Elementary students' literacy skills are decreasing nationwide ("The Nation's Report Card," 2019). This is concerning because as literacy skills slip, the literacy demands for American workers are steadily increasing (OECD, 2013). Unfortunately, adding to the situation is the fact that students' attitudes towards reading are worsening…

Investigating factors affecting students' academic performance seems a hard job for researchers on the empirical front. Beliefs, parents' educational background, motivation, and attitudes have been proven significantly influence achievement. However, concurrent research on the relationship among these variables seems scarce. Therefore, to…

Creativity is an important skill in the 21st century, and design thinking has been proposed as a methodology for fostering creativity. Design creativity involves two non-rational aspects: motivation and empathy. However, little is known about how empathy and motivation work in synergy with creativity. This study explored the underlying mechanisms…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of cognitive appraisal styles (i.e., threat vs. challenge) and feedback types on feedback acceptance and motivation for challenge. We used four feedback types based on valence (positive vs. negative) and orientation (person vs. task). Sixth-graders completed the cognitive appraisal style…

This qualitative study explored teachers' perceptions of barriers to parental involvement in a Title 1 middle school. The researcher collected data through interviews wherein participants responded to open-ended questions. The data was analyzed using qualitative content analysis (QCA). The results include input from seven general education…

This paper advances in the understanding of motivation in terms of flow in groups from a physiological perspective. We use wearable devices to monitor the heart rate variation during a set of sessions of face-to-face STEAM project-based learning. By using Action Research with mixed-methods design, we observed a set of 28 students in real-world…

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…

The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to determine if and to what extent there is a correlation between paternal school involvement, and (school, cognitive/intellectual, and personal) involvement in their children's academic achievement of first through eighth-grade students in a private school. The theoretical foundation of…

We investigated how 5th-8th graders' self- and peer-identified withdrawal motivations predicted peer-reported peer relationships and aggression. Participants (N = 221; 47% male) provided self-reports and peer-nomination data (we analyzed 339 students' nominations). We hypothesized shyness, unsociability, and avoidance would predict low peer liking…

Background: Writing is a particularly demanding activity, which poses unique motivational challenges for students. Despite the wealth of research on the relation between writing motivation and writing performance, little is known about the role of students' writing frequency in writing motivation and writing performance. Aims: We aimed to: (1)…

This study examined the relationship between secondary school students' problem-solving success and perceptions using a relational survey model. This study investigated 378 students (212 girls and 166 boys) in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades between 11 and 14 years old using the convenience sampling method. The problem-solving inventory for…

The study purpose was to examine whether adolescents who participated in organized physical activity (PA) programs differed from nonparticipants in motivation, social support, and self-efficacy related to PA; PA (min/hr); and sedentary screen time behavior. Thirty-nine 5th-7th grade adolescents participated in organized PA programs; 41 did not.…

Participation of children in physical activity has decreased and the interest in digital games has increased in recent years as a result of development of internet and technological devices. This research has been done in order to determine the motivation of elementary school students for participating in physical activity and digital game…

Latinx students now make up the largest share of charter school students nationally. In this article, I focus on Latinx charter school choosers in Houston, Texas, and ask what motivates Latinx parents to exit district schools. Drawing on interviews with 31 families, I find that perceptions of present and future risk motivate charter school choice.…

This article examines four preadolescent girls' physical lives over three years inside and outside of schools (fourth, fifth, and sixth grades). The girls participated in a school-based physical education intervention during the first two years that was designed to enhance their physical activity (PA) choices in both environments. At the…