Children's ways of learning are as different as the colors of the rainbow. All children have different personalities, preferences and tastes; they all have a certain way they prefer to learn. Teachers and parents need to be aware of and value these differences. Children's brains develop faster from birth to age three than any other time, and more…

Children's drawings have been analysed in research for several decades, frequently using a narrative style. This article introduces an innovative methodological tool to analyse young children's drawings. Taking a social semiotics perspective, the aim of this tool is not to replace narrative analysis but to complement it. The study was conducted…

The implementation of technology is inherently flawed in the field of public education, affecting the ability to operationalize technology in a way that is effective for teachers and students. This unfortunate predetermination is beholden to social, economic and political issues that are deeply rooted in bureaucracy. This autoethnographic…

Based on Greenspoon and Saklofske's (2001) dual-factor model of mental health, we defined adolescents' mental health as comprised of two distinguishable factors: positive and negative mental health. We tested the direct relations between the Eysenck's (1967) Big Two personality traits (Extraversion and Neuroticism) and positive and negative mental…

The aim is to understand the diversity in children's social behaviours that are vital to learning. It is proposed that a model of Social Behaviours for Learning (SBL) relies on the positions of the observers in relevant contexts. In this case, children are observed at school and at home. The alternatives are sociability as a personal trait or…

The investigation of learning processes by assessing students' experience along with objective characteristics within a classroom context has a long tradition in empirical learning process research (e.g. Sembill, 1984 et passim; Wild & Krapp, 1996). However, most of the existing studies confine themselves to psychological variables that seem…

This study draws on self-determination theory to conceptualize a type of school climate that has consequences for the social, emotional, and cognitive well-being of students. We argue that a self-regulated climate emerges through a general pattern of interactions that students experience as supporting their psychological needs. For the empirical…

Impulsivity is a salient individual difference in children with well-established predictive validity for life outcomes. The current investigation proposes that impulsive behaviors vary systematically by domain. In a series of studies with ethnically and socioeconomically diverse samples of middle school students, we find that schoolwork-related…

Because challenges are ubiquitous, resilience is essential for success in school and in life. In this article we review research demonstrating the impact of students' mindsets on their resilience in the face of academic and social challenges. We show that students who believe (or are taught) that intellectual abilities are qualities that can be…

The effects of personal characteristics (e.g. personality, aptitude, gender) on student performance, such as Grade Point Average (GPA) and course grades, have been systematically researched, with the emphasis being mainly on outcomes rather than the processes leading to them. The purpose of this paper is to shift the focus to students' perceived…

Children's academic self-efficacy is one of the strongest predictors of achievement (Wigfield and Eccles, "Contemporary Educational Psychology" 25(1): 68-81, 2000). The present research examined mathematics self-efficacy and the relationship of racial context from the perspective of two competing bodies of research. Stereotype threat theory would…

Within each classroom, students are taught the traditional subject matter courses and a hidden curriculum consisting of the teacher's personal biases. The teacher must have a healthy self-concept in order to create a positive classroom climate where healthy emotional growth and maximum intellectual growth can occur. (Author/CM)

Children from four elementary schools in Illinois were participants in the implementation of a project intended to improve their self-esteem through adult role-model intervention. The objectives of the project were to demonstrate that: (1) the adults in children's lives play a significant role; (2) an individual's sense of belonging and acceptance…