Background: Educational policy makers and test critics often assert that standardized test scores are strongly influenced by factors beyond individual differences in academic achievement such as family income and wealth. Unfortunately, few empirical studies consider the simultaneous and related influences of family income, parental education, and…

Purpose: The relationships among students' self-efficacy, 2 × 2 achievement goals (mastery-approach [MAp], mastery-avoidance [MAv], performance-approach [PAp], and performance-avoidance goals), and achievement performance remain largely unanswered. We tested a model of the mediating role of self-efficacy on the relationship between 2 × 2…

With structural equation modeling, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health data were used to examine "parental support" and "perception of school" and their relation to Hispanic youth's substance use (alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana).

The study aimed to investigate the sex differences in the reciprocal relations between parental corporal punishment and child internalizing problem behavior in China. Four hundred fifty-four Chinese elementary school-age children completed measures of their parental corporal punishment toward them and their own internalizing problem behavior at…

Using structural equation modeling with a population-based cohort of French-speaking children from Quebec (Canada), prospective associations were made between two previously established factors underlying student performance--classroom engagement and the teacher-student relations. Our results show developmental continuity in classroom engagement…

The present study assessed the mediating role of expectancy for success and value beliefs in civic education in linking socio-academic factors (gender, ethnicity, school level and prior achievement) to desirable civic attributes. The sample comprised 1664 students in their Year-7-Year-12 (mean age = 14.79, range = 12-18). Structural equation…

This paper illustrates how high-quality preschool has the potential to serve as an intervention within normal populations. Although it is well known that targeted Early Interventions can protect the development of young children from developmental risks, there remains less evidence concerning universal preschool education. To address this…

Background: In this paper, we focused on mixing in educational settings between members of Catholic and Protestant ethnoreligious groups in Northern Ireland. Aims:. In Study 1, we examined whether opportunities for contact at home and at university were associated with greater actual out-group friendships, and whether this friendship was…

Perceived control is an important variable for various demands involved in successful aging. However, perceived control is not set in stone but rather changes throughout the life course. The aim of this study was to identify cross-sectional age differences and longitudinal mean-level changes as well as rank-order changes in perceived control with…

Past research on parentification suggests that adopting adult responsibilities to the point at which the child plays a parental role places children at risk for poor mental and behavioral health outcomes. Since family relations are particularly important in Mexican culture, two hypotheses were posed to examine the indirect effects of…

This study used data gathered over the course of a New Zealand longitudinal study (N = 924) to examine the relationships between measures of parental bonding and attachment in adolescence (age 15-16) and later personal adjustment (major depression; anxiety disorder; suicidal behaviour; illicit drug abuse/dependence; crime) assessed up to the age…

This study examines motivational precursors of social status and the applicability of a dual-component model of social competence to middle childhood. Concurrent and longitudinal relationships between self-reported social goals (social development, demonstration-approach, demonstration-avoid goal orientations), teacher-rated prosocial and…

The measurement of willingness to communicate (WTC) in a second language (L2) has been pervasive in quantitative research particularly in the context of structural equation modeling. An important prerequisite for this line of research is to establish the psychometric properties of the instrument used to measure L2 WTC. This study involves…

The problem examined in the proposed study was the underutilization of the intranet portals (IP) by faculty in institutions of higher education (IHE). Despite the time and investment allocated to the IP, the technology remains underutilized to improve productivity, efficiency, and justify its investment yet there is lack of understanding of why…

Thoughts drift in everyday life and in the classroom. The goal of this study was to investigate how often students reported off-task thinking while watching online lectures. These findings were related to working memory capacity, topic interest, and achievement goal orientations. Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate how all of these…