Preparation is an effective and necessary activity; however, most students do not prepare for future lessons. The present study addressed this problem and examined how learners' motives, beliefs, and perceptions affected their strategy use during preparation for future lessons. Participants were 219 Japanese junior high school students who…

This study explores the effects of various motivational variables operating within 44 English classes on 1-year-long gains in the English reading proficiency of 1,149 Japanese university students. The study adds new knowledge to the recent outcomes of second language (L2) motivational studies in 3 major ways. First, the explanatory variables…

Despite the increasing number of studies examining the correlates of interest and boredom, surprisingly little research has focused on within-person fluctuations in these emotions, making it difficult to describe their situational nature. To address this gap in the literature, this study conducted repeated measurements (12 times) on a sample of…

This study investigates whether a common set of student attitudes and behavioral tendencies can account for academic achievement across different, especially high-performing, countries via analysis of the PISA 2009 international data set. The 13 countries examined are 5 of the top-performing Eastern countries/systems, namely Shanghai China, South…