The present study used an achievement goal framework to examine the utility of learner centered teaching practices for improving the academic engagement and achievement of adolescents (using a national sample of n=4615 students). Analyses revealed significant relations among measures of achievement goals, self-efficacy, and strategy use.…

This study provides a developmental perspective on achievement goal orientations in writing using data obtained from 1266 students ranging in age from 9 to 17. The strength of task goal orientation decreased from elementary school to middle school and then increased in high school; performance-approach goals decreased from elementary school to…

Our aim in this paper was to provide an analysis of goal orientation parameters with respect to reading comprehension strategy use for students with and without reading difficulties (RD). Non-RD students appeared to be more mastery oriented and less performance avoidant compared to RD ones. Also, non-RD students used, more, deeper, more…

This article presents the Cyprus results, and proposes a model of home environment and school climate on the social participation of ninth graders based on the IEA 1999 CIVIC education study data. This study examined ninth graders' participation in social actions by means of a questionnaire; the data were analyzed using structural equation…

The purpose of the present study was to examine the presence of helplessness in students with learning difficulties (LD), and evaluate the role of goal orientations as antecedents of helplessness, negative affect, and psychopathology. Following induction of failure, results suggested that students with LD displayed increased negative affectivity,…

In September 1999, over 3000 Australian students in 115 schools representing all schooling sectors participated in the Australian component of the IEA Civic Education study. In this paper, the focus in particular is on Australian students' democratic values and on their attitudes towards participation and social action. The results suggest that…

For emerging democracies civic education issues have special meaning. Often these issues play a vital role in the process of nation building and democratic consolidation, which makes the interplay between the school system and the socio-political environment particularly important. Estonia, which inherited from the half-century Soviet occupation a…

The present work explores aspects of political thinking of Greek adolescents in relation to civic education. The chapter aims to investigate the relationship of social and political education, as taught in high-school, to students' concepts and attitudes centering on the way students (a) formulate attitudes towards anticipated political…

Phase one of the IEA Civic Study was designed for fourteen-year-old students. In Denmark this included students from the eighth and ninth grades although civics is not part of the required curriculum until grade nine. Students' answers to questions concerning civic knowledge were collected together with information related to student attitudes,…

This article presents the Italian results of the IEA Civic Education study with particular reference to the concepts of democracy and citizenship as well as attitudes towards political participation. The results are presented in relation to the organisation of civic education teaching and to the degree of participation in school life in the…

This paper analyses the data obtained from the findings on Hong Kong, as a part of the IEA second civic study. Because the survey was conducted two years after Hong Kong's return to China, the findings reflect concepts and attitudes toward citizenship among Hong Kong students shortly after the change of sovereignty. The study shows that Hong Kong…

This article investigates the Norwegian ambitions for Civic and Citizenship Education and the concept of democratic competence and awareness. It presents some of the main Norwegian results from the Civic Education Study. Most Norwegian 14-year olds seem to possess an adequate democratic competence. However, they seem to lack interest, engagement…

Researchers have been aware for some time of the differences between extensive and intensive quantities but the significance of these differences has not been recognized in mathematics curricula. In England children are provided with many opportunities in their first few years in school to manipulate, measure and reason about extensive quantities…

Nunes and Bryant (Children doing mathematics, Blackwell, Oxford, 1996) proposed that an understanding of the additive composition of number could be a precursor to an understanding of the decimal structure. If this is so, children should achieve an understanding of additive composition before they can handle the decimal structure. The aim of our…

Preschool children are often good at counting things but seem slow to learn that there is more to counting than simply finding out how many are in a single set. Counting is useful when comparing sets and when creating new sets to match existing ones. This is part of the numerical understanding that educators wish to foster in schools. In two…