Adolescent participation in extracurricular activities is associated with numerous positive outcomes, yet the mechanisms underlying this relationship are largely unknown. This study had two goals: to investigate the association between participation in extracurricular activities and indicators of positive and negative development for Australian…

Insufficient self-regulation and reduced awareness of self-regulatory skills have been discussed as possible explanations for academic difficulties. However, instruments for assessing metacognitive knowledge of self-regulation in young school children have been lacking so far and it has been questioned whether younger school children are able to…

This small scale qualitative study investigated teachers' and students' perceptions of praise and feedback in the classroom using structured interviews and classroom observation. A case study approach was used whereby students and teachers from one school participated. Some 56 students and five teachers were interviewed individually or in small…

The transition to primary school is an important time for both children and parents. The aim of this randomized controlled study was to assess the effectiveness of a Transition to Primary School Parent Program in strengthening parent knowledge and confidence to manage the transition process, increasing parent involvement in their children's…

The broad objective of the study was to understand better anxiety among adolescents in Kolkata city, India. Specifically, the study compared anxiety across gender, school type, socio-economic background and mothers' employment status. The study also examined adolescents' perceptions of quality time with their parents. A group of 460 adolescents…

Ecological systems theory assumes that child development is the consequence of ongoing reciprocal and spiraling interactions between the child and his/her microsystem (immediate home, school, and community environments). The increasing presence of digital technologies in children's immediate environments suggests the need for the proposed…

Student motivation during adolescence has become an increasingly important issue for educators and researchers. Using a goal theory perspective, researchers have investigated a range of goals (including achievement goals, social goals and future goals) that influence students' desire to achieve at school. The present study examines the range of…

The relationship between obstetrician attitudes and patient outcomes from intrapartum care was examined. Obstetrician attitudes were assessed utilizing a newly-designed pilot 35-item obstetrician attitude questionnaire (OAQ). Twelve obstetricians completed the OAQ, who provided intra-partum care to 4,149 women. Outcome measures included delivery…

Develops a motivational science perspective on student motivation in learning and teaching contexts that highlights 3 general themes for motivational research. The 3 themes include the importance of a general scientific approach for research on student motivation, the utility of multidisciplinary perspectives, and the importance of use-inspired…

Evaluates theory and methodology underlying previous tests of the developmental proposal that self-concept becomes increasingly multidimensional with age. Develops and provides strong support for a new differential distinctiveness hypothesis, demonstrating that increasing distinctiveness--substantial age-related declines in correlations among…

Investigates readers' ability to identify main ideas in narrative texts and the development of this ability. Results reveal that even the youngest students were able to identify the main ideas, but they did so less consistently than did older students. Findings have implications for theories of text comprehension development and for educational…

Examines the common and distinct contributions of context-free and context reading skill to reading comprehension and the contributions of context-free reading skill and reading comprehension to context fluency. Results support the conclusion that word level processes contribute relatively more to fluency at lower levels while comprehension…

Structural equation modeling evaluated the contribution of phonological, orthographic, morphological, and oral vocabulary factors to word reading, spelling, and reading comprehension outcomes in at risk 2nd and 4th graders. For 2nd-grade children, morphology contributed uniquely to reading comprehension, and oral vocabulary and orthography…

Two unique measures of morphological awareness were orally administered to kindergarten and 2nd-grade Hong Kong Chinese children. Both tasks of morphological awareness predicted unique variance in Chinese character recognition in these children, after controlling for age, phonological awareness, speeded naming, speed of processing, and vocabulary.…

The authors examined inflectional and derivational morphological forms within narratives written by 247 3rd and 4th graders. Results indicate that children's control of morphological structures in their writing mirrors that in their speech: inflectional morphology is largely mastered by age 9 or 10, but skills with derivational morphology continue…