From a personal perspective, the author reflects upon the notion that many research findings appear falsely to possess the quality of being "obvious". Specific attention is given to the topic of teacher effectiveness. The feeling that findings are obvious can be related to the following: the false consensus effect, selfserving cognition, hindsight…

This article presents a brief overview of developments in educational psychology over the last twenty-five years. It firstly presents an historical context by reviewing four basic emphases in educational psychology; cognitive psychology, behavioural psychology, social cognitive theory and humanism. The article then reviews the growth in cognitive…

The field of education draws on a number of other fields of knowledge as a basis for its practice. The amount of cumulative knowledge in some of them has increased enormously in the last 50 years. This has not happened in educational psychology. Some theoretical positions have been replaced by others, but often with little evidential basis for the…

Research into learning and teaching in higher education over the last 25 years has provided a variety of concepts, methods, and findings that are of both theoretical interest and practical relevance. It has revealed the relationships between students' approaches to studying, their conceptions of learning, and their perceptions of their academic…

We review past and current psychometric theories about intelligence and critically evaluate the usefulness of modern IQ tests in guiding decisions within an educational context. To accomplish this we consider whether knowledge about intelligence extends beyond mere description to provide a scientific framework for further advancing our…

In the article, theoretical orientations and empirical studies are examined that have investigated relationships between family learning environments and children's school-related outcomes. A family model is proposed that involves associations among family background (human and economic capital, parents aspirations, and cultural contexts),…

The last quarter of a century has seen significant progress in the identification and assessment of individual difference variables and an increasing awareness of the importance of seeing variables in the context of others, both in their effect on one another and their interactive effect on educational performance. Several challenges must now be…

Undergraduates producing handwritten essays in university exams need to transcribe information onto the page in a rapid and efficient manner under considerable time pressure. In fact, capacity models of the writing process predict that the more automated students can make the transcription process then the more resources will be available for…

The conditions under which explicit instruction in checking, combined with worked examples, may be beneficial in learning how to translate sentences into algebraic equations was examined from the perspective of cognitive load theory. In two experiments it was shown that Grade 8 and 9 students were initially disadvantaged by the inclusion of a…

This study focuses on primary students' self-learning strategies, using a sample of 1253 students from 20 Year 3 and 20 Year 5 classes from 10 primary schools in Hong Kong. Students were asked to name sources from which they could learn. They were then asked to rate 10 self-learning strategies on perceived usefulness and personal deployment.…

A sample of 248 Australian university students participated in a study that investigated the influence of assessment type and discipline of study on students' learning approaches. Participants (93 psychology and 155 business students) responded to the Study Process Questionnaire in a context of preparation for a hypothetical examination. The…

This paper reports work in progress investigating gender differences and styles in the use of digital games amongst advanced level biology students. It is an elaboration on previous work exploring the relationship between cognitive style and academic performance in Maltese students taking biology at advanced level. In this previous work the…

Although it is well established that school characteristics (SCH) and socio-economic status (SES) are associated with academic achievement (ACH), these correlations are not necessarily causal. Because academic achievement shows substantial genetic influence, it is useful to embed such investigations in genetically sensitive designs in order to…

Using a sample of 314 Australian university students the Readiness for Online Learning questionnaire was tested for its technical characteristics of reliability and factorability, with results indicating the instrument has promise both for research and for practice. The factor analysis identified a factor associated with self-management of…

To investigate students' self-monitoring practice and effects of educational level and task importance on self-monitoring, 510 students, varying in educational level from elementary through graduate school, reported the self-monitoring strategies they employed in three learning situations with different levels of task importance. The study…