by instable (more variability) learning experiences from one learning situation to the next. We outline step…

Mathematical problem solving typically involves manipulating visual symbols (e.g., equations), and prior research suggests that those symbols serve as diagrammatic representations (e.g., Landy & Goldstone, 2010). The present work examines the ways that instructional design of student engagement with these diagrammatic representations may…