Background: Youth obesity in the United States is a major health concern. Obesity can be reduced by increasing health-promoting behaviors. Purpose: The goals of the present study were to (1) identify the strongest motivators of and barriers to health-promoting behaviors among a culturally diverse group of middle and high school students and (2)…

The purpose of this study is to determine types of games that middle school students play in their daily lives and analyze the effects of various variables such as gender, available technology, grade in school and parents' education levels on their game preferences. The sample consisted of a total of 464 grade 5-8 students (212 girls and 252…

Previous research suggests that students participating in school-based musical ensembles are more engaged in school and more likely to connect to their peers in school; however, researchers have not specifically investigated peer connectedness among adolescents in school-based music ensembles. The purpose of this study was to explore middle school…

Understanding students' misconceptions and how they change is an essential part of supporting students in their science learning. This paper presents results from distractor-driven multiple-choice assessments that target students' misconceptions about energy. Over 20,000 elementary, middle and high school students from across the U.S. participated…

This study explored the relationship between school level and the psychosocial construct of an academic mindset operationalized on the Likert-style Project for "Educational Research That Scales" (PERTS) instrument; widely used in testing academic mindset interventions at the classroom level. Analyses were conducted using existing school…

Prior research demonstrates that perceived academic support from peers positively predicts school adjustment. In this cross-sectional study, we provide evidence that perceived academic support from peers declines from 3rd to 8th grade and that this decline is partially mediated by grade-level declines in perceptions that academic success…

This study focuses on the development of the understanding of historical time of pupils in primary school. We present a developmental model with three stages: "emergent," "initial" and "continued" understanding of historical time. Based on this model, we constructed an instrument to measure how pupils aged 6-12…

Student's ability to use and manipulate scientific concepts has been widely explored; however there is still a need to define the characteristics and nature of science ability. Also, the tests and performance scales that require minimal conceptual knowledge to measure this ability are relatively less common. The aim of this study was to develop an…

Numerous studies have identified differences between males and females in academic performance across the areas of reading, writing, and mathematics. The current study examined whether or not gender differences exist when math curriculum-based measures (M-CBMs) are used to assess basic math computation skills in a sample of third- through…

Purpose/Objectives: The purpose of this project was to assess fruit and vegetable plate waste, examine patterns of selection and consumption of specific fruit and vegetable subgroups, and analyze for differences across gender, grade level, and school. Methods: A previously-validated digital photography method was used to collect plate waste data…

Methods for measuring homework performance have been limited primarily to parent reports of homework deficits. The Homework Performance Questionnaire (HPQ) was developed to assess the homework functioning of students in Grades 1 to 8 from the perspective of both teachers and parents. The purpose of this study was to examine the factorial validity…

It is an indispensable fact that having a positive attitude towards science is one of the important factors that promotes students for studying in science. The study is a kind of national study that aims to investigate middle school students', from different regions of Turkey, attitudes toward science, scientists and science classes. The study was…

There are few areas of school organization that reflect more dissatisfaction than how to structure the education of adolescents in the middle grades. This study uses multilevel models on nationally representative data provided by the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study to investigate the relationship between schools' middle-level grade span and…

The main aim of this study was to develop standardised tests that assess some of the most important spelling skills for children in primary school: sound-letter mappings (non-lexical spelling) and word spelling accuracy (lexical spelling). We present normative comparison data for children in Grades 1-7 as well as measures of validity and…

The purposes of this study were to identify the body regions where young string players report experiencing musculoskeletal discomfort and explore factors that may impact their perceived discomfort. A purposive yet nonprobability sample of elementary (n = 101), middle school (n = 97), and high school (n = 159) students participated in the study by…