In educational and psychological research, it is common to use latent factors to represent constructs and then to examine covariate effects on these latent factors. Using empirical data, this study applied three approaches to covariate effects on latent factors: the multiple-indicator multiple-cause (MIMIC) approach, multiple group confirmatory…

It is important to understand the mechanisms behind student academic engagement, as engagement in school is associated with a host of positive outcomes. As children mature, their peers become more important compared to adults in regard to their emotional engagement in school. Thus, this study sought to examine an aspect of peer relations,…

Based on the interplay between achievement goals theory and social comparison theory, our study focused on how achievement goals relate to subjective well-being in the school context in Chinese adolescents. Specifically, we addressed a theoretical model that specified that academic social comparisons and self-esteem would serve as mediators in the…

National goals and performance standards were introduced in Sweden during the 1990s as part of a curriculum reform. The intention was to detect shortcomings among students and provide support to those students who did not reach the passing grade in one (or several) subject/s. Despite this reform, approximately one-fourth of the students do not…

The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of an expectancy-value-based questionnaire measuring five aspects of test-taking motivation (effort, expectancies, importance, interest, and test anxiety). The questionnaire was distributed to a sample of Swedish Grade 9 students taking a low-stakes (n = 1,047) or a high-stakes (n =…

Students evaluate their achievement in a specific domain in relation to their achievement in other domains and form their self-concepts accordingly. These comparison processes have been termed "dimensional comparisons" and shown to be an important source of academic self-concepts in addition to social and temporal comparisons. Research…

This study examined coping strategies as mediators of the relationship between parental emotion socialization and internalizing problems in late adolescence and emerging adulthood, and whether these relationships varied by gender or ethnicity. Participants were 1,087 individuals (M[subscript age]?=?19.35 years; 50% male; 61% African American, 36%…

Background: Mathematics achievement is related to positive and negative emotions. Pekrun's control-value theory of achievement emotions suggests that students' self-concept (i.e., self-appraisal of ability) may be an important mediator of the relation between mathematics achievement and emotions. Aims: The aims were (1) to investigate the…

In order to enhance our understanding of inter-individual differences in scholastic motivation, this study examined if self-determination predicts the school engagement of four different motivation types (MT) in a large sample of adolescent students (N = 1088) from Brandenburg, Germany: (1) peer-dependent MT, (2) teacher-dependent MT, (3)…

This study assessed the relation between long-term memory retrieval and mathematics calculation and mathematics problem solving achievement among elementary, middle, and high school students in nationally representative sample of US students, when controlling for fluid and crystallized intelligence, short-term memory, and processing speed. As…

We use data from a randomized controlled trial of a middle school science intervention to explore the causal mechanisms by which the intervention produced previously documented gains in student achievement. Our study finds that implementation fidelity, operationalized as a measure of the frequency of implementation of the cognitive science…

Ontologies have often been recommended for E-learning systems, but few efforts have successfully incorporated student data to represent knowledge conceptualizations. Defining key concepts and their relations between each other establishes the backbone of our E-learning system. The system guides an individual student through his/her course by…

Considering the essential role that socio-motivational relationships at school play with respect to achievement motivation, this study examined the differences between students with a low school self-concept and students with a high school self-concept in a large sample of 7th and 8th grade students (N= 1088; M[subscript Age]= 13.7) in secondary…

Purpose: The main purpose of this study was to explore direct and indirect relationships between Leadership and Student Citizenship Outcomes in Cyprus middle schools. In the case of indirect effects the mediating role of School Academic Optimism and Instructional Quality was examined. Method: The specific study adopted a value-added quantitative…

This study used a Chinese-language version of the Index of Science Reading Awareness to explore the science reading metacognition and comprehension of Taiwanese students. Structural equation modelling results confirmed the underlying model comprised three clusters of metacognitive knowledge: beliefs and confidence in science reading, knowledge of…