Background: Prior studies have emphasized the importance of parents' educational involvement (a type of cognitive involvement) to academic engagement, although little is known about emotional involvement. Aims: This study investigated whether and how different facets of involvement (cognitive vs. emotional, paternal vs. maternal) are…

Character strengths are an integral component of positive youth development that can promote flourishing. Developmental principles posit constructs become increasingly complex with age, yet this process has not been examined with character. Using a socioeconomically and ethnically diverse sample of 2,467 youth ages 9-19, bifactor models were…

The purpose of this study was to analyze the developmental trajectory of Korean adolescents' multicultural receptivity with a latent growth model. The study was performed using the data of 5,943 students (2,918 boys and 3,025 girls) who sincerely responded to all the questions used as variables in the data in the 2nd, 4th, and 6th years of the…

Judgments about objects in the world are often based on probabilistic information (or cues). A frugal judgment strategy that utilizes memory (i.e., the ability to discriminate between known and unknown objects) as a cue for inference is the recognition heuristic (RH). The usefulness of the RH depends on the structure of the environment,…

The transition from middle school to high school continues to challenge students, parents, and schools. Parents are recognized as important influences, but the current literature provides limited information about what matters to parents and what role parents may play in determining the success of students making the transition to high school.…

Social responsibility can be defined as a set of prosocial values representing personal commitments to contribute to community and society. Little is known about developmental change--and predictors of that change--in social responsibility during adolescence. The present study used an accelerated longitudinal research design to investigate the…

Purpose: Adult relationships provide critical support for adolescents because of their potential to foster positive development and provide protective influences. Few studies examine multiple ecological layers of adult relationships in connection with well-being and depression. This study examines the influence of relationships from multiple…

In this year-long qualitative multi-site case study, researchers identified how eighth and ninth-grade teacher practices may support students' basic and developmental needs across the middle-to-high-school transition. Data were collected throughout 2009, including individual interviews, focus group interviews, observations, and artifact data of 23…

This mixed-methods longitudinal project investigates the association between student perceptions of their schools and themselves. Findings from the first two waves of data analysis with 894 middle and high school students in a midsized Great Lakes city reveal similarities and differences between the grade levels (7th-10th) and their perceptions of…

The purpose of this study was to explore how passion was manifested among gifted and talent youth selected from a larger longitudinal study of child and adolescent development. The gifted sample included 25 high school and college students who were selected because they were in a gifted program in elementary school. The talent sample included 41…

Background/Context: Studies carried out over the last two decades have established structured after-school programs as significant contexts for adolescent development. Recent large-scale evaluations of after-school initiatives have yielded mixed results, finding some impact on adolescents' attitudes toward school but limited impact on their…

While most of the dialogue in education today is about accountability, standardized testing, and adequate yearly progress, the truth is that student success is deeply connected to the physical, emotional, and cognitive needs that they have at different ages. The best schools already know this and follow practices that are academically engaging and…