The classic ("status attainment") model of educational and occupational attainment suffers from three related shortcomings when used as a tool for comparative or policy-oriented research on social mobility: (1) ambiguity of model parameters as measures of opportunity for achievement vs. ascription; (2) vulnerability to incomplete specification of…

Using Nicholl's (1989) and Dweck's (1999, 2002) theories on ability as conceptual frameworks, this study explored teachers' and students' conceptions of ability in elementary physical education. Participants were 8 physical education specialists from five public schools and 160 students from their second- and fourth-grade classes. Teacher and…

The self-defeating behavior of some students can often make even the most persistent of teachers to feel discouraged. The purpose of this article is to explain and provide a research-based rationale for the use of teacher verbal feedback prompts that convince students of their ability to succeed on a task. He discusses how to understand the…

Background: Recent government papers have expressed concern about the poor educational attainment of "looked after" children. Early reading development has been found to be significant in their subsequent academic achievement. The possibility that biosocial factors extraneous to their experiences in public care may underpin their low…

The author investigated age- and gender-related changes in self-evaluative judgments of 87 children followed from preschool through 2nd grade. Focusing on cognitive, physical, and peer competence assessed by the Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance (PSPCSA; S. Harter & R. Pike, 1984), the author tested PSPCSA subscale…

Gender differences were examined in performance on the California Verbal Learning Test (immediate and delayed recall), Digit Span Backwards, Symbol-Digit Modalities Test, Spot-the-Word, and simple and choice reaction time. The data came from a community survey involving 2404 people aged 20-24 years, 2530 aged 40-44 years, and 2551 aged 60-64…

The present paper reports a series of six studies, each investigating the power of self-rated analytical, creative, and practical abilities for predicting one of six individual-difference variables: cognitive development, modes of thinking, career interests, learning approaches, thinking styles, and personality traits. Contributing to the…

This chapter examines the extent to which the composition of classes affects learning outcomes. The aim is to explore peer effects when students are organized into classes on the basis of ability, ethnicity, or gender, as well as the effects of multigrade and multi-age classes and class size. The argument is defended that these composition factors…

This paper describes two empirical studies which investigated the importance for spatial learning of view control and object manipulation within 3D environments. A 3D virtual chemistry laboratory was used as the research instrument. Subjects, who were university undergraduate students (34 in the first study and 80 in the second study), undertook…

This study reports on teachers' attitudes towards their students' speech varieties of English. A sample of 172 primary, district high and secondary teachers in Western Australian was surveyed on their attitudes towards language variation and towards their students' use of specific English variants. The teachers were found to have generally…

Because of the great amount of child maltreatment within the last decade in America, teachers are likely to have some of the children who are victims of abuse and neglect in the inclusive classes. It is important for educators to be informed about the negative effects of maltreatment on academic competence, which can exacerbate existing learning…

Objective: To determine whether the presence of coexisting disorders affects memory, visual-motor skills, and daily functioning in children with ADHD. Method: Eighty-four boys and 18 girls (8 to 16 years old) participate in this study. Twenty children meet criteria for ADHD alone, 42 children for ADHD plus one other disorder, and 40 children for…

The effects of asthma medication on the cognitive and psychosocial functioning of primary school children with asthma are investigated. A questionnaire survey was conducted in a primary school in Stellenbosch (South Africa) with a population of six hundred and thirty-five students. Among these students, fifty-nine asthmatic children were…

The purpose of the investigation was to determine the meanings attached by students to the different kinds of molecular structure representations used in chemistry teaching. The students (n = 124) were from primary (aged 13-14 years) and secondary (aged 17-18 years) schools and a university (aged 21-25 years). A computerised "Chemical…

This study is set in an elementary school located in a rural, Appalachian area and considers the reasons that teachers attribute to student success on state writing assessments as well as to what reasons they attribute their students' lack of success in moving beyond an average ranking. In considering these reasons, patterns emerge in the data…