The effects of a voluntary summer reading intervention with and without a parent training component were evaluated with a sample of low-income Latino children from language minority families. During the last month of 4th grade, 370 children were pretested on a measure of reading comprehension and vocabulary and were randomly assigned to (a) a…

Regner, Escribe, and Dupeyrat (2007) recently demonstrated that not only performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals (respectively, the desire to outperform others and not to be outperformed by others) but also mastery goals (the desire to acquire knowledge) were related to social comparison orientation (SCO, the tendency to search for…

The prospective relations of temperamental effortful control and anger/frustration to Chinese children's (N = 425, age range = 6.6-9.1 years) academic achievement (grade point average, or GPA) and social adjustment (externalizing problems and social competence) were examined in a 2-wave (3.8 years apart) longitudinal study. Parents and teachers…

One hundred twenty-one third-grade Chinese children were assessed with a new morphological awareness task involving open-ended lexical compounding, in addition to completing other measures. With children's age, nonverbal intelligence, phonological awareness, and previously established measures of morphological awareness statistically controlled,…

The papers in the present special issue summarize research that aims at compiling and understanding variables associated with successful communication in computer-supported instructional settings. Secondly, the papers add to the question of how adaptiveness of instructional communication may be achieved. A particular strength of the special issue…

Adaptive support for computer-mediated collaboration aims at supporting learners' collaboration in a way that is tailored to their actual needs and by fostering their self-regulation, leading to the acquisition of new collaboration skills. This review gives an example of developing support for a specific collaboration skill: the co-construction of…

This article reviews theory and research relevant to the development of digital immersive virtual environment-based instructional computing systems. The review is organized within the context of a multidimensional model of social influence and interaction within virtual environments that models the interaction of four theoretical factors: theory…

In instructional communication settings, instructional explanations play an important role. Despite the very common use of instructional explanations, empirical studies show that very often, they have no positive effects on learning outcomes. This ineffectiveness might be due to mental passivity of the recipient learners that leads to shallow…

Numerous studies have evaluated the effects of pedagogical agents on students' learning outcomes, but so far, beneficial effects have not been consistently demonstrated. The ambiguous results might partly be due to the strong emphasis on cognitive outcomes, which is characteristic for research in teaching and learning. The paper suggests a shift…

Social factors play an important role in determining whether instructional communication in computer-supported settings will be successful. "Social presence" is a social factor, specifically addressing the feeling of being present with another person in a virtual environment. This article describes possibilities to influence the feeling of social…

To maximize the effectiveness of instructional explanations, they should be tailored to an individual learner. However, instructors are often not able to collect diagnostically relevant information about a learner to individualize their explanations. This is particularly true in computer-mediated settings where it is more difficult to thoroughly…

Research on computer-supported collaborative learning has shown that students need support to benefit from collaborative activities. While classical collaboration scripts have been effective in providing such support, they have also been criticized for being coercive and not allowing students to self-regulate their learning. Adaptive collaboration…

This paper reflects upon the developing role of educational psychologists (EPs) within the local authority Children's Services, from the starting point that the EP role has, through numerous reviews, been clearly conceptualised. Detailing the philosophy and framework for the inception of Children's Services in England, the authors propose two…

This study used an "indicated prevention" approach to attempt to replicate very positive international evaluations of the FRIENDS for Life programme. Using standardised self-report measures of anxiety, low mood and self esteem with groups of children from four schools, the study found significant improvements in all of these measures following the…

Poor outcomes for Looked After Children (LAC) in relation to non-LAC have been well established by research. However, a small minority of LAC do achieve positive outcomes despite having experienced a number of risk factors. It is the process of resilience which is thought to enable individuals to experience positive outcomes. This study focused on…