This study examined expressive vocabulary and its relationship to reading skills for 232 native English-speaking adults who read between the third- and fifth-grade levels. The Boston Naming Test (BNT) was used to measure expressive vocabulary. Participants scored lower than the normative sample of adults on all aspects of the test; they had fewer…

Purpose: Researchers have previously shown that individual differences in measures of receptive language ability at age 12 are highly heritable. In the current study, the authors attempted to identify some of the genes responsible for the heritability of receptive language ability using a "genome-wide association" approach. Method: The…

Spline (or piecewise) regression models have been used in the past to account for patterns in observed data that exhibit distinct phases. The changepoint or knot marking the shift from one phase to the other, in many applications, is an unknown parameter to be estimated. As an extension of this framework, this research considers modeling the…

Previous research has demonstrated that differential item functioning (DIF) methods that do not account for multilevel data structure could result in too frequent rejection of the null hypothesis (i.e., no DIF) when the intraclass correlation coefficient (?) of the studied item was the same as the ? of the total score. The current study extended…

This article aims to show the segregating effect of the market-like matching of students and schools at the basic school level. The natural experiment case is Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. The current school choice mechanism applied in this case is based on entrance tests. There are increasingly over-subscribed intra-catchment area public…

The present study investigated academic procrastination in the context of the 2 x 2 goal achievement theoretical framework within a population of 450 Malaysian undergraduate students, aged 18 to 25 years. Participants completed the Achievement Goal Questionnaire and the Tuckman Procrastination Test. Approach dimensions of both the mastery and…

Research indicates that modifying teachers' beliefs about learning and teaching (i.e. teaching orientation) may be a prerequisite to changing their teaching practices. This mixed methods study quantitized data from interviews with 65 graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields to assess…

Adolescents who work while attending school are reported to sleep less than those who do not. This study aimed to identify factors associated with short sleep duration in students who work during the school year. A cross-sectional survey aiming to describe working conditions and occupational safety and health was completed by representative…

This study compared student evaluations of teaching (SET) for limited-term lecturers (LTLs) and full-time faculty (FTF) using a Likert-scaled survey administered to students (N = 1,410) at the end of university courses. Data were analyzed using a general linear regression model to investigate the influence of multi-dimensional evaluation items on…

Background: This study examined the association of ever being bullied in school with suicide ideation (ever thinking about killing oneself) and ever seriously making a plan to kill oneself (suicide planning) among rural middle school adolescents. Methods: Using the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Middle School Youth Risk Behavior…

Differential item functioning (DIF) analysis is important in terms of test fairness. While DIF analyses have mainly been conducted with manifest grouping variables, such as gender or race/ethnicity, it has been recently claimed that not only the grouping variables but also contextual variables pertaining to examinees should be considered in DIF…

Background: Parents consult with schools on how to help their children succeed, but schools rarely consult with parents, even though most parents have considerable expertise concerning their children's thoughts, feelings, and abilities. Aims: This study compares the prediction of academic achievement from self- and parent-ratings of feelings…

A multilevel meta-analysis can combine the results of several single-subject experimental design studies. However, the estimated effects are biased if the effect sizes are standardized and the number of measurement occasions is small. In this study, the authors investigated 4 approaches to correct for this bias. First, the standardized effect…

Passenger collaboration offers a potential compensatory strategy to assist older drivers who have difficulty driving in unfamiliar areas (wayfinding). This article describes a survey of 194 healthy, community-dwelling older drivers and their regular passengers to investigate how passengers assist drivers, and to identify the characteristics of…

The present study explored relations among language skills, private speech, and self-regulation in three- to five-year-old children. Language skills were assessed with a standardised measure of language ability and by teacher reports of adaptive use of language in the classroom. Private speech was measured by observing children during a…