This study examines the mediating role of personal growth initiative in the relationship between academic self-efficacy and engagement by examining gender differences. The novelty of this study lies in its focus on the mediating role of personal growth initiative and its examination of gender differences in the relationship between academic…

Students whose parents did not study at a university (first-generation students) exhibit differences in how they decide whether and what to study, compared to students whose parents attended university. In our study, we looked for possible similarities and differences between these two groups of students. The participants were Slovak students aged…

In the highly competitive research sector, performance pressure is leading to the stratification of the academic profession, and to difficulties for early-career researchers. Support is therefore vital for talent retention, and to avoid 'brain drain'. However, limited research has distinguished varying models of professional support in research…

The predictive validity of performance on cognitive-behavioral measures of executive function (EF) suggests that these measures index children's underlying capacity for self-regulation. In this paper, we apply ecological systems theory to critically evaluate this assertion. We argue that as typically administered, standard measures of EF do not…

Children's development of executive function is a good candidate for studying cultural differences because it is a necessary capacity for becoming competent participants in cultural activities, and yet it is also likely to be shaped by culturally organized everyday experiences, with potential consequences for children's development and learning.…

This study synthesizes theories of achievement motivation to better understand the development of academic task values in high school students and their relation to college major selection. We utilize longitudinal structural equation modeling to understand how grades relate to task values, how task values across domains relate to one another over…

Based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and supplemented by social cognitive theory and gender schema theory, this study investigated the interactive mechanism of TAM by incorporating self-efficacy and gender as two factors in students' usage of sports bracelets. Data were collected from 682 Chinese college freshmen. Results indicated that…

A cardinal feature of adult cognition is the awareness of our own cognitive struggles and the capacity to draw upon this awareness to offload internal demand into the environment. In this preregistered study conducted in Australia, we investigated whether 3-8-year-olds (N = 72, 36 male, 36 female, mostly White) could self-initiate such an external…

Drawing on a longitudinal research project that followed the undergraduate entrants of 2013 into, and through their university time, this paper provides a novel conceptualisation of transformative transitions via looking at the four dimensions of non-linearity, multiplicity, diversity and structure. To do so, it builds on Archer's (2000, 2003,…

This paper examines the experience and role of negative emotions in facilitating university students' learning in world music courses. Based on a review of literature in music psychology and music education, we posit that negative emotions can engender a meaningful learning context. In this project conducted in an Australian university, we created…

Comparative education is very important in terms of addressing the similarities, differences, interactions, and interaction levels of education systems. In comparative education studies the similarities and differences between the education systems implemented by the countries under consideration are investigated and presented within the framework…

The purpose of this study was to examine the development and characteristics of invented notation for musical representation. A total of 168 young children aged 3, 4 and 5 years participated in this study. The children listened to rhythm and melody, which represented music, to reveal their use of invented notation. The Korean children used various…

We discuss a case study on how misinformation regarding COVID-19 health outcomes can arise due to confounding. Data from the UK on mortality rates suggest that people who have some level of vaccination and contract the Delta variant of COVID are twice as likely to die than those who are unvaccinated. Age, however, a confounding variable, when…

Procrastination in academic activities is common amongst university students, and has negative consequences for their personal as well as academic development. As a result, there is a need for valid -- yet at the same time brief and clear-cut -- measurement tools that enable the specific procrastinating behaviour of university students to be…

Understanding what determines a worker's passion for skills training has important policy implications, particularly in the current context of the fourth industrial revolution, in which knowledge is deemed obsolete within several years. The purpose of this study is to answer a specific question: are higher-ability garment workers more likely to…