We examined the mediating role of family dynamics (marital quality, parental depression) in the link between economic pressure and child psychological functioning using the data from the National Survey of Family and Households (NSFH). From the initial multiethnic probability sample, we used a subsample of 2998 parents with a focal child 5 to 17…

Mexican American youth have higher physical inactivity rates than their Black or non-Hispanic White counterparts. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among exercise locus of control, age, present exercise level, weight status, and gender with intention to exercise in a sample of Mexican American youth. The study sample…

Objective: This study tests the validity of the Rap-music Attitude and Perception (RAP) Scale, a 1-page, 24-item measure of a person's thoughts and feelings surrounding the effects and content of rap music. The RAP was designed as a rapid assessment instrument for youth programs and practitioners using rap music and hip hop culture in their work…

Emotional intelligence (EI) has often been criticized to measure nothing more than intelligence and personality. Recent studies have shown that EI has an incremental validity concerning life outcome criteria, but inconsistent results have been found for achievement criteria. Two studies were conducted to examine if EI could predict achievement…

The Simple View of Reading states that reading comprehension is the product of word recognition and listening comprehension. Whereas much research has focused on word recognition accuracy, recent attention has been directed toward word recognition fluency. The current study investigated whether a separate fluency component should be added to the…

Background: Over the past 20 years, a number of researchers have expressed concern over the lack of confidence and qualifications of primary school teachers to teach PE. Evidently, the influence of personal school PE experiences may play an important role in the development of teachers' confidence to appropriately teach PE. Most research that has…

This study evaluated the stage structure of several quasi-simplex and non-simplex models of moral development in two domains of moral development in a British and a Chinese sample. Analyses were based on data reported by Sachs (1992): the Chinese sample consisted of 1,005 students from grade 9 to post-college, and the British sample consisted of…

Research on factors related to student academic achievement typically involves the use of some type of total cognitive score as the final outcome measure. However, in using a total score, it is assumed that variables related to student learning have the same effect on student learning across academic skill levels. Using a subsample from the first…

The impact of the use of data arising from balanced incomplete block (BIB) spiralled designs on the chi-square goodness-of-fit test in factor analysis is considered. Data from BIB designs posses a unique pattern of missing data that can be characterized as missing completely at random (MCAR). Standard approaches to factor analyzing such data rest…

Though common structural equation modeling (SEM) methods are predicated upon the assumption of multivariate normality, applied researchers often find themselves with data clearly violating this assumption and without sufficient sample size to use distribution-free estimation methods. Fortunately, promising alternatives are being integrated into…

This study explored institutional similarities using modelling techniques in the national university population. Measures of proximity in national datasets shed light on the dynamics of peer group construction. Factors were identified that provide the foundation for peer similarities. Structural equation modelling allowed testing of fit across…

The present study aims at gaining an understanding of structures underlying Korean teachers' willingness to change their traditionally-oriented mathematics teaching practice toward reform-oriented mathematics instruction. Elementary school teachers from a metropolitan city of Korea (N = 281) participated in this study. To deal with this problem,…

This study examines two ideas that have emerged from research involving African American adolescents with respect to academic achievement: (1) the notion that African American students do not support their peers' academic endeavors; and (2) the notion that African Americans do poorly in school as a result of alienation in the classroom, and may…

This study explored a model for students development of the understandings and skills that are involved in being able to construct graphical representations of data and to interpret these graphs. The study examined four components of prior understanding required for graphic representation that were adapted from a learning map from the Atlas of…

A study was conducted to determine the association among variables representing parent and school demographics, parents' opinions of the school, their reasons for choosing it, and their willingness to support the school in various ways, including the level of tuition they would pay. Data were collected from a stratified sample of 10 high schools…