In this study, we tested the hypothesis that self-efficacy and self-concept reflect different underlying processes and both are critical to understanding long-term achievement outcomes. Although both types of self-belief are well established in educational psychology, research comparing and contrasting their relationship with achievement has been…

This study examined the notion that active procrastinators are a positive type of procrastinators who possess desirable characteristics similar to non-procrastinators, but different from the traditional passive procrastinators. A two-step procedure was followed to categorise university students (N = 125) as active procrastinators, passive…

Behaviour, including academic performance, can be influenced by implicit primes; and both objective performance and subjective ratings are susceptible to priming effects. Here, we report a new priming effect on academic self-ratings. Participants twice completed a measure of academic self-concept. In the first session, they all used circles to…

This study starts with investigating the relation of perceived workload, motivation for learning and working memory capacity (WMC) with students' approaches to learning. Secondly, this study investigates if differences exist between different student profiles concerning their approach to the learning and the influence of workloads thereon. Results…

We examined the effects of motivational interference resulting from tempting action alternatives among a sample of university students with respect to a new measure of different motivational qualities. Participants imagined themselves in a typical study-leisure conflict and provided information about their internal conflict experience in two…

This study examined the relationship between academic preparation and post-secondary educational outcomes. To uncover the factors that influence secondary-level school course-taking patterns and outcomes, multi-level modelling was conducted using data from a nationally representative sample of US secondary-level school students from the Education…

Research in social cognition laboratories and in simulated legal settings demonstrates that people often do not understand the statistical properties of evidence and are unable to detect scientifically flawed studies. In a mock jury study, we examined the effects of an evidence-based transcript on scepticism towards evidence obtained in flawed…

The illusion of understanding hypothesis asserts that, when people are learning with multimedia presentations, the addition of animation can affect metacognitive monitoring such that they perceive the presentation to be easier to understand and develop more optimistic metacomprehension. As a result, learners invest less cognitive effort when…

The present article examines how suitable expository films are for learning. This question was motivated by the assumption that films are processed in a superficial manner. However, previous research has been dominated by the analyses of outcome measures and has never taken a look at online measures so that no clear conclusions have been drawn.…

The present study compared the effectiveness of 2 approaches to remedy the inaccuracy of self-monitoring of reading comprehension. The first approach attempts to enhance self-monitoring by strengthening the cues utilized in monitoring. The second approach replaces self-monitoring with external regulation based on objective evaluative information.…

The purpose of the current study is to determine the interconnection between parental level of education, psychological well-being, academic achievement and reasons for pursuing higher education in adolescents. Participants included 439 college freshmen from a mid-size state university in the northeastern USA. A survey, including indices of…

Three UK studies on the relationship between a purpose-built instrument to assess the importance and development of 15 "soft skills" are reported. "Study 1" (N = 444) identified strong latent components underlying these soft skills, such that differences "between-skills" were over-shadowed by differences "between-students". Importance and…

We report the results of two replication studies using attribution theory to analyze personal and interpersonal motivation for collaborative projects. Undergraduate students responded to questionnaires containing hypothetical vignettes depicting success or failure outcomes due to ability or effort for dyads working on a group project. Dependent…

This study identified decision-making profiles of students who make a choice of a major in higher education. These profiles were examined in a sample of Belgian students at the end of Grade 12, when the educational system expects that these adolescents choose a specific major. Using latent class cluster analysis on adolescents' scores for coping…

In modern expectancy-value theory (EVT) in educational psychology, expectancy and value beliefs additively predict performance, persistence, and task choice. In contrast to earlier formulations of EVT, the multiplicative term Expectancy x Value in regression-type models typically plays no major role in educational psychology. The present study…