Background: Students' self-concepts play an important role in explaining achievement-related behaviour. According to the internal/external frame of reference model (I/E Model), students use two frames of reference to form their mathematical and verbal self-concepts. The model predicts that external comparisons will lead to a positive association,…

A 4-wave longitudinal design was used to examine protective links from child competence to behavioral problems in first- (M=10.97 years) and second- (M=8.27 years) born rural African American children. At 1-year intervals, teachers assessed child behavioral problems, mothers reported their psychological functioning, and both mothers and children…

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of student-related variables on achievement in mathematics. The sample consisted of 3736 13-year-old Jordanian 8th-graders who participated in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). The participants completed a student questionnaire and participated in the…

Using data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, the NICHD Early Child Care Research Network (ECCRN) constructed a structural model predicting reading and mathematics achievement in first-grade children from parenting, child-care, and first-grade schooling…

Oral language skills and habits may serve as important resources for success or failure in school-related tasks such as learning to read. This article tests this hypothesis utilizing a unique data set, the original Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery-Revised norming sample. This article assesses the importance of oral language by focusing…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the 'locality' of the relationship between attitudes towards science, self-beliefs and science achievement for senior high school students in Australia, Cyprus and the USA. These relationships were examined with the use of the structural equation modeling software, AMOS. The data for this study were…

This study examines the ways in which different family processes and personal experiences of social contexts are related to the adjustment of adolescents in a subsample of 755 mother-child dyads drawn from the National Survey of Families and Households. Structural equation modeling was employed to examine a model in which joint family contexts…

Through structural equation modeling, this study investigates the effects of counseling students' perceptions of early-childhood experiences on their social influence attributes as rated by their instructors. Perceptions of early childhood had no effects on instructors' ratings of trainees' expertness or trustworthiness, but did have effects on…

External communities of practice are groups formed by company clients and employees based on common interests, commitment, mutual trust and collaboration whose members regularly share knowledge and learning. This paper examines how external communities of practice contribute to the creation of relational capital through an empirical investigation…

Despite the importance of faculty retention, there is little understanding of how demographic variables, professional and institutional worklife issues, and satisfaction interact to explain faculty intentions to leave at a national level. Using the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF:1999) database, this study proposes (a) to extend our…

Collecting feedback from students through course, program and other evaluation questionnaires has become a costly and time consuming process for most colleges. Converting to data collection through the internet, rather than completion on paper, can result in a cheaper and more efficient process. This article examines several research questions…

In this cross-sectional study, data from 202 German adolescent girls (ages 13-17 years) and their parents were utilized to test whether the relationship between parents' stressful life events and their daughter's substance use was mediated by higher levels of parents' depressive symptoms, lower quality of the relationship between the parents, and…

In this study we tested a stress and coping model of confronting sexism. One hundred fourteen university women completed measures of optimism, cognitive appraisals about the prospects of confronting discrimination (expectations of the costs and benefits of confrontation as well as confrontation-related anxiety), and reported on the extent to which…

In this survey study of 430 undergraduates, elements of the social competencies and interpersonal processes model (B. Mallinckrodt, 2000) were tested. Two social competencies were hypothesized to mediate the direct effects of 2 independent variables, attachment anxiety and avoidance, on 2 outcomes, psychological distress and perceived social…

The current study explored the relationships between parenting practices and adolescent drug use. Suburban middle school students (N = 2129) completed surveys that included measures of perceived parental monitoring, discipline and setting an anti-drug message as well as measures of drug-related knowledge, attitudes and peer norms. Results…