Shared book reading, and the conversation that accompanies it, can facilitate young children's vocabulary growth. To identify the features of extratextual questions that help 3-year-olds learn unfamiliar words during shared book reading, two experiments explored the impact of cognitive demand level, placement, and an approximation to scaffolding.…

The goal of this first major report from the Western Reserve Reading Project Math component is to explore the etiology of the relationship among tester-administered measures of mathematics ability, reading ability, and general cognitive ability. Data are available on 314 pairs of monozygotic and same-sex dizygotic twins analyzed across 5 waves of…

Solving algebraic word problems involves multiple cognitive phases. The authors used a multitask approach to examine the extent to which working memory and executive functioning are associated with generating problem models and producing solutions. They tested 255 11-year-olds on working memory (Counting Recall, Letter Memory, and Keep Track),…

Study goals were to assess: (a) the development of academic interests from middle childhood through late adolescence; (b) the degree to which junior high and high school transitions, parents' educational expectations, interests, and education were related to changes in academic interests; and (c) the longitudinal links between youths' academic…

The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine the direct and indirect effects of early parenting on later parental school involvement and student achievement. The sample, pulled from the 1st and 2nd waves of the Child Development Supplement data set of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, consisted of 390 children age 2-5 at Time 1 and their…

This study compared traditional and multimedia-enhanced read-aloud vocabulary instruction and investigated whether the effects differed for English-language learners (ELLs) and non-English-language learners (non-ELLs). Results indicate that although there was no added benefit of multimedia-enhanced instruction for non-ELLs, there was a positive…

The authors provide an analytic framework for studying the joint influence of personal achievement goals and classroom goal structures on achievement-relevant outcomes. This framework encompasses 3 models (the direct effect model, indirect effect model, and interaction effect model), each of which addresses a different aspect of the joint…

The development of reading-related phonological processing abilities represents an important developmental milestone in the process of learning to read. In this cross-sectional study, confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine the structure of phonological processing abilities in 129 younger preschoolers (M = 40.88 months, SD = 4.65) and 304…

Recent Annual Courses of the Association of Educational Psychologists (2006-2008) have each focused on aspects of positive psychology either in keynote speeches or in workshops. This paper argues that whilst educational psychologists (EPs) are right to be positive about the future, the profession is currently undergoing a period of rapid change…

The authors consider the changing role of educational psychology in the current era and emphasise the importance of casework-based interventions not only for influencing systemic work but also for maintaining credibility within the educational marketplace. With in-school counselling and intervention becoming more popular, the natural providers of…

Contemporary society's expectations of educational psychology, and of a role for educational psychologists within these expectations, were major themes of, and subtexts to, many of the papers delivered at recent annual courses of the Association of Educational Psychologists (AEP). The distinctive contribution of educational psychology and a…

With the growing emphasis on accountability and evidence-based practice, evaluation has become increasingly important in the contexts in which educational psychologists (EPs) practice. This paper describes a Target Monitoring and Evaluation (TME) system, derived from Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS) which was developed to evaluate outcomes of a wide…

Many children with Asperger syndrome are not identified prior to school entry, and difficulties associated with the condition may only become evident when a child enters school. Failure to identify children with the syndrome may lead to increased risk for psychopathology, and lack of understanding of the reasons for social and communicative…

There is mounting recognition that exposure to domestic abuse causes far-reaching damage to children's lives, development and psychological well-being. Studies estimate 10% to 20% of children are at risk of exposure to domestic abuse--thus domestic abuse must be seen as a crucial issue for educational psychologists (EPs). This study investigates…

This correlational longitudinal study examined how college students' achievement goals for college in general predicted overall grade point average and diversity in course selection. During their first semester of college, students (N = 214) reported their performance-approach, performance-avoidance, and mastery-approach goals for college and…