The aim of the present study is to investigate thinking styles at the interface between personality traits and intelligence. A total of 266 students in Germany and Austria completed the Thinking Styles Inventory for German-Speaking Samples (TSI-GER), the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) and the Intelligence-Structure Test 2000 R (I-S-T 2000 R).…

The present article focuses on classroom climate effects in the context of multi-level structural equation modelling. We first discuss the need to appropriately model classroom climate as a classroom-level construct. We then analyse the effects of classroom climate (academic goal structures and social goal structures) on students' motivation in…

This study investigated the gender-specific effects of social achievement goals -- i.e., social development goals, social demonstration approach goals, and social demonstration avoid goals -- on bullying perpetration in a sample of 788 adolescents (53.3% girls), taking into account the mediating role of sense of belonging and non-inclusive group…

The paper examines between-country differences in the mechanisms through which education could promote generalised trust using data from 29 countries participating in the OECD's Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). Results indicate that education is strongly associated with generalised trust and that a large part of this association is mediated by…

This article reports an analysis of the relationship between women's increased participation in higher education and other recent social changes over the last four decades. To date, women's increased involvement in higher education has been studied as either a force for or a consequence of other sociocultural changes. Drawing on data from key…

Many large-scale cross-national studies rely on a single-item measurement when comparing prevalence rates of traditional bullying, traditional victimization, cyberbullying, and cyber-victimization between countries. However, the reliability and validity of single-item measurement approaches are highly problematic and might be biased. Data from…

Art is a unique feature of human experience. It involves the complex interplay among stimuli, persons and contexts. Little is known of how the various features deemed important in art appreciation depend on development, thus are already present at a young age. Similarly to our previous approach with adults of differing levels of expertise, the…

In this article, we address the issue of participation in adult education building on the cultural capital framework. This theoretical framework suggests that (educational) practices are affected by one's social background and, more precisely, by the cultural resources handed down in the family context. To examine the validity of this theoretical…

Background: Within-class consensus on mastery goal structures describes the extent to which students agree in their perceptions of mastery goal structures. Research on (work) teams suggests that higher levels of consensus within a group indicate a well-functioning social environment and are thus positively related to beneficial socio-emotional…

We present three statistical methods for causal analysis in life course research that are able to take into account the order of events and their possible causal relationship: a cross-lagged model, a latent growth model (LGM), and a synthesis of the two, an autoregressive latent trajectories model (ALT). We apply them to a highly relevant…

This article argues that strong interrelations between methodological and theoretical advances exist. Progress in, especially comparative, methods may have important impacts on theory evaluation. By using the example of the "Varieties of Capitalism" approach and an international comparison of higher education systems, it can be shown…

Implicit stereotypes associating science with male might play a role in the development of gender differences in students' motivations for physical science. Particularly, the stereotypes of influential adults may induce students' regulatory foci and subsequently their motivational beliefs. Drawing on expectancy-value theory, this study…

This study examined gender differences in student engagement and academic performance in school. Participants included 3420 students (7th, 8th, and 9th graders) from Austria, Canada, China, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Malta, Portugal, Romania, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The results indicated that, compared to boys, girls…