Studied the conceptualization of the role of the recreation teacher (instructor in leisure time centers in schools) during team planning sessions in two Swedish schools. Recreation instructors were generally viewed as teachers' assistants, a finding that suggests that recreation instructors who want to develop an occupational identity as the…

Describes this special double issue, which presents work on the topic of volition related to education. "Volition" entails plans to sustain motivation and implement goals, along with strategic regulation of cognition and affect in the completion of tasks. The first issue presents a theoretical overview of volition, and the second presents studies…

Discusses the volitional basis of Personality Systems Interaction Theory (PSI) and applies it to the improvement of conditions for learning and psychological treatment. The theory explains motivational and volitional phenomena, including concentration, coping with failure, identification and intrinsic commitment to personal goals, persistence, and…

Analyzed self-regulatory strategies of goal setting and goal striving in 3 experiments involving 55 German middle school students, 20 German young adults, and 39 German college students. Results show that contrasting fantasy about a desired future with present reality and forming implementation intentions are effective self-regulatory strategies…

Tested the hypothesis that focusing on details of studying (a low-action identity) would enhance performance and persistence. Data for 35 Belgian college students supported this hypothesis for academic nonprocrastinators, but for procrastinators, a low identity was found to enhance only task persistence and performance on a creative response…

Developed a measure of motivational traits, the Motivational Trait Questionnaire (MTQ), around 5 motivational traits and evaluated the developed the MTQ through 2 studies involving 166 and 119 undergraduate students. Results provide evidence of the construct validity of the MTQ and support the multidimensional structure of motivational traits…

Studied the dynamic interaction, over time, between volitional strategy use and perceptions of endogenous instrumentality, two constructs associated with choice and executive motivation. Results for 103 undergraduates given measures of both constructs show the relationship between volitional strategy use and perception of endogenous…

Investigated the relation between a set of predecisional beliefs, including students' task values, self-efficacy, and learning and performance goal orientations and 5 implementation strategies students use to regulate effort and persistence for 114 eighth graders. Results show that motivational beliefs can be used to explain students' reported use…

Studied features of classroom environments that promote self-regulated approaches to reading and writing in young children and worked with teachers to help them design tasks and interventions to develop self-regulated learning among students. Results with five primary grade classes show the classroom and teacher characteristics that foster…

Studied the reliability and accuracy of data from Statistics Sweden's Level of Living Surveys (register data) on the return on schooling using a sample of 2,914 adults. Findings show that this register data does not show some partial secondary and postsecondary studies that did not lead to degrees, and that there are difference in annual and…

Discusses the role of theoretical knowledge in seeing and makes the case that direct and indirect forms of cognitive perception are pervasive forms of seeing in educational practice, and that both forms are fundamentally theory laden. Suggests that theoretical knowledge enhances our capacity to see in practice. (SLD)

Studied the preconditions and obstacles to building network contacts for two teams of five Finnish elementary school teachers each. Results show that breaking traditional patterns of teacher work, especially the tradition of single- handed lesson planning and implementation, results from team work in building a shared object. Results show the…

Studied the effects of borrowing norms for the Human Figure Drawing Test for use with children in Curacao, for whom there are no norms or studies of validity for this test. Results for 96 fourth graders suggest that frequency tables for the United States are better for scoring Human Figure Drawing Test results for these children than are Dutch…

Explores the educational implications of cognitivism and Aristotelianism in the field of emotional research and discusses attempts to translate these ideas into educational practice. Uses a "post-Kohlbergian" perspective (L. Kohlberg, 1971, 1981) to consider the feasibility of moral education and emotion education in a school setting. (SLD)

Studied how achievement motives and incentive values were related to attribution for 166 advanced education majors in Norway. As expected, success-oriented persons attributed positive events more internally, stably, and globally, and negative events more externally, unstably, and specifically, than did failure-avoidant persons. (SLD)