One way to address the leaking pipeline toward STEM-related careers (i.e., science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) is to intervene on students' STEM motivation in school. However, a neglected question in intervention research is how such interventions affect motivation in subjects not targeted by the intervention. This question was…

Educational leaders are struggling with the issue of academic reform as it pertains to accountability for student achievement. With increasing pressures to improve student achievement, many states have adopted value-added measures to monitor student growth and teacher effectiveness. This study undertook a quantitative approach to examine the…

The purpose of this embedded, mixed methods, research study was to acquire knowledge regarding the Pennsylvania Educator Effectiveness system while connecting teacher effectiveness with student achievement. The sample size consisted of five administrators and 18 public school teachers. The teachers taught mathematics in grades 4 through 8 at a…

Over the past few years the question of whether the lecture is an effective teaching method has been one of the most heatedly debated topics in the field of higher education. While research on the effectiveness of lectures has been carried out since at least the 1960s, the value of the lecture has been increasingly questioned recently for a number…

It is common to assume that worker productivity is normally distributed, but this assumption is rarely if ever tested. We estimate the distribution of worker productivity where individual productivity is measured with error, using the productivity of elementary school teachers as an example. Proposals to improve teacher productivity often focus on…

There is a great deal of concern regarding teacher impacts on student achievement being used as a substantial portion of a teacher's performance evaluation. This study investigated the degree of concordance and discordance between mathematics teacher ranking using value tables and covariate regression, which have both been used as measures for…

Hedonism, as compared to the sexual values of relativism and absolutism, involves sexual behavior based on the pursuit of pleasure without the requirement for love and/or commitment. Analysis of responses to a 37 item Internet questionnaire completed by 391 undergraduate women revealed that thirty-one percent self-identified as being hedonistic…

This article explores the political, religious, and ideological backdrop to psychology and pedagogy under Franco's dictatorship. To this end, it analyses the important research carried out between 1940 and 1944 by the psychologist and pedagogue José J. Jover y Piquer into the intelligence, mentality, and moral judgement of a large number of…

Despite the intuitive appeal of purpose as a subject of inquiry and its associations with positive life outcomes, empirical research on adolescent purpose is limited. This exploratory study examined several dimensions of purpose--classification, engagement, and commitment--based on essay and survey responses from a sample of 124 low-SES and…

Purpose is an important aspect of character development and thriving in adolescence; yet, there is little research explaining how it develops or how contexts such as school can support its development. In this study, 1,304 eighth graders completed a survey that measured purpose as the integration of 2 dimensions-- beyond-the-self life goal…

The purpose of the study is to describe the teacher's personal connection with parents as an intermediary factor between cultures and to examine the implications for the future of the migrant group in the receiving society. The study is a qualitative study based on the phenomenological approach and involved five teachers working with African…

Utilizing data from the 2009 College Senior Survey, this study measured and compared social agency and civic awareness among undergraduate students enrolled at four types of institutions: Baptist, CCCU, Catholic, and nonsectarian. Comparisons were made through paired-sample t-tests and ANOVA analyses. A series of separate multiple regressions were…

We extended the research on autonomy-supportive teaching to universities and examined the relationships between autonomous motivation to teach and autonomy-supportive teaching. Autonomously motivated university instructors were more autonomy-supportive instructors. The freedom to make pedagogical decisions was negatively correlated with external…

The higher degree of global mobility and connectivities within contemporary societies has led to increasing cultural diversity within school student cohorts. In turn, the human activities and interactions within the territories and boundaries of a school have become increasingly complex. During a 2017 study of how transcultural capabilities are…

Research published in the special section documents how children's and adolescents' awareness and sensitivity to group-level exclusion, inequality of opportunity, and broader patterns of economic inequality in society influence and are associated with moral emotions, moral reasoning, and decisions about resource allocation. It also assesses the…