Research examining students' perceptions of cost (i.e., what one must give up in order to complete a particular task), has been growing over the past decade; however, almost no research has examined teachers' perceptions of cost. Given the importance of cost beliefs as predictors of students' academic behavior and choices, an examination of…

While personal performance-approach goals (PAp goals) have already been successfully bifurcated into normative and appearance PAp goals, the same distinction has not yet been applied to performance-approach goal structures (PAp goal structures). The present study therefore aimed to (a) test the factorial two-level structure of PAp goal structures…

We investigated the premise that observation measures of instruction are indicators of effective teaching, using the definition of effectiveness articulated by departments of education: teaching that boosts student achievement. We argued that student motivation is equally as important as achievement in the evaluation of teaching effectiveness…

This study measured aspects of the couple relationship to examine direct and indirect relations with parental involvement in education and children's school outcomes. The sample (n = 100) consisted of families that have at least one child between the ages of 8 and 11 in urban central Taiwan. Findings indicated that couple relationship quality is…

During their education, preservice teachers begin to assume professional responsibilities and gain pedagogical knowledge. However, the question remains whether preservice teachers intend to use instructional practices that are effective in meeting their assumed responsibilities. Thus, we examined the concordance between preservice teachers'…

Educational researchers commonly use the rule of thumb of "design effect smaller than 2" as the justification of not accounting for the multilevel or clustered structure in their data. The rule, however, has not yet been systematically studied in previous research. In the present study, we generated data from three different models…

This study was designed to forge stronger theoretical and empirical links between achievement goal theory and attribution theory. High school students ("N" = 224) completed a self-report survey that assessed 3 types of achievement goals, 7 types of attributions, and self-efficacy. Results indicated that students' adoption of achievement…

The aim of this study was to examine the role of motivational beliefs in mediating the relationship among perceived teacher support, learning strategy use, and student achievement. The author analyzed the Programme for International Student Assessment mathematics scores and questionnaire responses of 4,855 15-year-old students in Turkey via…

The authors tested whether multiple components of a performance goal were differentiated by a group of Korean middle school students ("N" = 239). Confirmatory factor analyses showed that the normative and outcome components as well as the approach and avoidance components correlated too highly to be considered independent. A 2-factor…

An empirical comparison is made of three proposed indices of relative predictor variable contribution: (1) the scaled weights of the first discriminant function; (2) the total group estimates of the correlations between each predictor variable and the first function; and (3) the within-groups estimates of the correlations between each predictor…

A Monte Carlo evaluation of four test statistics for comparing dependent zero-order correlations was conducted with four sample sizes and three population distributions. Results indicate that choice of optimal test statistic depends on sample size and distribution, and predictor intercorrelation and effect size or magnitude of the…

It is the purpose of this paper to investigate the chance nature of overfit as it relates to a regression formulation of research, to describe a model for projecting the overfit, and to empirically validate the model. (Author)

The study investigated personality and aptitude correlates of test-wiseness skills, which were measured by assessing the subject's ability to utilize deductive reasoning and item cues. Personality factors and aptitude were measured. Results indicated that cognitive variables have more power to predict test-wiseness scores than do personality…

The authors conducted a Monte Carlo simulation of 4 test statistics or comparing dependent correlations with no variables in common. Empirical Type 1 error rates and power estimates were determined for K. Pearson and L. N. G. Filon's (1898) z, O. J. Dunn and V. A. Clark's (1969) z, J. H. Steiger's (1980) original modification of Dunn and Clark's…