A study was conducted to examine the gendered expectations of academic failure among 52 students preparing to enter a teacher-credentialing program at a California state university. As part of a technology class, student pairs completed a database and mail-merge assignment in which they named three imaginary students and identified one of the…

For the 2003-04 school year, 73% of Florida schools were identified as in need of improvement under criteria of the "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) Act, President Bush's 2001 renewal of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. One year later, that figure had been cut almost in half, to 37.4%. California…

This article examines the rationale and debate of the "Fresh Start" schools policy introduced by the New Labour Government in 1997 as a vehicle for improvement in schools that historically had been classified as "failing". Underpinning the policy is the assumption that Fresh Start can act as a catalytic agent of positive change…

This article presents the results of two recent empirical investigations at universities in South Africa (University of Pretoria and University of South Africa) where an attempt was made to identify the pre- and post-enrolment factors that lecturers and students perceived as having the most important influence on students' success in their…

This paper draws together the as yet nascent literature on the development of failure-avoidant patterns of behaviour. These are behaviours intended to minimise risk to self-worth in the event of failure, thereby avoiding the negative impact of poor performance in terms of damage to self-worth. Self-worth protection, self-handicapping, impostor…

The present study was a randomized trial of the efficacy of psychosocial and injury prevention-based coach training programs for reducing fear of failure (FF) among youth swimmers aged 7 to 18 years. Results revealed that (a) psychosocial training increased coaches' use of reward/reinforcement, (b) the FF measure demonstrated strong factorial…

Our article analyzes historical data for New York State on the percentage of school board budget proposals that are defeated each year and panel data that we have collected on budget vote success for individual school districts in the state. We find that changes in state aid have little impact on budget vote success. Defeating a budget in one year…

Based on data collected for a larger study, this paper reports on perceptions of factors contributing to students' failure in a college ESL course. Surveys were completed by instructors of 67 students who failed their class. The instructors were asked their perceptions of what caused the students' failure. Then, 22 of the students were interviewed…

This article demonstrates the importance of social support from students' significant others (parents, peers and teachers) in the process of doing well at school. The main focus of the research project was to find correlations between the quality of adolescents' relationships with significant others and their school success or school failure, as…

People can learn as much from what they do not do right as what they do. This article describes such a failure. The author had gathered six students together for an interview concerning art and their lives--and things became so chaotic, he thought it was all a wash... until he went back and listened to the tape. Only then did he realize that what…

In recent years, constructionist methodologies such as discursive psychology (Edwards & Potter, 1992) have begun to be used in sport research. This paper provides a practical guide to applying a discursive psychological approach to sport data. It discusses the assumptions and principles of discursive psychology and outlines the stages of a…

In this article, the author features the Children's Support Services (CSS) project in Lowell, Massachusetts, which is an interagency, multidisciplinary program that provides young children and their families a range of child development, mental health, and family support services. The CSS project, which was begun in September 2000, addresses the…

Three decades of mounting academic and testing requirements are snagging growing numbers of students in the 9th grade. "The bulge" is the name education researchers give to the percentage increase in students in the 9th grade over the same period. This article reports on factors that might explain the growing 9th grade bottleneck and…

Many studies have acknowledged a shift from elite to mass participation in Australian higher education over the last decade. As the diversity of the student intake rises there is a growing interest in the factors predicting their success or failure. This article identifies a set of variables predicting University of Western Sydney (UWS) student…

Although educational leaders may be optimistic about initiating change, lasting reforms are rare. The group polarization literature, although dated, provides an important explanation for a very current problem. The theory holds that when there are differences of opinion to begin with, a counter-conformity effect works among members of groups.…