Being schooled with other high-achieving peers has a detrimental influence on students' self-perceptions: School-average and class-average achievement have a negative effect on academic self-concept and career aspirations--the big-fish-little-pond effect. Individual achievement, on the other hand, predicts academic self-concept and career…

This article addresses an issue that has not been well explored in empirical research, namely whether local education agencies (districts) have an impact on student learning. We assumed that local district effects on learning would be largely indirect, mediated by how teachers work together in schools (in professional communities) and the quality…

Fostering foreign language proficiency is an important goal of university teaching. We identified German university students' (N = 1265) goal orientations developed during secondary school as predictors of attitudes toward receiving instruction in English at university. Mastery goal orientation was proposed to "directly" promote positive…

Although e-medicine, just as with all information technology (IT), was developed and piloted in developed countries, it has not been successfully applied to address pressing medical problems in SSA (Mbarika & Okoli, 2003; Maher, et al., 2010). There is a lot of research that has been conducted in the last decade on telemedicine in sub-Saharan…

In the context of 7,637 high school students, the present study explored an hypothesized formulation of academic courage (defined as perseverance in the face of academic difficulty and fear) and its role in predicting academic performance (literacy and arithmetic) and various academic engagement measures (planning, task management,…

In the Christian college environment, students are encouraged to understand their vocational calling, yet quantitative research on how college students conceptualize calling is sparse. This correlational study extends the research literature significantly by empirically examining variables that affect sense of vocational calling in 270 college…

The purpose of this research was to test an indirect-effects model of the relation between the Paraguayan principals' characteristics and their instructional leadership activities (as perceived by teachers) and school outcomes. Complete data were obtained from 256 of 300 schools in a random sample. Data were collected at the school-level through…

Although it is well established that preterms as a group do poorly relative to their full-term peers on tests of global cognitive functioning, the basis for this relative deficiency is less understood. The present paper examines preterm deficits in core cognitive abilities and determines their role in mediating preterm/full-term differences in IQ.…

Given the importance of predicting outcomes for early adolescents, this study examines a multivariate model of parent-adolescent relationship variables, including parenting, family environment, and conflict. Participants, who completed measures assessing these variables, included 710 culturally diverse 11-14-year-olds who were attending a middle…

Structural equation modeling was used to test a theoretical path model of church engagement, personal spirituality, and mentoring relationships on depressive symptoms, involvement in risky behaviors, and self-reported grades among Korean American adolescents. It was hypothesized that personal spirituality and mentoring relationship quality would…

We examined the roles of metacognitive awareness of reading strategies, syntactic awareness in English, and English vocabulary knowledge in the English reading comprehension of Chinese-speaking university students (n = 278). Results suggested a two-factor model of a General Reading Knowledge factor (metacognitive awareness employed during the…

Objectives: Using baseline survey data, the study examined self-efficacy of 381 lower-income parents who had opportunities to build financial assets for their children by opening college savings accounts in a human service agency. Methods: Of the study sample, 62% of the parents decided to open accounts while 38% did not. Structural equation…

Aim: To test a model of child, family, and service determinants of intensity of participation in leisure and recreational activities by children with cerebral palsy (CP). Method: Participants were 288 children with CP, age range 6 to 12 years (mean 9y 8mo, SD 2y), and their parents from seven children's hospitals. The sample comprised 166 (57.6%)…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to find out whether LibQUAL+[TM]can account for student loyalty to the library of an institution of higher education. LibQUAL+[TM] is a marketing tool that is used to measure perceived service quality of libraries, and the present analysis aims at validating this service quality instrument within a more…

Two major theoretical frameworks in educational psychology, namely student approaches to learning (SAL) and self-efficacy have been used extensively to explain and predict students' learning and academic achievement. There is a substantial body of research studies, for example, that documents the positive interrelations between individuals'…