It is thought that goal-directed control of actions weakens or becomes masked by habits over time. We tested the opposing hypothesis that goal-directed control becomes stronger over time, and that this growth is modulated by the overall action-outcome contiguity. Despite group differences in action-outcome contiguity early in training, rats…

Goal setting is a common process used in sport, business and education to influence motivation, increase effort, and enhance performance. Goal setting affects performance by influencing effort, persistence, direction of attention, and by motivating strategy development. Athletes use goal setting to improve skills, strategies and mental…

Guided by social cognitive career theory (SCCT; Lent et al. in J Vocat Behav 45(1):79-122, 1994), we assessed sociocultural (e.g., home-school cultural value mismatch) and contextual barriers (e.g., institutional climate) in science education and career development at both a baccalaureate-granting institution (BGI) and community college (CC) among…

Background: Previous research has indicated that placing emphasis on communal goals within the field of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education can yield beneficial learning outcomes. However, there remains a relative dearth of investigation into the factors that contribute to the success of STEM education programs…

Purpose: Writing a thesis is a difficult endeavor for undergraduate students, especially in management careers, due to the highly practical approach of the discipline. Students often find difficult to understand and apply research methods in concrete research projects, so a proper set of teaching-learning strategies is critical. This study aimed…

Whole-of-course approaches have emerged as an important topic in the contemporary outcomes-based education environment. While research-informed accounts of whole-of-course approaches exist, most take undergraduate education as the default. Few examples feature postgraduate education where students seek career enhancement rather than entry.…

The findings of previous studies on the correlation between trait mindfulness (MF) and academic performance (AP) have been inconsistent. The purpose of the current study was to provide a thorough synthesis of prior research based on a three-level random-effects meta-analytic model to explore the link between trait MF and AP, as well as potential…

Supporting principals in building capacity to balance both instructional leadership and managerial competence is an essential task. Recognizing that principals do not directly teach students, their impact on school outcomes is broadly understood to be second only to teacher classroom instruction (Grissom & Loeb, 2011; Grissom et al., 2015;…

Popular culture references have demonstrated usefulness as a pedagogical tool as they enhance student engagement and information retention. Use of the American version of the hit mockumentary TV series "The Office" has demonstrated pedagogical effectiveness in management, organizational behavior, and human resources courses. The show…

Promoting pre-service teachers' development of professional dispositions through purposefully designed learning experiences may be middle level teacher education's most important contribution to a novice's development from student to teacher. The 2022 Revised Middle Level Teacher Preparation Standards explicitly address this expectation in…

The present study focused on exploring the views of parents regarding character education programs implemented in elementary schools in the USA. The sample comprised of parents in Florida, as it is one of the states where character education is mandatory. Florida's implementation of compulsory character education is particularly significant given…

The purpose of this study was to examine the presence of continuous improvement and improvement science in the Consolidated State Plans required by ESSA. Through an exploratory qualitative content analysis, we examined 52 state plans to determine the extent education policies encourage professional educators to use a continuous improvement and…

The South Carolina Master Naturalist Program provides nature-based education to citizen volunteers who will promote environmental stewardship and is offered at six host sites across the state. We conducted a mixed-methods evaluation (the integration of qualitative and quantitative data) of the South Carolina Master Naturalist Program. Overall, the…

Given today's crisis-laden context filled with educational challenges, it is critical to understand how principals express hope through their leadership to navigate these challenges. Through an extensive qualitative research study conducted in 2019-2022, I examined how 50 principals expressed and used hope in varying degrees to hinder or…

In higher education, motivational factors are considered one of "the strongest predictors of academic performance" (Honike et al., 2020, p. 1). A meta-analysis of face-to-face (f2f) courses (Richardson et al., 2012) supports these claims, finding a strong correlation between performance self-efficacy and academic performance (r = 0.59),…