Research spanning 20 years is reviewed as it relates to the measurement of cognitive engagement using self-report scales. The author's research program is at the forefront of the review, although the review is couched within the broader context of the research on motivation and cognitive engagement that began in the early 1990s. The…

Science educators have long been concerned with how formal schooling contributes to learners' capacities to engage with science after school. This article frames productive engagement as fundamentally about the coordination of claims with evidence, but such coordination requires a number of reasoning capabilities to evaluate the strength of…

This article reviews current research on informal science learning through news media. Based on a descriptive model of media-based science communication we distinguish between (a) the professional routines by which journalists select and depict scientific information in traditional media and (b) the psychological processes that account for how…

Conflicts between immediately rewarding activities and more enduringly valued goals abound in the lives of school-age children. Such conflicts call upon children to exercise self-control, a competence that depends in part on the mastery of metacognitive, prospective strategies. The "process model of self-control" organizes these…

Culture influences basic motivational processes; however, Western theories of achievement motivation seem to have neglected the role of culture. They are inadequate when trying to explain student motivation and engagement across a wide range of cultural groups because they may not have the conceptual tools needed to handle culturally relevant…

An important recent development in the achievement goal literature is to define achievement goals strictly as aims. In this overview, we argue that this restrictive definition of achievement goals paves the way for a systematic consideration of the autonomous and controlled reasons underlying individuals' achievement goals, a distinction…

This article describes the ICAP framework that defines cognitive engagement activities on the basis of students' overt behaviors and proposes that engagement behaviors can be categorized and differentiated into one of four modes: "Interactive," "Constructive," "Active," and "Passive." The ICAP…

In this article, we question why race as a sociohistorical construct has not traditionally been investigated in educational psychology research. To do so, we provide a historical discussion of the significance of race as well as present current dilemmas in the exploration of race, including an examination of the incidence and prevalence of…

In this review, a new model that is grounded in information-processing theory is proposed to account for gender differences in spatial ability. The proposed model assumes that the relative strength of working memory, as expressed by the ratio of visuospatial working memory to verbal working memory, influences the type of strategies used on spatial…

This article provides an overview of recent interest research, focusing on the conceptualization, measurement, and generation of interest. It includes work that reflects differing theoretical backgrounds, research traditions, domains, and participants. Research on interest needs to be theoretically grounded if it is to be generally applicable and…

Achievement goal theory has been one of the most prominent theories of motivation in educational research for more than 25 years. It has undergone considerable revision during that span, most notably with the distinction between approach and avoidance goals, debate concerning the critical features of performance goals, and the emergence of a…

In present-day knowledge societies, competent reading involves the integration of information from multiple sources into a coherent, meaningful representation of a topic, issue, or situation. This article reviews research and theory concerning the comprehension of multiple textual resources, focusing especially on linkages recently established…

When writers write, how do they decide to whom they are speaking? How does this decision affect writers' cognition about writing? Their motivation to write? In this article, I review literature on cognitive and social processes of writing, conceptualizations of audience, writing across distinct learning environments, and writers' motivations. I…

For professional development to be effective as an accountability policy mechanism, it must address challenges posed by accountability while also building teachers' capacity to change. This article details the role of professional development in the accountability system and provides a review of literature on effective professional development,…

When harassed by peers, elementary school students often face a dilemma of whether to ask their teacher for help. Assistance may be useful, and perhaps necessary. However, there can be social costs; children generally are expected to resolve interpersonal conflicts on their own. Two theoretical perspectives (i.e., coping and self-regulation)…