Background: It is widely recommended for teachers to provide positive feedback to foster the development and maintenance of children's motivation and perseverance. However, not all positive feedback has positive consequences and an important differentiation can be made between positive person-oriented feedback (i.e. 'you are very talented') and…

In a competition-driven meritocratic learning environment, academic achievement can have a direct effect on self-esteem and self-concept. As such, academic achievement can act as an antecedent to grit and self-esteem. This study examined the longitudinal reciprocal relationships of academic achievement, consistency of interest (CI), perseverance…

Using a qualitative case study method, we examined how students talked, acted, and felt in structured inquiry in attempt to understand how students' epistemic emotions interact with their engagement in practices. Participants were four 5th graders, and data included audio recordings of the students' talk in structured inquiry for learning a…

This study aims to determine the relationship between middle school students' innovative thinking tendencies and entrepreneurial skills and to identify the variables that predict entrepreneurial skill. To this end, the study used the correlational survey method. The study group consists of 274 5th-, 6th-, and 7th-graders studying in 3 middle…

There is evidence showing that the triarchic model of grit and its dimensions (i.e., "perseverance of effort," "consistency of interests," and "adaptability to situations") predict engagement and well-being outcomes in high school and undergraduate students during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. However, there has…

A growing body of research shows that students benefit when they demographically match their teachers. However, little is known about how matching affects social-emotional development. We use student-fixed effects to exploit changes over time in the proportion of teachers within a school grade who demographically match a student to estimate…

This study aimed to reveal the common errors in fractions, the associated thinking strategies among 5th graders, and the persistence of these errors. A quantitative method was applied in this study through calculating the percentages of every type of error the students made in the diagnostic test, The qualitative part was performed through…

Hope, the ability to establish goals, plan for the future, persist in the face of challenges, and motivate oneself throughout the goal cycle, is a social endeavor requiring the collective support and resources of families, school staff, and peers. Schools that teach and reinforce life skills (i.e., hope and social-emotional competence) are able to…

Background: Optimistic thinking is a facet of social-emotional learning linked to better mental health and problem-solving in children; however, few educational tools exist to improve this important aspect of self-awareness. Objective: To examine the effectiveness of an optimistic thinking tool with diverse students in an elementary school…

Literacy is an important result of language teaching. Language skills are like the pieces of a whole. The accurate acquisition of these skills, which are needed to be used effectively by individuals both in their social and educational life, is equally valuable. Writing is a skill that is acquired and developed mostly during the learning process…

This year-long qualitative study explored third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade gifted students' participation during inquiry explorations. We discovered that it took considerable time for students to balance the process and final product created. For instance, students focused on the process and planning of the outcome. However, when the outcome…

This paper examines the context for developing computational thinking (CT), computational participation (CP), and spatial reasoning among predominantly Black elementary students in grades 5 and 6, who attended a public school in the urban fringe of a large city in the Eastern United States. A case study is presented as the method to examine two…

This qualitative research examines design failure within a 5th grade science classroom that embedded engineering design activities. In adhering with a situative learning perspective, the goal of this research was to understand how design failure was portrayed to students through the written and enacted curriculum and in turn, how students…

Recent empirical research has demonstrated the importance of mastery motivation in child development. Therefore, it is essential to have valid and reliable instruments to measure this variable. The Dimensions of Mastery Questionnaires (DMQ 18) was validated in English, Hungarian, Chinese and Spanish. In this article, we evaluate the psychometric…

Productive struggle leads to productive classrooms where students work on complex problems, are encouraged to take risks, can struggle and fail yet still feel good about working on hard problems (Boaler, 2016). Teachers can foster a classroom culture that values and promotes productive struggle by providing students with challenging tasks. These…