The purpose of this participant selection model mixed methods study was to investigate early childhood education preservice teachers' perceptions on children's play. The study was conducted at one of the Midwestern universities' early childhood undergraduate education program in the United States. Within the program, 241 students at different…

Most American classrooms employ a teacher-text-centered model of instruction that is misaligned with the developmental science of how children naturally learn. This article reviews that science and the origins of the common instructional model, including three modifications intended to make it work better (grades, age-graded classrooms, and…

The study examines the parental perception of the use of video games by their preadolescent children, as well as parental beliefs, mediation practices and difficulties they encounter. In total, 186 parents have participated. The results, gathered in the quantitative and qualitative phase, reveal differences in parental perception according to the…

This study addresses the distribution of words in texts at different points of schooling. The first aim was to identify a core vocabulary that accounts for the majority of the words in texts through the lens of morphological families. Results showed that 2,451 morphological families, averaging 4.61 members, make up the core vocabulary of school…

Sentiment analysis is a computational method that automatically analyzes the valence of massive quantities of text. Basic sentiment analysis involves extracting and counting emotionally-laden keywords from passages of text (e.g., "hate," "love," "happy," "sad"). This study describes using sentiment analysis…

Decision making, a complex mental activity underlying the act of choosing from among the alternatives in attaining a goal constitutes the core component of planning, a higher order cognitive process as per the PASS theory of intelligence. An attempt, therefore, has been made in the present study to examine the development of planning behaviour in…

Students whose school environment fits their developmental needs also typically experience academic success and increased motivation. Most investigations of school fit, which focus on teachers' and students' perceptions, have found a general decline in fit across the transition from elementary to middle school. However, little research has…

A random sample of 2,893 White, suburban, middle-class parents, teachers, and children representing every grade level responded to questionnaires on parental success. Identified issues related to successful child rearing and rank ordered their importance for each grade level. Curriculum topics and their importance changed with stages of child…

Characteristics related to help-seeking (perceived competence, motivational orientation, attitudes and beliefs, and age) were examined for 177 children in grades 3, 5, and 7. By grade seven, positive and negative attitudes were influential. Developmental and individual difference factors are discussed in connection with help-seeking and academic…