"In an age when browsing the net, playing with funky handsets and passing non-stop SMSs seem to be the order of the day, reading a book in a peaceful corner of a library has become an archaic idea for most people. While technology is slowly taking a steady control over individual lives, the reading habit is fast vanishing into thin…

The aim of the research was to assess the economic, educational and cultural predictors of the TIMSS 2003 science test results in Lithuania and Estonia. The data for the research were received from the TIMSS 2003 User Guide for the International Database. The Spearman rank correlation coefficients, calculated on the students' level and the schools…

The present study examines the mediating effects of student intrinsic motivation and teacher ratings of student academic engagement on the relation between school climate perceptions and student academic performance among 282 urban African American middle school students. Results provided support for the hypothesized model and suggest the…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of divorce on student's academic achievement. Whitehead (1997) states, at the beginning of the twentieth century, there were only three divorces for every 1,000 marriages. Through the years, the divorce rate in America has rapidly increased which has affected adults and children. The…

Factors predicting vocabulary learning and reading comprehension of advanced language learners of English in a linear multimedia text were investigated in the current study. Predictor variables of interest were multimedia type, reading proficiency, learning styles, topic interest and background knowledge about the topic. The outcome variables of…

The consequences of gender social and learning interactions in the classroom are of interest to parents, policy makers, and researchers. However, little is known about gender peer effects in schools and their operational channels. In this paper, we estimate the effects of classroom gender composition on scholastic achievements of boys and girls in…

Using Ecological Systems Theory and stage sequential modelling procedures for detecting mediation, this study examined how early developmental contexts impact preschoolers' performances on a measure of sustained attention and impulse control. Data from 1273 European-American and African-American participants in the NICHD Study of Early Child Care…

In an effort to overcome deficiencies in teaching molecular biology at school, a workshop in an out-of-school laboratory including only authentic experiments was developed. Evaluation of 337 A-level 12th graders followed a quasi-experimental design, with one hands-on group, two non-experimental control groups (at school/in the laboratory), and one…

Studies indicate that African American, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Latino youth have higher rates of unmet mental health needs and lower rates of mental health service utilization compared to non-Hispanic White youth, suggesting that obstacles may exist in the help-seeking and service utilization pathway for minority youth. Parental cultural…

Interest in the relationship between health behaviours and academic achievement has recently intensified in the face of an epidemic of childhood and adolescent obesity and converging school reforms in the United States and other nations with advanced economies. Epidemiologic research has demonstrated that poor diet and lack of adequate physical…

The past decades have seen growth in numbers of children raised by grandparents without their parent at home, called skipped-generation grand-families. This mixed methods study examined statements made by 459 grandmothers about core family relationships between grandmother and child, grandmother and parent, and parent and child. Families were…

The overrepresentation of ethnic minority students, particularly African American males, in the exclusionary discipline consequences of suspension and expulsion has been consistently documented during the past three decades. Children of poverty and those with academic problems are also overrepresented in such discipline consequences. Sadly, a…

This paper reports the finding from a study that examined the relationship between social bond variables and drunk driving in a sample of university students. A questionnaire containing indicators representing social bond variables, as well as a measure of drunk driving was administered to a sample of 1459 college students. The results of this…

This article explores the behavioural strategies adopted by a sample of teachers in Japan. The data for the study came from a total of 298 Japanese students who were invited to evaluate teacher behaviour by using the Student's Teacher Evaluation Questionnaire. The sixteen-item questionnaire was adopted from Paisey (1975), who had conducted similar…

The article addresses the issue of whether student learning style has an impact on use of a learning technology such as a virtual learning environment (VLE). It is based on material from a broader research project at a UK university (Kingston University) on the use of VLEs in teaching and learning and explores the findings from the analysis of…