At 3 points in time over a 12-month period, this short-term longitudinal study examined 67 preschoolers' syllable, rime, and phoneme awareness; speech and language skills; and letter knowledge. Findings indicated that rime skills developed earlier than phoneme skills. Structural equation models showed that articulatory skills and syllable and rime…

A motivational model of school performance, based on the theoretical framework of Deci and Ryan (1985) and structural equation modeling, was prepared and tested with 263 Montreal (Canada) 9th graders. Perceived academic competence and perceived academic self-determination positively influenced autonomous academic motivation, which had a positive…

A Monte Carlo study explores the robustness assumption in structural equation modeling of using a full information normal theory generalized least-squares estimation procedure on Type I censored data. The efficacy of the following proposed alternate estimation procedures is assessed: asymptotically distribution free estimator and a latent…

Modeled the relationship between student career aspiration and educational productivity in science teaching. The structural equation model was cross-validated by the seventh grade data from the Longitudinal Study of American Youth. Interprets statistical findings in terms of student aptitude-attributes, instructional characteristics, and…

Structural equation modeling using the LISREL VI program was used to investigate predictors of female university students' participation in mathematics and science courses. Contributing significantly to the model were self-perceived mathematical ability, quality of experience in mathematics and science courses, importance to self-concept of…

Examined connections between parents' work pressure and adolescent adjustment in 190 dual-earner families. Found that effects of work pressure on adolescent well-being were mediated by parental role overload and parent-adolescent conflict. Fathers' work pressure predicted both parents' feelings of role overload. Mothers' work pressure predicted…

This study presents and tests a hypothesized structural model that attempts to explain the relationship of writing in English as a foreign language by Taiwanese university students to a variety of factors. Investigated were factors considered to be inhibiting (writing apprehension and writer's block), factors considered to be facilitative (free…

The objective of this article is to examine the pathways by which children's physical health status, environmental, family, and child factors affect children's academic performance and prosocial behaviour, using a theoretically-based and empirically-based model of competence development. The model proposes that 3 types of relational processes,…

Across a variety of disciplines and areas of inquiry, reliable and valid measures are a cornerstone of quality research. This is the case because to have confidence in the findings of our studies, we must first have confidence in the quality of our measures. This article briefly reviews the literature on scale development and provides an empirical…

The theory that borderline personality disorder (BPD) is associated with experiential avoidance, and that experiential avoidance mediates the association between BPD and deliberate, nonsuicidal self-harm was examined. Female inmate participants (N = 105) were given structured diagnostic assessments of BPD, as well as several measures of…

The hypothesis that the relations of effortful control and impulsivity to children's agreeableness would be at least partly indirect through their resiliency was tested. Eighty-two children (M age = 58.67 mos.) were participants. Children nominated peers on agreeableness and completed a behavioral measure of effortful control. Teachers and a…

The main purpose of the current research was to develop an abbreviated form of the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) with nonparametric item response theory. The authors conducted 5 studies, with a total participation of 8,256 married or cohabiting individuals. Results showed that the item characteristic curves behaved in a monotonically increasing…

Though the processes of change are conceived as the core constructs of the transtheoretical model (TTM), few researchers have examined their construct validity in the physical activity domain. Further, only 1 study was designed to investigate the processes of change in an adolescent sample. The purpose of this study was to examine the exercise…

Protege--mentor agreement (PMA) about the provision of psychosocial support was examined in relation to job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and work self-esteem. One-hundred and sixty-six junior administrative and information technology (IT) staff at an Australian university and their matched mentors completed a questionnaire that…

Longitudinal data (five waves) from large cohorts of 7th grade students in East Germany ("n"=2,119) and West Germany ("n"=1,928) were collected from the start of the reunification of the school systems following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Here we integrate the two major theoretical models of relations between academic…