This research examined the important factors influencing the mathematics achievement of students in middle schools by hierarchically specifying the personal and contextual variables. The study focused on the effect of school climate at the class level and the effects of student gender, attitude toward mathematics, educational aspiration, parent…

This study explored how certain personality traits, behaviors, and social status may be associated with who is targeted as a victim of peer aggression. The sample consisted of 233 students in sixth through eighth grades from rural communities. Results indicate that symptoms of anxiety, a high sense of inadequacy, and elevated social stress are…

A substantial literature has studied gender differences in political participation in Western industrialized democracies, but little is known about such gaps in sub-Saharan African nations. Using 2005 Afrobarometer data, this paper presents a systematic investigation of the gender gap in political participation across 18 sub-Saharan African…

Parental support and parental depressive feelings are found to be associated with depressive feelings in adolescent boys and girls, but results are inconsistent. In addition, the "5-HTTLPR" genotype has been found to interact with environmental stressors in predicting adolescents' depressive feelings, but this has not been examined longitudinally.…

The development of negative cognitive style was examined in a longitudinal study of 366 community youth. Cognitive style and depressive symptoms were evaluated at ages 11, 13, and 15. Latent growth mixture modeling identified three unique trajectory patterns of negative cognitive style. The "normative" group (71% of the sample) displayed the least…

The relations between adolescents' habitual usage of media violence and their tendency to engage in aggressive and prosocial behavior in a school setting were examined in a cross-sectional study with 1688 7th and 8th graders in Germany who completed measures of violent media exposure and normative acceptance of aggression. For each participant,…

This explorative study describes time use and time management behaviour of ethnic minority and ethnic majority students as possible explanations for the poorer study results of ethnic minority students compared to those of majority students. We used a diary approach in a small sample to examine students' daily time use in both a lecture week…

The current study focused on an important issue pertaining to online social communication by investigating perceptional differences between eastern and western adolescents. A total of 309 participants were recruited from three countries: China, Singapore, and the United States. Significant differences were found between eastern and western…

This study looked at the effect of both quantity and quality of computer use on achievement. The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2003 student survey comprising of 4,356 students (boys, n = 2,129; girls, n = 2,227) was used to predict academic achievement from quantity and quality of computer use while controlling for…

Background/Context: Although much research has dealt with the factors that influence educational expectations, few studies have addressed recent high school graduates who attend community colleges as their first postsecondary institutions. As the costs associated with attending a four-year institution keep rising, community colleges increasingly…

The study investigates the chances of gaining admission to Georgian higher education in relation to residential origin. The analysis of broad trends is combined with details from an in-depth individual-level inquiry. Qualitative data on the entire population of 150,000 applicants over the period 2005-9, together with interview data from a…

The current research starts from the observation that low-qualified employees hold a vulnerable position on the labour market. It has been argued that learning and development can decrease this vulnerability; unfortunately research has shown that low-qualified employees participate considerably less in learning activities in comparison with…

The present study analyzes the effects of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) environment on teachers' attitude toward technology integration in Japanese and U.S. elementary schools. Teacher's attitude plays an important role in influencing the effectiveness of ICT education from a variety of perspectives. A number of studies have been…

The acquisition of credit card debt by college students has long been a topic of concern. This study explores relationships among debt, undesirable academic behaviors and cognitions, and academic performance, through surveys of 338 students in a public university, replicating two past measures of credit card debt and creating new measures of…

Vocational and Technical Education (VTE) at the secondary-school level has undergone transformation, especially in the last 25 to 30 years brought about by the implementation of the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 1984. Earlier, the VTE education focus was to prepare students for entry-level jobs that did not require a…