School socio-economic compositional (SEC) effects have been influential in educational research predicting a range of outcomes and influencing public policy. However, some recent studies have challenged the veracity of SEC effects when applying residualised-change and fixed effects models and simulating potential measurement errors in hierarchical…

An emerging body of research has evaluated the role of growth mindset in educational achievement, yet little work has focused on the unique role of mindset to standardized reading outcomes. Our study presents 4 key outcomes in a sample of 195 fourth-grade students. First, we evaluated the dimensionality of general and reading-specific mindset and…

The article reports the results of a cross-country educational research project that uses quantitative methods to identify school leadership practices and contextual characteristics that contribute to explain student achievement in Chile, considering international comparisons. The results question previous evidence about a common repertoire of…

According to the Simple View of Writing, four primary skills are necessary for successful writing (Berninger & Amtmann, 2003; Berninger & Winn, 2006). Transcription skills (e.g., handwriting, spelling) represent lower-order cognitive tasks, whereas text generation skills (e.g., ideation, translation) represent higher-order…

We discuss a component-based, developmental view of text writing fluency, which we tested using data from children in Grades 2 and 3. "Text writing fluency" was defined as efficiency and automaticity in writing connected texts, which acts as a mediator between text generation (oral language), transcription skills, and writing quality. We…

This study explored the background knowledge (BK) and reading comprehension (RC) relationship for struggling adult readers. Using confirmatory factor analyses, a single-factor BK model exhibited better fit than a two-factor model separating academic knowledge and general information, which indicates that BK represents a unidimensional construct…

This study explored the background knowledge (BK) and reading comprehension (RC) relationship for struggling adult readers. Using confirmatory factor analyses, a single-factor BK model exhibited better fit than a two-factor model separating academic knowledge and general information, which indicates that BK represents a unidimensional construct…

We tested a culturally integrative model examining the associations among economic hardship during infancy and Latino children's later sociobehavioral problems and academic skills prior to kindergarten entry, whether mothers' mental health problems and positive parenting behaviors mediated those associations, and whether they varied by mothers'…

Silent reading fluency has received limited attention in the school-based literatures across the past decade. We fill this gap by examining both oral and silent reading fluency and their relation to overall abilities in reading comprehension in fourth-grade students. Lower-level reading skills (word reading, rapid automatic naming) and vocabulary…

Background: Numerous studies have investigated the relationships between various student, home and contextual factors and reading achievement. However, the relationship between such factors and reading attitudes has been investigated far less, despite the fact that theoretical frameworks of large-scale assessments and school effectiveness research…

Numerous studies have attributed gender difference in mathematics achievement to various sociocultural influences. Singapore is a country of higher gender equality as represented in the Global Gender Gap Index and Singaporean girls perform as well or higher than boys in international mathematics assessments. This study develops a conceptual model…

The current study tested a multiple-cognitive predictor model of word reading, math ability, and attention in a community-based sample of twins ages 8 to 16 years (N = 636). The objective was to identify cognitive predictors unique to each skill domain as well as cognitive predictors shared among skills that could help explain their overlap and…

According to Bronfenbrenner's socio-ecological model, school is an essential microsystem of the developing child. Schools provide important developmental contexts for children and adolescents, as they constitute environments that might either foster or evoke students' emotional instability. In particular, less is known about the precise and…

We examined the developmental relations between knowledge of reading strategies and reading comprehension in a longitudinal study of 312 Dutch children from the beginning of fourth grade to the end of fifth grade. Measures for reading comprehension, reading strategies, reading fluency, vocabulary, and working memory were administered. A structural…

Given the abundance of literature describing the strong relationship between inquiry-based teaching and student achievement, more should be known about the factors impacting science teachers' classroom inquiry implementation. This study utilises the theory of planned behaviour to propose and validate a causal model of inquiry-based teaching…