The moral self-concept (MSC) is an early indicator of how children view themselves as moral agents. It has been proposed that an important feature of an established self-concept (SC) is sufficient coherency in how one views oneself. Furthermore, the MSC is expected to develop into a multidimensional, hierarchical construct which is stable over…

The popularity of mobile technologies has greatly influenced people of all ages, especially adolescents. The purpose of this research was to determine the views of students, lecturers, and managers as selected stakeholders to assess the effectiveness of tablet computers in learning at a South African university. Using a mixed-methods approach,…

Children encounter moral norms in several different social contexts. Often it is in hierarchically structured interactions with parents or other adults, but sometimes it is in more symmetrically structured interactions with peers. Our question was whether children's discussions of moral norms differ in these two contexts. Consequently, we had 4-…

Research reports using global data show that the failure rates in introductory programming courses average about 32%. As learners from schools join the university and enrol for different courses, they find the sudden transformation quite challenging. This makes it more challenging for first year university students, especially in difficult courses…

After a long six-year lapse, the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement introduced in 2012 included geometry as part of the South African Grade 12 Mathematics Paper 2. The first cohort of matriculation students wrote Paper 2 in 2014. This article reports on the understanding of geometry terminology with which a group of 154 first-year…

Moral justifications work, when they do, by invoking values that are shared in the common ground of the interlocutors. We asked 3- and 5-year-old peer dyads (N = 144) to identify and punish norm transgressors. In the moral condition, the transgressor violated a moral norm (e.g., by stealing); in the social rules condition, she/he violated a…

This quantitative, causal-comparative study examined the degree of influence the parent teacher relationship can make on the grade point averages and graduation rates of students in an alternative school setting. Findings of this study revealed that the active parent teacher communication had direct relationship with the success rate of…

Purpose: As research increasingly links positive student-teacher relationships (STRs) to positive student outcomes, instruments to measure STRs have proliferated. Yet most neglect student agency and sociocultural variation in the operationalization of STRs. This study explores the specific actions teachers and students take to build positive STRs…

This paper reports on a part of a study which was conducted to determine the effect of van Hiele theory based instruction in the teaching of geometry to Grade 10 learners. The sample consisted of 359 participants from five conveniently selected schools from Mthatha District in the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa. There were 195 learners in…

This paper reports on one part of a large study which attempted to identify the linguistic and hierarchical characteristics of van Hiele theory amongst grade 10 learners. The sample consisted of a total of 359 participants from five purposively selected schools from Mthatha District in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The performance of…

In the context of joint decision-making, we investigated whether preschoolers alter the informativeness of their justifications depending on the common ground that they share with their partner. Pairs of 3- and 5-year-olds (N = 146) were introduced to a novel animal with unique characteristics (e.g., eating rocks). In the common ground condition,…

Poverty is a significant problem in rural America. Gaining access to economically marginalized rural populations in order to recruit individuals to participate in a research study, however, is often a challenge. This article compares three different nonprobability sampling techniques that have been used to recruit rural, low-income…

Aim and Objectives: Although inclusive education of children with intellectual disability is currently an accepted practice, it is often challenged by negative attitude of schoolteachers. We undertook two surveillance studies aimed at Study A - identifying knowledge and teachers' attitudes towards children with intellectual disability and…

Purpose: Marital dissatisfaction and conflict often increase for couples after the birth of a child and are evident in fewer positive family interactions and more negative family interactions. Because exercise is known to increase positive emotions and decrease negative emotions, the current study examined the extent to which higher levels of…

Using human capital theory, this paper identifies the factors that may affect the opportunity for rural low-income mothers to pursue post-secondary education or training in order to escape poverty. Dependent variables used in the logistic regression model included micro-level household variables as well as the effects of state-wide welfare…