Achievement goal theory is a popular theoretical framework that has been widely used to understand the goals students hold regarding their academic work. This theoretical model has been subject to an ongoing debate regarding the number and nature of constructs it includes. Notable in such debates has been the inclusion or exclusion of…

Existing research indicates that emotions are integral components of teachers' jobs and lives, but knowledge regarding functional relations between teachers' emotions, their antecedents and their effects on teachers, teaching and students is still quite scarce. One possible reason for this knowledge gap is the lack of adequate operationalisation…

The present research, comprised of two studies, examines the features and factor structure of the Teacher Caring Questionnaire, a measure of teacher caring developed in the Zhejiang province of China. In the first study, features of teacher caring were derived from open-ended teacher and student descriptions of caring teacher behaviour. A second…

Mental toughness can be conceptualised as a set of attributes that allow people to deal effectively with challenges, stressors and pressure. Recent work has suggested that it may be a valuable construct to consider within educational settings. The current studies explored the associations between mental toughness and educational transitions. Study…

Approximately 30% of students drop out from Norwegian upper secondary schools. Academic achievement, as indexed by grade point average (GPA), is one of the strongest predictors of dropout. The present study aimed to examine the role of cognitive, school-related and affective/psychological predictors of GPA. In addition, we examined the…

The aims of this study were to examine the factor structure of the attitudinal questionnaire items from Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2003 and to investigate low- and high-performing students' mathematics self-concept in East Asian societies and in the USA. The participants were 24,119 eighth-graders, 4856 from…

The aim of this study was to follow up exploratory research suggesting that the inverse relationship between test anxiety and examination performance was mediated by cognitive distortions such as catastrophising. Self-report data for measures of test anxiety and cognitive distortions were collected from students in their final year of compulsory…

Two studies focusing on the development and validation of the Online Self-Regulated Learning Inventory (OSRLI) were conducted. The OSRLI is a self-report instrument assessing the human interaction dimension of online self-regulated learning. It consists of an affect/motivation scale and an interaction strategies scale. In Study 1, exploratory…

This paper reports the development of the Negative Group Work Experiences questionnaire (NGWE), an assessment tool for measuring negative experiences of group work. Study 1 involved two samples of undergraduate psychology students (second-year sample n = 425; first-year sample n = 443), who completed research modules incorporating substantial…

This paper describes the development and initial validation of a Chinese reading motivation questionnaire (CRMQ) which was designed to assess Chinese students' reading motivation in Hong Kong. The development of the CRMQ consisted of two steps. In the first study, groups of items were constructed based on achievement motivation theories and…