Dynamic testing, though underutilized, holds potential for assessing learning and instructional needs. However, its limited adoption is often attributed to the perceived time and labor-intensive nature of its administration. This study explores the viability of a training-only dynamic test (ToDT) with a standardized procedure to identify…

High sensitivity is often considered a characteristic of giftedness, but scientific evidence for this is limited. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate whether gifted children rate themselves higher in sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) than their peers. A total of 882 children from Grades 4, 5, and 6 of primary school participated. They…

Background: Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) are reported to have word spelling difficulties. These findings concern monolingual children with DLD; little is known about bilingual children with DLD. We examined word spelling abilities of bilingual children with DLD to determine if bilingualism is an additional risk factor for…

Creative thinking is an important aspect of education. However, students differ widely in their ability to think creatively. Working memory might explain these differences. Therefore, this study focuses on how different aspects of WM can explain differences in divergent thinking, both separately and conjointly. To do so, latent profile analysis…

Student-teacher relationship drawings were employed to investigate how students' mental representations of student-teacher relationships were affected by their gender, age, and shyness across the Netherlands and China. The sample included 752 third- to sixth-graders (48.5% boys; M[subscript age] = 9.96) from the Netherlands and 574 third- to…

This study investigates the extent to which defending victims of bullying depends on liking and disliking and its relation with the classroom bullying norm (descriptive and popularity) in a sample of 1,272 students (50.8% boys) in 48 fifth-grade classrooms. Social network analysis with bivariate exponential random graph modelings showed that…

This longitudinal study (three waves across a school year) investigated the links between children's motivations to respond without prejudice and their ethnic outgroup attitudes at the between-person level (means and changes over time) and the within-person level (time-specific fluctuations). Participants were 945 ethnic majority students…

One of the ways in which schools try to improve students' motivation is through making learning meaningful for students. The concept of meaningful learning, however, has been defined in various ways in the literature. This small-scale in-depth study focused on meaningful learning in mathematics in upper-primary education. We investigated what…

The number of women and underrepresented individuals working in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields does not reflect the diversity of our societies. Even if children have an interest in STEM, they may not consider choosing a study or career in that direction if their perception is that they would not belong in science.…

The current study replicated an earlier investigation by Bouwer and van der Veen (2023) where 10 Grade 5 and 6 classrooms in the Netherlands (210 students) were randomly assigned to a treatment or control condition, with treatment students evidencing improvements in the quality of their essays after practice writing argumentative essays, reading…

Many students infrequently read during leisure time. Due to fast, unconscious decisions, they may overlook the possibility of reading. We tested the impact of nudging on reading frequency, reading attitude, and reading skills. Two studies targeting Grades 4 to 6 (N = 105) and Grades 7 and 8 (N = 146) compared: (1) a nudging condition--participants…

High-quality teacher-student relationships are related to a wide range of positive student outcomes, especially in students with special educational needs. To enable tailored support to help teachers engage in positive relationships with these students, it is important to identify and understand the different types of teacher-student relationships…

This longitudinal study investigated bidirectional associations between pupils' social competence and their interpersonal relationships and classroom climate in segregated special education schools for pupils with emotional and behavioral disorders in the Netherlands. Participants were in Grade 4 and 5 in School Year 1 (N = 441) and Grade 5 and 6…

In an experimental design, we investigated how fifth-grade readers use morphological and contextual information to infer the meaning of unknown words, and to what extent this is related to their cognitive and linguistic skills. A group of 166 fifth-grade Dutch children (59 L1, 107 L2) performed a lexical inferencing task in which the availability…

Differentiation and achievement grouping are frequently implemented practices to adapt education to students' varying educational needs based on achievement level. Potential didactical and socioemotional advantages and disadvantages of these practices have been discussed in the literature. However, little is known about the perspective of students…