Research on grit indicates that perseverance positively predicts academic achievement. Yet, the mechanisms through which perseverance might lead to academic success remain less explored, particularly in cross-cultural research. The current study investigated such mechanisms by examining possible mediating effects of students' use of self-regulated…

Three experiments investigated the role of source information (i.e., who said what) in readers' comprehension of short informational texts. Based on the Discrepancy-Induced Source Comprehension assumption (Braasch, Rouet, Vibert, & Britt, 2012), we hypothesized that readers would be more likely to make use of source information when…

Using PISA 2009, an international education database, this study compares gifted and talented (GT) students in three groups with normal (non-GT) students by examining student characteristics, reading, schooling, learning methods, and use of strategies for understanding and memorizing. Results indicate that the GT and non-GT gender distributions…

Background/Context: Educators, parents, politicians, and the media often complain that young people know little history and compare them unfavorably to better-educated, earlier generations. However, the charge is exaggerated. Young people have performed poorly on history tests for decades. Students' poor scores on one test in particular, the focus…

Using cultural frameworks, and based on the author's personal experience and conversations with fellow Chinese and American graduate students, this essay analyzes the struggle for Chinese students who have to strike a balance between the American style of learning which is characterized by class discussion and the Chinese style of learning which…

The state of education in the United States, particularly in the areas of science, mathematics and technology, has been a consistent source of concern since at least the early 1980s when student performance on the 1986 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) revealed that science proficiency was lower than comparable measures from the…

Traditional Chinese proverbs such as: "The sea of learning knows no bounds; only through diligence may its shore be reached" and "If you don't succeed, try again." (p. 296) illustrate that educational success in the Asian culture is viewed as the result of a single notion--"hard work". This paper will examine how this…

Here I emphasize the applicability of the sociological imagination to an international audience by sharing my journey of teaching sociology in Japan. I found my own sociological imagination helpful in critically evaluating the literature on Japanese higher education and the construction of the Japanese student as a form of Orientalism. As I…

This study investigates Chinese and U.S. teachers' cultural beliefs concerning effective mathematics teaching from the teachers' perspectives. Although sharing some common beliefs, the two groups of teachers think differently about both mathematics understanding and the features of effective teaching. The sample of U.S. teachers put more emphasis…

Criteria had been proposed for assessing the severity of possible test security violations for computerized tests with high-stakes outcomes. However, these criteria resulted from theoretical derivations that assumed uniformly randomized item selection. This study investigated potential damage caused by organized item theft in computerized adaptive…

Learning strategies and affective factors could have a profound impact on student standardized mathematics performance. This study investigated gender differences in affective factors, learning strategies, and preferred learning situations, and how these variables affect math achievement of 15 year olds in the United States and Hong Kong on the…

Jinfa Cai's study comparing Chinese and American sixth-grade students' mathematics performance found that American students did better on simple and complex problems than on computation. One reason might be Asian countries' stress on rote learning. Paul George's 1995 monograph "Japanese Schools: A Closer Look" found instruction…

"Adult Language Learners: Context and Innovation" presents instructional practices that are particularly successful with adults. Adult language learners are goal oriented and direct their learning to fulfill particular needs or demands: to advance their studies, to progress up the career ladder, to follow business opportunities, to pass…

"Instructional Patterns: Strategies for Maximizing Student Learning" examines instruction from the learners' point of view by showing how instructional patterns can be used to maximize the potential for students to learn. This book explores the interactive patterns that exist in today's classroom and demonstrates how teachers can…