Background: Despite evidence that synthetic phonics teaching has increased reading attainments, a sizable minority of children struggle to acquire phonics skills and teachers lack clear principles for deciding what types of "additional" support are most beneficial. Synthetic phonics teaches children to read using a decoding strategy to…

Background: Within the same school class, it is usual to find children who differ in age by almost a full calendar year. Although associations between being relatively young and poor academic outcomes are well documented, and relatively consistent, the associations between being relatively young and psychosocial outcomes are less clearly…

Background: Despite the growing emphasis on research-based teacher education and calls for evidence-informed practice, teachers tend to prefer experiential over scientific knowledge sources to inform their actions, justify decisions and analyse educational problems. This tendency already occurs as early as during initial teacher education, and it…

Background: Mathematics homework is highly prevalent in East Asia. Teachers and parents expect mathematics homework to improve students' performance; however, studies have not clearly defined the effectiveness of the assignment of different amounts of homework. Aims: This study analyses the differential effect of homework amount on various facets…

Background: Socio-economic status (SES) is a powerful predictor of attainment. Research has identified multiple mechanisms that underpin the effect of SES on attainment. For example, self-regulation (processes through which individuals direct and control their attention, emotion and behaviour) has been identified as one mechanism mediating the SES…

Background: Learning is a self-regulated loop where learning strategies and achievements are interrelated. In reading, although some studies have explored the relationship between different learning strategies (memorization, elaboration and control) and reading achievement, little is known about how they interact over time. Even though the…

Background: Recent studies have revealed the association between mapping and arithmetic (Ferres-Forga et al., "J. Numer. Cogn.", 8, 2022, 123; LeFevre et al., "J. Numer. Cogn.", 8, 2022, 1). Aim: The underlying mechanism remains unclear. Materials & Methods: The current study recruited 118 kindergarten children and followed…

Background: When mathematical knowledge is expressed in general language, it is called verbalized mathematics. Previous studies on verbalized mathematics typically paid attention to mathematical vocabulary or educational practice. However, these studies did not exclude the role of symbolic mathematics ability, and almost no research has focused on…

Objective: The study explored the prospective relations between depression and approach-avoidance achievement goals of undergraduate students in China. Methods: 2473 full-time undergraduates reported their depression and achievement goals annually from the freshman to the senior year. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, correlation…

Background: Self-related information is difficult to ignore and forget, which brings valuable implications for educational practice. Self-referential encoding techniques involve integrating self-referencing cues during the processing of learning material. However, the evidence base and effective implementation boundaries for these techniques in…

Background: To accurately measure students' science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) career interest, researchers must get inside the 'black box' to understand students' conceptualizations of STEM careers. Aims: The aim of Study 1 was to explore whether students' conceptualizations of STEM included medical careers. The aim of Study…

Background: Modelling academic self-concept through second-order factors or bifactor structures is an important issue with substantive and practical implications; besides, the bifactor model has not been analysed with a Chinese sample and cross-cultural studies in the academic self-concept are scarce. Likewise, latent structure validity evidence…

Background: In times of accelerating changes, teachers who proactively engage in activities towards school improvement and innovation are increasingly needed. Still, studies on factors that affect teachers' proactive behaviour are rare. Aims: Integrating previous research on proactive behaviour within the Job Demand--Resources (JD-R) Model, this…

Background: Both teacher support and math attitudes have been identified as associated with math anxiety in primary school children. However, little is known about how they are interrelated longitudinally. Aims: The study was designed to examine the associations among perceived teacher support, math attitudes, and math anxiety in Chinese primary…

Background: Research has shown that mathematics anxiety negatively correlates with primary school mathematics performance, including fraction knowledge. However, recently no significant correlation was found between fraction arithmetic performance and state anxiety measured after the fraction task. One possible explanation is the natural number…