Previous research has shown that adolescent peer groups play a role in maintaining and exacerbating demographic differences in achievement. However, there is still limited knowledge about the malleable factors that contribute to these achievement disparities. This short-term longitudinal study examined one such malleable factor--namely, perceived…

The passage of the NCLB Act enhanced accountability policies in the United States, and standardized testing became prevalent as a policy tool to ensure accountability in K-12 education. Given the high stakes of state administered accountability tests, more school teachers have adopted test-preparation strategies to ensure satisfactory student…

This study examined a theoretical model hypothesizing that reading strategies mediate the effects of intrinsic reading motivation, reading fluency, and vocabulary knowledge on reading comprehension. Using path analytic methods, we tested the direct and indirect effects specified in the hypothesized model in a sample of 1105 fifth-graders. In…

Students' individual learning is supposed to be based on cognitive and social processes. Therefore, students' social skills are assumed to play an important role for school performance. This study set out to investigate the links between students' peer relations skills and assertion skills and their grades for written performances and oral…

This study analyses the relationships among educational performance, field dependence-independence cognitive style and factors traditionally associated with performance and style, to build a comprehensive model of factors associated with the levels of education performance of students in Bogotá. A total of 3003 students, of grades 8 and 10, from…

Background: A fundamental aim of standardized educational assessment is to achieve reliable discrimination between students differing in the knowledge, skills and abilities assessed. However, questions of the purity with which these tests index students' genuine abilities have arisen. Specifically, literacy and numeracy assessments may also engage…

In this longitudinal study, the cross-language transfer from second language (L2) to first language (L1) was examined among Spanish-speaking English-language learners in an English intervention (Grades 1-3) in the southwest United States. Path analysis revealed statistically significant transfers (ps < 0.05) for the treatment group from English…

Purpose: Self-regulation is defined as strategic, metacognitive behavior, motivation and cognition aimed at a goal (Zimmmerman and Schunk, 2011). Co-regulation, arguably more aligned with norms in communal cultures, is the process of learners sharing "a common problem-solving plane" through which self-regulatory strategies are learned…

Background: Social relationships can serve as important risk or protective factors for child development in general, and academic adjustment in particular. Aims: This study investigated the role of teacher-child interactions in academic adjustment among preschool boys at risk of externalizing behaviour, using a randomized controlled trial study…

The aims of the present study were (1) to identify to what extent school motivation and school commitment contributed to the explanation of students' academic achievement in addition to the effect of students' cognitive capacities, (2) to find out whether school commitment mediated the relation between school motivation and academic achievement,…

The purpose of this study was to examine child-level pathways in development of prealgebraic knowledge versus word-problem solving, while evaluating the contribution of calculation accuracy and fluency as mediators of foundational skills/processes. Children (n = 962; mean 7.60 years) were assessed on general cognitive processes and early…

The purpose of this study was to examine child-level pathways in development of prealgebraic knowledge versus word-problem solving, while evaluating the contribution of calculation accuracy and fluency as mediators of foundational skills/processes. Children (n = 962; mean 7.60 years) were assessed on general cognitive processes and early…

A meta-analysis of 69 data sets ( N = 125,308) was carried out on studies that simultaneously evaluate the effects of math and verbal achievements on math and verbal self-concepts. As predicted by the internal/external frame of reference (I/E) model, math and verbal achievements were highly correlated overall (0.67), but the correlation between…

This investigation examined the impact combinations of at-risk factors had on 10,373 high school students in an urban school district from the school years 2000-2001 to 2006-2007. Students were categorized as high school graduates or dropouts. At-risk factors were associated with each student record. Hypothetical structural models were created for…

The current study investigated the gender differences of gifted adolescents' math/verbal self-concept and math/verbal ability by examining the Internal/External Frame of Reference Model (I/E model; Marsh, 1986). The sample consisted of 181 gifted adolescents, ranging in age from 12 to 16 years old. Gifted adolescents' math/verbal ability was…