Background: Loneliness during adolescence has adverse consequences for mental health, education and employment outcomes. Yet, we know little about common correlates of loneliness among adolescents, making intervention work difficult. Aims: In this study, we (1) explore individual-, school- and country-level correlates of loneliness to help…

There is a general consensus that both conceptual and procedural knowledge are essential for students' mathematical development. A common argument is that differences in mathematical performance are caused by differences in conceptual and procedural knowledge. Therefore, it is important to investigate to what extent such differences in conceptual…

In the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment, students from Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taipei, where the classroom disciplinary climate of schools was relatively strict, were top performers in mathematics. In this study, two-level linear analyses showed that the classroom disciplinary climate of schools significantly affected…

Viewing student engagement as a multidimensional construct, this study explored the motivation and engagement of undergraduate students in China. A sample of 1131 students from 10 full-time universities in Beijing participated in a survey. The results showed that the Motivation and Engagement Scale for university/college students is a promising…

In this article, the change in examinee effort during an assessment, which we will refer to as persistence, is modeled as an effect of item position. A multilevel extension is proposed to analyze hierarchically structured data and decompose the individual differences in persistence. Data from the 2009 Program of International Student Achievement…

This chapter examines the differences between institutions with high and low levels of involvement in service learning as well as the differences between students with high and low levels of involvement. The study shows a correlation between institutional organization and service-learning emphasis and describes, at the student level, correlations…

School-level school climate was examined in relation to self-reported peer victimization and teacher-rated academic achievement (grade point average; GPA). Participants included a sample of 1,023 fifth-grade children nested within 50 schools. Associations between peer victimization, school climate, and GPA were examined using multilevel modeling,…

A positive school climate is an important component of successful and effective schools and thus is often an aim of schoolwide initiatives. Climate has traditionally been conceptualized as a school-level factor and is often assumed to be related to other school-level factors (e.g., school size). The current study examines variation in perceptions…

Studied correlates of academic performance across mathematics, science, reading, and writing for 6,883 Canadian students in grade 6 in 148 schools (the New Brunswick School Climate Study). Results show that students were differentially successful in different subject areas, that schools were differentially successful in different subject areas,…

This study explored individual differences in educational disadvantage-- deficits in formal and informal education in the school, home, and elsewhere--in the SAT test-taking population. Factor analysis identified six educational disadvantage factors--four concerning the students' schools and two the students' nativity and parenting--and one family…

This paper explores the complex, hierarchical relationship among school characteristics, individual differences in academic achievement, extracurricular activities, and socioeconomic background on performance on the SAT Reasoning Test™ verbal and mathematical sections. Using multilevel structural equation models (SEMs) with latent means, data from…