Background: Students' perspective on education is of crucial importance for its effectivity, but students' opinions are seldom acknowledged by teachers and designers. Student participation in the educational design process could be a suitable tool to better take students' preferences into account. However, for effective participatory design, it is…

Background: The primary-secondary transition can negatively affect pupils' emotional and psychological adjustment. However, methods for assessing concerns regarding secondary school are limited. A reliable and valid measure of transition-related concerns would be useful both in evaluating and shaping the content and delivery of universal and…

Aim: This study examined whether teachers' use of fear appeals in the classroom, attempts to motivate students to perform well in high-stakes examinations by highlighting the educational, and/or occupational consequences of failure did indeed motivate students or whether it contributed to an increase in worry, anxiety, and fear of failure. Sample:…

Background: Quality of life (QoL) is an important area for research during adolescence, due to its associations with (1) physical and mental health and (2) the emergence of health risk behaviours. A time that poses a particular threat to QoL is the transition from primary to secondary school. Aims: This study aimed to investigate changes in QoL…

Background: There has been an ongoing debate about the inconsistent effects of heterogeneous ability grouping on students in small group work such as project-based learning. Aim: The present research investigated the roles of group heterogeneity and processes in project-based learning. At the student level, we examined the interaction effect…

Background: "Volume & Heaviness" was one of three Piagetian tests used in the CSMS survey in 1975/76. However unlike psychometric tests showing the Flynn effect--that is with students showing steady improvements year by year requiring tests to be restandardized--it appeared that the performance of Y7 students has recently been getting steadily…

Background: Research on individual learning approaches (or learning styles) is split in two traditions, one of which is biased towards academic learning, and the other towards learning from direct experience. Aims: In the reported study, the two traditions are linked by investigating the relationships between school-based (academic) and work-based…

Aims: The aims of this research were to examine the predictions that (a) the kind of evaluation pupils anticipate will influence their initial achievement goals and, as a result, the quality and consequences of task engagement; and (b) initial mastery goals will promote new learning and intrinsic motivation and initial ability goals will promote…

Girls taking A-level mathematics were compared with girls taking A-level French on masculinity/femininity, parental identification, and attitudes toward their school subjects. Subject choice was related to both parents' attitudes, but subject attitudes related only to the mothers' attitudes. (Editor/SJL)

A British observational study of science classroom interactions was replicated in Atlantic Canada with 33 teacher-class units. Comparison of results revealed a less practical approach to science teaching in the Canadian classrooms, with greater emphasis on the informational aspects of science and convergent, problem-solving activities. (Editor/SJL)

An experiment was designed to find out whether there were any quantitative and qualitative differences in the spoken discourse of 'high' and 'low' ability 16-year-old pupils in discussions of problems arising from textual material. Cognitive, linguistic and quantitative analyses of the discourse were carried out. (Editor)

Two senior GCE examiners re-marked photocopies of the same 200 GCE examination scripts, half still containing the marks and comments of the original examiners and half with these markings removed. Removing previous markings made a considerable difference to the extent of agreement between these sets of marks. (Editor/SJL)

Two samples, representing rural and urban children, were tested before and after entering secondary school to determine individual reactions to transfer. Measures included ability, achievement, attitude toward school, and personality. Cluster analysis, replicated across both samples, identified six patterns of adjustment, two of which were…

Data from the National Child Development Study are used to examine the relationship between school attendance, at the ages of 7 and 15, and reading and mathematics test scores and school behavior at age 16. Also examines the relationship between attendance and school adjustment as well as assessing the relative importance of poor attendance early…

A questionnaire survey of 257 teachers in 16 medium-sized, mixed comprehensive schools in England was used to investigate the prevalence, sources, and symptoms of stress. Implicit in the research design was the assumption that teachers are able to provide valid reports of the sources of experienced stress. (Editor/RK)