This study classifies profiles of readers by combining good readers, poor comprehenders, dyslexia, and generally poor readers based on the Simple View of Reading (SVR) model that individual readers have different profiles of reading skills. A total of 501 ninth-grade Chinese middle school students participated in the study. They engaged in five…

This study examines the relationship between class size and secondary school students' mathematics achievement focusing on three aspects: (1) the relationship between class size and mean mathematics achievement gains; (2) how relationships differentiate across student groups; and (3) the association between class size and variance in mathematics…

The recent increase in mental health problems and private tutoring (also called shadow education) among adolescents has been widely documented. This study relates involvement in private tutoring to depressive symptoms using data from a nationally representative sample of middle school students (grades 7-9, M[subscript age] = 13.90, N = 25,862) in…

Peers significantly influence adolescents' participation in physical exercise; however, few studies explore the effects of class peers. Developing from reference group theory, this study utilizes two waves of data from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS), to explore the interactive effects of social norm effects and social comparison effects…

This study aims to evaluate students' ability to process the context information embedded in chemistry problems. To achieve this goal, a diagnostic measurement instrument was developed, comprising 28 short-answer items embedded in seven context-based chemistry tasks. Four hundred and ninety-three ninth-graders took part in the testing in Jiangsu,…

Textbooks use images, in addition to text, for delivering knowledge, thereby convey attitudes and values of students including those on gender bias. The gender bias presented in textbook images affects in subtle ways the students' learning outcomes, career choices, and how they perceive science. However, prior research has relied on explicit…

Background: Mathematics homework is highly prevalent in East Asia. Teachers and parents expect mathematics homework to improve students' performance; however, studies have not clearly defined the effectiveness of the assignment of different amounts of homework. Aims: This study analyses the differential effect of homework amount on various facets…

Previous studies have indicated a positive association between physical activity (PA) and mathematics achievement. The present study explored the association of PA outside school with math interest using longitudinal data from Kaifeng, a medium-sized city in Central China. A two-tier multilevel logistic model was conducted using 2,132 students'…

This article focuses on the role of language ideology in four students' ethnic identity during one stage. I employ Bakhtin's concepts of ideological becoming, and of authoritative and internally persuasive discourse to explore how the student participants are conscious of language and social worlds, including their heritage language and ethnic…

Although previous studies have identified the effect of social environment and individual behavior on adolescent obesity in the field of social science, much less is known about the association between adolescent educational expectations and obesity. This article draws on China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) 2013 to 2014 to examine the relationship…

Online metacognitive skills are the real-time awareness of cognition, which can effectively promote science learning and improve performance in solving scientific problems. Therefore, it is important to enhance and diagnose students' online metacognitive skills in science education. This study aimed to evaluate ninth-grade students' online…

This four-wave longitudinal study among 698 Chinese early adolescents explored (1) how personal identity coherence and confusion develop; and (2) whether parenting style and peer relationships (i.e., close friend relationships and peer preference) were related to personal identity development. Participants (M[subscript age] = 11.39 yrs.,…

The integration of engineering into existing school science curricula is arguably an effort to move beyond a mono-disciplinary goal of learning to one that teaches real-world applications and problem-solving in science. This study adopted dual theoretical lenses to scrutinize and compare the distribution of engineering elements in past and present…

Integrating virtual laboratories (VLs) with science education promotes inquiry-based learning by providing an interactive, dynamic environment in which students actively engage with scientific concepts. While previous research highlights the effectiveness of VLs as tools in the IBL process, few studies have embedded the entire inquiry process…

Exploring the factors that benefit academic persistence may facilitate adolescents' positive outcomes to increase the likelihood of future success, especially for adolescents with low family socioeconomic status (SES). Previous research has highlighted the merits of both motivational beliefs (e.g., self-efficacy and interests) and learning…