Background: Preliminary data were collected to evaluate the psychometric properties of an emotional self-efficacy (ESE) measure in a sample of 3836 public high school adolescents who completed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Youth Risk Behavior Survey in South Carolina. Methods: Principal axis factor analysis was followed by a…

Recent studies suggest that there appears to be a similar developmental sequence in the understanding of mental states in both internal-state language and in standard theory-of-mind tasks. These findings suggest possible developmental relations between children's ability to talk and think about the mind. Two experiments investigated the concurrent…

This study explored the nature of mathematics anxiety in a sample of 106 ethnically and linguistically diverse first-grade students. Although much is known about mathematics anxiety in older children and adults, little is known about when mathematics anxiety first emerges or its characteristics in young children. Results from exploratory factor…

Using Petronio's communication privacy management theory, this study tested the degree to which content relevance and students' comfort with instructor disclosures moderated the association between instructor disclosures (i.e., frequency and appropriateness) and credibility (i.e., competence, trustworthiness, and goodwill) in the college…

To assess the measurement properties of a new QOL instrument, the Cerebral Palsy Quality of Life Questionnaire-Teen (CP QOL-Teen), in adolescents with cerebral palsy (CP) aged 13-18 years, examining domain structure, reliability, validity and adolescent-caregiver concordance. Based on age, 695 eligible families were invited to participate by mail.…

Background: Parenting and children's adjustment were examined in 30 surrogacy families, 31 egg donation families, 35 donor insemination families, and 53 natural conception families. Methods: Parenting was assessed at age 3 by a standardized interview designed to assess quality of parenting and by questionnaire measures of anxiety, depression, and…

In this article, we present a valid and reliable instrument which measures the attitude of in-service and pre-service primary teachers toward teaching science, called the Dimensions of Attitude Toward Science (DAS) Instrument. Attention to the attitudes of primary teachers toward teaching science is of fundamental importance to the…

This study tested assumptions and conclusions reached in an earlier confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) study of the social competence (SC) construct for preschool children. Two samples (total N = 408; a new Portuguese sample and one from US samples that had participated in the original study) contributed data. Seven SC indicators were tested for…

In support of the national movement to improve mathematics instruction and assessment, states and districts are looking for the best tools to measure student progress toward proficiency. There is a national dialogue about how to use 8th-grade measurements like ACT EXPLORE and NAEP as predictors of student success and school accountability. This…

This report uses Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) data to look at the impact of schools on a student's tertiary entrance rank (TER) and the probability of them going to university (controlling for TER). It shows that the characteristics of schools do matter: although young people's individual characteristics are the main drivers of…

In 2002, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) called for "highly qualified" teachers in every classroom in order to increase student outcome and provide equitable learning opportunities to all students including poor and minority students. content and pedagogical knowledge before they come into the classrooms. However, research evidence…

Teacher quality has received increasing focus over the past decade, yet, by some measures, teachers rarely improve after their first few years of teaching, and not all teachers seem driven to improve. Traditional models of professional learning have emphasized the processes that teachers take part in as a facilitator of their improvement. Research…

Chinese and American mothers' beliefs about children's learning and parents' role in it were examined using notions salient in Chinese culture. Mothers from Hong Kong ("n" = 66) and the United States ("n" = 69) indicated their endorsement of the ideas that children's learning reflects children's morality, and parents' support…

This study developed and tested two models that examined the decision-making processes of adolescents relating to entry into university, in terms of the extent to which they may be amotivated and undecided. The models incorporated variables derived from self-determination theory, expectancy-value theory, and research on occupational indecision. A…

Motivational theory is often used to develop strategies for boosting student effort on assessments, particularly in low stakes situations. Increasing students' cognitive engagement on such assessments may also impact student effort. However, before such interventions can be evaluated, a sound measure of cognitive engagement must be identified.…