The student engagement framework, originally developed for the US educational system, has become increasingly recognised internationally as a means of fostering learning gains in higher education. Despite its recognition, some researchers raise a question about the applicability of this framework in other cultural contexts. Our research extends…

This article reports an analysis of the relationship between women's increased participation in higher education and other recent social changes over the last four decades. To date, women's increased involvement in higher education has been studied as either a force for or a consequence of other sociocultural changes. Drawing on data from key…

Individual differences are theorised as being key predictors of students' lecture attendance. Understanding students' (lack of) motivation for studying is an essential first step in supporting these individual differences and potentially increasing class/lecture attendance. The current study explored the role of students' deficits in motivations…

Cloze tests have been the subject of numerous studies regarding their function and use in both first language and second language contexts (e.g., Jonz & Oller, 1994; Watanabe & Koyama, 2008). From a validity standpoint, one area of investigation has been the extent to which cloze tests measure reading ability beyond the sentence level.…

This article reports the psychometric properties of two emotional intelligence measures translated into Japanese. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to examine the factor structure of a Japanese version of the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale (WLEIS) completed by 310 Japanese university students. A second study employed CFA…

Research on the L2 Motivational Self System has drawn considerable attention in Second Language Acquisition. Previous studies have discussed the system itself, its basic concepts and their relationships to such affective variables as anxiety in various L2 learning contexts. The findings of these studies suggest that (1) having a clearer image of…

A critical assumption in cross-cultural comparative research is that the instrument measures the same construct(s) in exactly the same way across all groups (i.e., the instrument is measurement and structurally equivalent). Structural equation modeling (SEM) procedures are commonly used in testing these assumptions of multigroup equivalence.…

This article reports on the causal relationships between three factors in second language (L2) group work settings: communication confidence (i.e., confidence in one's ability to communicate), beliefs about group work, and willingness to communicate (WTC). A questionnaire was administered to 729 first-year university students in Japan. A model…

The psychometric properties of scores from the Achievement Goal Questionnaire were examined in samples of Japanese (N = 326) and Canadian (N = 307) postsecondary students. Previous research found evidence of a four-factor structure of achievement goals in U.S. samples. Using confirmatory factor-analytic techniques, the authors found strong…

This study examined the relationships between rumination, distress and posttraumatic growth (PTG). Seventy-one bereaved Japanese university students completed the PTG Inventory, the Impact of Event Scale-Revised, and a rumination scale. Three models, with variables including intrusive rumination, deliberate rumination, distress, and PTG, were…

This study challenges narrow definitions of teacher effectiveness and uses a systems approach to investigate teacher effectiveness as a multi-dimensional, holistic phenomenon. The methods of Nominal Group Technique and Interpretive Structural Modeling were used to assist U.S. and Japanese students separately construct influence structures during…