Syllabus-boundness constitutes an important attribute of a so-called surface approach to learning, whereby students are seen as highly assessment-oriented, doing what is minimally required from them, and wanting well-organized courses and clear instructions. When this concept emerged in the late 1960ies, it was linked to a discussion on issues of…

Students' school success and general well-being can improve when they believe in their academic abilities and are aware of the purpose of their studies. This paper explores the development of Icelandic students' academic self-concept and sense of purpose in their learning. The focus is directed at the period from the end of compulsory school…

Loneliness has previously been linked to cognitive and attentional bias, and such biases may have a detrimental impact on perceived scholastic self-beliefs. Little is known about the relationship in school-aged adolescents. The current study examined the association between loneliness and scholastic self-beliefs in a nationally representative…

The purpose of this study was to measure teachers' views about trust between teachers, trust between the principal and teachers, peer collaboration, positive attitudes towards the school and how these antecedents influence the academic pressure teachers put on pupils with respect to learning and learning intensity and performance. The methodology…

The aim of this study is to examine Finnish students' school engagement profiles in the light of the data collected in the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) in 2003. Even though Finnish students' cognitive achievement has proved excellent in various international assessments, their school engagement has not been flattering. The…

Self-realization requires both protection and challenge from the environment. The developmental conditions of home and school are not meeting the needs of different children with their highly diverse and unique potentialities, especially in the provision of a proper balance between protection and challenge. (Author/SJL)

Pupils' responses in Grade 6 to a 40-item questionnaire originally constructed to reveal different school attitudes were re-analysed using recently developed techniques for latent variable analysis of two-level data. One aim was to test a model for investigation of classroom environment and another aim was to compare exploratory factor analysis…