Expectancy-value theory mostly focuses on how expectancy and value beliefs are associated with academic achievement. Both expectancy and value beliefs are multidimensional and can be further decomposed into general and specific factors. However, few studies have explored the associations of these general and specific factors with academic…

Background: There is substantial evidence indicating that various psychological processes are affected by cultural context, but such research is comparatively nascent within New Zealand. As there are four large cultural groups in New Zealand, representing an intersection of individualist, collectivist, indigenous, colonial, and immigrant cultures,…

The aim of this study was to follow up exploratory research suggesting that the inverse relationship between test anxiety and examination performance was mediated by cognitive distortions such as catastrophising. Self-report data for measures of test anxiety and cognitive distortions were collected from students in their final year of compulsory…

This paper reports the use of several quantitative analytic methods, including Rasch analysis, to re-examine teacher responses to questionnaire items probing opinions related to the compulsory numeracy tests conducted in Years 3, 5, and 7 in Queensland, Australia. Nisbet and Grimbeek (2004) previously reported an interpretable and statistically…