This is a review of five studies that reported new empirical data relevant for the predictability gradient hypothesis. This hypothesis is focused on within-person psychological variables typically collected in background questionnaires that examine the role of non-cognitive influences on students' academic achievement. Broad measures of…

Purpose: This study examined dimensions of written composition by using multiple evaluative approaches such as an adapted 6 + 1 trait scoring, syntactic complexity measures, and productivity measures. It further examined unique relations of oral language and literacy skills to the identified dimensions of written composition. Method: A large…

Much has been written about student and faculty opinions on academic integrity in testing. Currently, concerns appear to focus more narrowly on online testing, generally based on anecdotal assumptions that online students are more likely to engage in academic dishonesty in testing than students in traditional on-campus courses. To address such…

Purpose: Effective styles of principal leadership can help address multiple issues in struggling schools, such as low student achievement and high rates of teacher attrition. Although the literature has nominated certain "idealized" leadership styles as being more or less effective, such as transformational, instructional, and shared…

Parental involvement in education remains important for facilitating positive youth development. This study conceptualized parental involvement as a multidimensional construct--including school-based involvement, home-based involvement, and academic socialization--and examined the effects of different types of parental involvement in 10th grade on…

Background: Research in the last decades has clearly pointed to the important role of language and communicative level when trying to understand developmental trajectories in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Aims: The purpose of this longitudinal study was to investigate whether (1) "core language skills", measured as…

An increasingly globalised world means that higher education institutions are employing a diverse set of academic staff from across the world, and a better understanding of these scholars and their work roles is important for effective teaching, learning, and institutional management. Using the most recent data available from the "National…

Discrepancies among informants' ratings of a given child's behavior complicate the study of linkages between child behavior and academic achievement. In the current study, we examined the potential moderating effect of informant type on associations between behavior and two types of achievement in a longitudinal growth model that…

The declining interest in foreign languages in English-speaking countries has been attributed to negative societal attitudes and specific pupil attitudes and perceptions. While various initiatives have aimed to encourage language study, little research has systematically documented the relationship among perceptions, attitudes, and actually opting…

Background: The purpose of this study was to examine the association between adolescents' body mass index (BMI) z-scores and their subsequent level of schooling, extending previous longitudinal research by using objectively measured weight and height data. Methods: A longitudinal study with 3 study waves (1-year intervals) involving 1248 Dutch…

There is concern that the violations of conventional grammar (both accidental and deliberate) often seen in text messages (e.g., "hi [smiley face emoticon] how is ya?!!") could lead to difficulty in learning or remembering formal grammatical conventions. We examined whether the grammatical violations made by 244 British children,…

The current study explored the extent to which a common measure of perceived implementation of critical features of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) predicted fidelity of implementation 3 years later. Respondents included school personnel from 261 schools across the United States implementing PBIS. School teams completed the…

Canonical babbling is a critical milestone for speech development and is usually well in place by 10 months. The possibility that infants with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show late onset of canonical babbling has so far eluded evaluation. Rate of vocalization or "volubility" has also been suggested as possibly aberrant in infants with…

A digital pursuit rotor was used to monitor oral reading costs by time-locking tracking performance to the auditory wave form produced as young and older adults were reading out short paragraphs. Multilevel modeling was used to determine how paragraph-level predictors of length, grammatical complexity, and readability and person-level predictors…

Although previous research has established the association between early-grade mathematics knowledge and later mathematics achievement, few studies have measured mathematical skills prior to school entry, and few have investigated the predictive power of early gains in mathematics ability. The current paper relates mathematical skills measured at…