The present study looked at how children establish a relationship between the conceptual and linguistic dimensions of linearization in descriptive text composition. Written productions were compared with oral ones. French-speaking participants, drawn from the fifth, seventh, and ninth grades, produced both a written and an oral description of a…

Background: Achievement goals (AG) and students' approaches to learning (SAL) are two research perspectives on student motivation and learning in higher education that have until now been pursued quite independently. Aims: This study sets out: (a) to explore the relationship between the most representative variables of SAL and AG; (b) to identify…

Background: Recently research evidence emphasizes two main lines of inquiry, namely the relations between future time perspective (FTP), achievement goals (mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance) and study processing strategies, and the relations between epistemological beliefs, achievement goals and study processing strategies.…

Background: Mastering counselling communication skills is one of the requirements that lead to the diploma of a registered European psychologist. The microcounseling method proves to be effective in training these skills. Aim: Research into the effectiveness of the microcounseling method often reports overall effect sizes only. The aim of this…

Background: The increasing diversity of students, particularly in age, attending university has seen a concomitant interest in factors predicting academic success. Aims: This 2-year correlational study examined whether age, gender (demographic variables), and hardiness (cognitive/emotional variable) differentiate and predict university final…

Background: Three studies carried out in educational settings examined determinants of teacher's instructional styles and students' degree of satisfaction with the learning climates created by such styles. Aims: Based upon regulatory mode theory, Studies 1 and 2 tested the hypotheses that teachers' locomotion orientation will be positively…

Background: In the era of education reform when new teaching approaches are being advocated, it is important to investigate how different classroom discourse patterns are related to different educational outcomes. Aim: The purpose of the study was to analyse the whole classroom discourse of two teacher interns' writing classes. It was conducted…

Background: Research repeatedly showed young children's aggressive behaviour to predict relationship difficulties with the teacher. Aims: To examine a possible mediating variable in this process and in the stability of relationship difficulties across the school year, namely teacher perceived control over child behaviour. Sample: The sample…

Background: Conceptualizations of teachers' agency beliefs converge around domains of support and instruction. Aim: We investigated changes in student teachers' agency beliefs during a 1 year teacher education course, and related these to observed classroom quality and day-to-day experiences in partnership schools during the practicum. Samples:…

Background: Cultural capital in families and especially, the educational level of parents, has during the last decades been found to be the most important dimension of socio-economic influence on school performance. How the transmission of cultural capital over generations is concretized is however not yet fully investigated. Aims: The aim is to…

Background: Most previous studies in Western societies have demonstrated a general decline in school motivation. However, it is not clear whether motivational decline occurs uniformly for all students. The moderating effects of individual and cultural differences on students' motivational decline need to be further explored. Aims: This study aimed…

Background: Data from national test results suggests that children who are learning English as an additional language (EAL) experience relatively lower levels of educational attainment in comparison to their monolingual, English-speaking peers. Aims: The relative underachievement of children who are learning EAL demands that the literacy needs of…

Background: Within the context of students' self-regulated learning, the interplay between learners' individual characteristics and the context of testing have been emphasized for assessing learning outcomes. Aims: The present study examined metacognitive monitoring and control processes in elementary schoolchildren's test taking behaviour and…

Background: Both ability (measured by power tests) and non-ability (measured by preference tests) individual difference measures predict academic school outcomes. These include fluid as well as crystalized intelligence, personality traits, and learning styles. This paper examines the incremental validity of five psychometric tests and the sex and…

Background: Knowledge of concepts and procedures seems to develop in an iterative fashion, with increases in one type of knowledge leading to increases in the other type of knowledge. This suggests that iterating between lessons on concepts and procedures may improve learning. Aims: The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the…