We use data from the Stanford Education Data Archive to describe district-level trends in average academic achievement between 2009 and 2019. Though on average school districts' test scores improved very modestly (by about 0.001 SDs/year), there is significant variation among districts. Moreover, we find that average test score disparities between…

School connectedness plays a critical role in multiple aspects of child development. The purpose of this study was to operationalize school connectedness as a multidimensional construct and further assess whether this construct was measured similarly across gender and grade level among a sample of upper elementary school children (age M = 9.57; N…

In response to COVID-19, U.S. students learned remotely from mid-March to June 2020. At the start of academic year 2020--21, many schools remained remote but others--primarily Catholic and other private schools--reopened. We consider Catholic schooling as a proxy for in-person instruction and use national data from Renaissance Star and MAP Growth…

Social-emotional competence (SEC) is a set of cognitive, affective, and behavioral skills that enable an individual to engage in healthy interactions with oneself and other human beings. SEC is a critical factor for individual well-being and may also contribute to creating a more safe and caring community. SEC can develop throughout a lifetime,…

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic created a unique learning experience, characterised by school closures and a shift to online learning. Research suggests that online learning during the pandemic negatively impacted the reading development of elementary school children. However, little is known about the challenges of learning a second language…

This article outlines the results from an investigation on elementary school students designed to find out whether the coronavirus pandemic had an impact on their conceptualisation of microorganisms. We compared 9- to 11-year-old children's drawings and answers to questionnaires conducted before the pandemic (during 2017 and 2018, N = 137) with…

This study aimed to develop a valid and reliable instrument, the Mental Images of Scientists Questionnaire (MISQ), and use the instrument to examine Chinese students' mental images of scientists' characters across school levels, regions, living settings, and gender. The final version of the MISQ consisted of four constructs: scientists' cognitive,…

Recent studies highlight the effect of cognitive factors on academic achievement, ignoring motivational, emotional, and social factors. This provides the background for the present study, a meta-analysis on the relationship between academic achievement and motivational factors (motivation, self-concept, and self-esteem), emotional factors…

Adults shift their attention to the right or to the left along a spatial continuum when solving additions and subtractions, respectively. Studies suggest that these shifts not only support the exact computation of the results but also anticipatively narrow down the range of plausible answers when processing the operands. However, little is known…

Previous research often leads to inconsistent findings on the relationships between parental involvement and academic achievement. This study theorizes three parenting approaches based on parental expectations, evaluations, and networks--"normative parenting," "reactive parenting," and "competitive parenting"--to…

Increasing school-based parental involvement--which has links to improved student outcomes like academic achievement--is a core area of focus in many preschool programs. Yet, little research to date has examined what the association is between attending preschool and school-based parental involvement in early elementary school. This study…

One hundred and eighty ethnic minority students studying in Hong Kong mainstream schools were found to value "knowledge," "activities," "practice," "product," "inquiry," "process," "feedback," and "technology" in their mathematics learning. To identify these values, a…

The purpose for this study was to investigate and compare the numerical skills of fifth grade students signed up for non-formal two types educational institutions of Basic Education Community Schools (BECS) and feeder schools of the National Commission for Human Development (NCHD). The fundamental objective of this study was to research and…

The role of motivation in foreign language teaching has been a debated issue for long years. One of the problematic issues is the motivation problem encountered in foreign language courses. Because, the most important factor affecting academic success is motivation. Most researchers argued that as the motivation level increases, the level of…

Large-scale spatial representations are rarely a perfect replication of the corresponding environment. Factors such as age, experience and environmental association play a significant role in each person's cognitive map. Yet, traditional spatial tasks remove these contextual elements in determining a person's spatial orientation skill, which has…