The transition from primary to secondary school can be a period of anxiety for many children. Although most schools have developed systems to ease this process, it has been argued that the emphasis is often on administrative and organisational procedures. In contrast, children and parents are typically more concerned with personal and social…

Problematic school absenteeism in youth has long been a complex and vexatious issue for psychologists, educators, and researchers from other disciplines. An examination of problematic school absenteeism from different perspectives over many decades has led to poor comparability across publications, policies, and assessment and intervention…

Teachers' personal self-efficacy about their ability to motivate students and encourage learning has been shown to affect the classroom they create and student achievement. Therefore, research has been conducted on ways to increase teacher efficacy for in-service and pre-service teachers. One area of research that has been explored is the impact…

The big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE) predicts that equally able students have lower academic self-concepts (ASCs) when attending schools where the average ability levels of classmates is high, and higher ASCs when attending schools where the school-average ability is low. BFLPE findings are remarkably robust, generalizing over a wide variety of…

Over 100 years of learning and cognition research have had only modest cumulative impact on teaching, while many other practical domains such as agriculture have shown a steady growth in widely accepted, research-informed practices. Several reasons have been advanced for the painfully slow adoption of science-based instructional procedures. One…

The big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE) refers to the theoretical prediction that equally able students will have lower academic self-concepts in higher-achieving or selective schools or programs than in lower-achieving or less selective schools or programs, largely due to social comparison based on local norms. While negative consequences of…

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which preservice teachers understood and applied motivation concepts personally as learners and professionally for their future classroom practice. An assignment in an educational psychology class required the students to construct a motivational toolbox with five strategies for themselves…

This study examined relationships between students' use of their text and motivational constructs linked to self-regulation: need for cognition, goal orientation, and self-determination. Participants were 234 Educational Psychology students. In the Fall semester students were assigned one of two textbooks whereas in the Spring they were allowed to…

In the "hands on" mentoring program describing in this paper, cadets enrolled in a traditional undergraduate Educational Psychology course at the U.S. Air Force Academy) were mentored by Air Officer Commanders (AOCs) enrolled in a graduate level Educational Psychology course. This mentoring program was ideal for both groups of students, as the…

Preservice teachers (PTs) tend to enter teacher education programs with naive understandings of the nature of teaching. In order to enhance their development of the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to be an effective educator, I designed an innovative Educational Psychology assignment in the practice of teaching. PTs (N=48) formed…

This study evaluates the effects of teacher candidates' having access to expert teachers' modeling analytic thinking as the experts read case studies used in teaching educational psychology. Videos which consisted of selected segments of multiple expert teachers thinking aloud were developed. In the first experiment, one of these videos was viewed…

The objective of this paper is to review and synthesize two interrelated topics in the adult metacomprehension literature: the bases of metacomprehension judgment and the constraints on metacomprehension accuracy. Our review shows that adult readers base their metacomprehension judgments on different types of information, including experiences…

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new approach to research on gender differences in science that uses the work on expertise in science as a framework for understanding gender differences. Because gender differences in achievement and participation in the sciences are largest in physics, the focus of this review is on physics. The nature of…

Predominantly White institutions have not been as effective as historically Black institutions in retaining and conferring degrees upon African American college students. This review seeks to embed the psychological aspects of the retention process proposed by Bean and Eaton ["A psychological model of college student retention." In J. M. Braxton…

Studies that examine the effects of exercise on children's intelligence, cognition, or academic achievement were reviewed and results were discussed in light of (a) contemporary cognitive theory development directed toward exercise, (b) recent research demonstrating the salutary effects of exercise on adults' cognitive functioning, and (c) studies…