When student achievement is assessed, we seek to elicit a student's maximum performance -- a goal requiring the assumption that the student is fully engaged. Otherwise, to the extent that disengagement occurs, test performance is likely to suffer. Effectively managing test-taking disengagement requires an understanding of the testing conditions…

Background: Although many studies have suggested that students' externalizing (aggressive and rule-breaking) behaviour is detrimental to their academic achievement, the underlying mechanisms have rarely been investigated. Aims: We conducted a longitudinal investigation of whether the negative relation between externalizing behaviour and academic…

The authors investigated the impact of explicit instruction and peer-assisted writing on students' writing motivation and self-efficacy for writing. Eleven teachers and their 206 fifth- and sixth-grade students participated in a 2 (explicit instruction vs. writing opportunities without explicit instruction) × 2 (peer-assisted writing vs. writing…

In this article, we present analyses from a researcher-practitioner partnership in the District of Columbia Public Schools, where we are exploring the impact of educational software on students' academic achievement. We analyze a unique data set that combines student-level information from the district with data of student usage of a mathematics…

This study investigated the relationship between middle school students' scores for a written assignment (N = 162) and a process that involved students in generating criteria and self-assessing with a rubric. Gender, time spent writing, grade level, prior rubric use, and previous achievement in English were also examined. The treatment involved…

This study described and compared the reading of sixth and eighth grade students both in and out of school using a unique data set collected with the Experience Sampling Method (ESM). On average, students read forty minutes a day out of class and seventeen minutes a day in class indicating that reading is a common leisure practice for…