Although it is likely that plans to attend a 4-year college are made much earlier than the last 2 years of high school, few researchers have assessed the pre-high school factors that influence high school performance and course-enrollment decisions, which, in turn, affect college attendance. The data presented in this article were collected as…

School achievement and even intelligence have been linked to personality styles. Extroversion (the desire to be surrounded by people) and introversion (the desire to be alone in a quiet area) are two of these styles. More students and teachers tend to be extroverted, so this style is more prominent in schools. Extroverts and introverts have almost…

This article explores how students' mathematical representations can be used as formative assessments. We introduce a framework for teaching and learning that integrates representations as instructional and assessment tools, and illustrate these uses of student representations with reference to a study conducted with 250 5th-grade students. This…

This article reports on extended research into the use of enquiry-based learning (EBL) and problem-based learning (PBL) in a human resource management undergraduate programme. The authors have collected and analysed qualitative and quantitative data over a three-year period, some of which have been previously reported (Reynolds and Benmore, 2003,…

This qualitative study explores the academic and social experiences of nine Black high achievers attending a large public university. Findings indicate that despite their participation in the honors program and high degree of academic ability, Black high achievers felt that they were judged based on prevalent social stereotypes regarding the…

This study examined the construct validity of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) diagnosed in adolescence. Boys and girls were grouped by history of DSM-III-R conduct disorder (CD) and ASPD: Controls (n = 340) had neither diagnosis; CD Only (n = 77) had CD by age 17 but no ASPD through age 20; Adolescent ASPD (n = 64) had ASPD by age 17. The…

The benefits of cooperative learning strategies, such as group project work, have been advocated in a wide range of educational contexts. There is however, scant information on the outcome of such programs on students of low academic ability. In this study, interviews were conducted with four groups of low-ability students, with the aim of…

The authors investigated predictive relationships among student characteristics that influence motivation for learning and achievement. Participants were students (N = 900) from all 4 grade levels in 18 rural public high schools in the southwestern United States. The authors used AMOS 4.0 (J. L. Arbuckle & W. Wothke, 1996) to test a…

Using rich longitudinal data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten cohort (ECLS-K), we find that children who attended preschool enter public schools with higher levels of academic skills than their peers who experienced other types of child care (effect size of 0.14). This study considers the circumstances under which the…

Despite the national, state, and local emphasis on academic progress and standards, the curricular needs of the 3 million highly talented and gifted youth in the U.S. generally have not been embraced as a priority. In many high schools, academically precocious students are expected to progress on their own. The Individuals with Disabilities…

Supplemental Instruction (SI) incorporates collaborative learning in small, peer-led, group settings in order to integrate instruction in learning and reasoning skills with course content. Several meta-analyses speak to the efficacy of SI but fail to address selection bias due to ability/motivation and gender. In this study, SI was paired with a…

This study used structural equation modeling to evaluate whether a combination of social cognitive and self-determination theories [Bandura, A. (1986). "Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory." Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall; Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1987). The support of autonomy and the control of behavior.…

This article reports the development of a teacher self-efficacy scale that aims to accommodate the complexity of teacher functioning in secondary schools in times of education reforms in Hong Kong. The scale was designed to assess six domains of teacher self-efficacy: teaching highly able learners, classroom management, guidance and counselling,…

Although academic achievement and self-concept of academic ability (SCAA) have a reciprocal relationship, studies on the directionality of the relationship are inconclusive. To investigate this relationship in an entire grade cohort in a small city high school, 429 students in grades 9 and 12 were administered a modified version of Brookover's…

Defends teaching foreign languages to less able pupils, stating that such verbal education is even more important to them. Factors involved in language learning are examined (grammar, motivation, aural discrimination, memory), and solutions to learning problems of the less able are suggested. (CHK)