Against the background of differing admission selectivity, structure, and status of teacher education in Denmark and Finland, we analyze the extent to which beginning teacher education students differ with respect to previous educational pathways, socio-demographic characteristics, academic self-concepts, and occupational motivations. In both…

The purpose of this study was to investigate Finnish high school students' and teachers' perceptions of the effects of short-term Nordic study abroad programs in which they had participated. The data presented were based on a "mixed-methods strategy." The data set consisted of responses from 158 students and 92 teachers to a…

A vital part of student learning is the construction of mental structures encompassing categories believed to affect learning outcome. In this study we investigate this research question through the lenses of a constructivist approach. As the first study on our research question at high school in Norway, our empirical findings make up the main…

What influence does the teacher exercise over their students' learning outcomes? This study investigates the impact of teacher quality on student learning outcomes in science halfway through the first year of high school. A multiple-measurement model estimates the potential impact of teacher influence on learning outcomes for 1,060 secondary…

This article investigates mental representations of literary characters and their relations with other aspects of response to literature and age, gender, and expertise. A Saga chapter and the beginning of a contemporary novel were presented to 16 participants from each of three age groups (13 years, 17 years, adults) equally divided by gender and…

This study examines the relationship between parental support, parental monitoring, and time spent with parents and academic achievement among adolescent girls and boys in Iceland, a high-income per-capita Nordic country. The indirect role of school effort is also examined. Data of 7430 9th and 10th graders is analyzed in the study. Structural…

A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to examine the structural validity of Daidalos, a 20-item inventory designed to assess the factors that might inhibit or promote successful career decision making, or career maturity. The sample consisted of 776 high school students; 367 were male and 409 were female. Participants ranged in age from 16…

The purpose of the study was to determine the typical teaching methods used in upper secondary physics in Finland and Norway and how students would like to study physics. Moreover, the further aim of seeing how certain background variables may explain students' desire to study their chosen specialist subject, physics or social science…

A group of senior high school students, 18 years old, answered a questionnaire about their perceptions of their school situation. Around one-third of the group seemed to like school very much and another third seemed to hate or dislike school very much. This group was followed up until they were 25 years old. Of the original sample 82%, 462…

Studied the relationship between performance of challenging out-of-school activities and real-world talent in art, drama, social leadership, and dance in four separate studies of high school students (total n=222) in grades 9 through 12. The strong relationship between predictor and criterion in each of the four domains demonstrated the concurrent…

Studied Sweden as an advanced welfare state with a centralized education system through interviews with 12 administrator and policy makers and 42 teachers and headteachers as well as surveys completed by 413 ninth graders. Findings show large differences in the context of schools in terms of social and cultural backgrounds of students and…

Compared the educational opinions of 15- and 16-year olds in Australia, Finland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden in their last year of obligatory education. Findings from the final pool of 3,008 cases show the opinions of youth to differ clearing along the lines of welfare state regime, although not, in every case, as expected. (SLD)

Studied the meaning of symmetry of knowledge-based roles for knowledge construction and sharing in social interaction during the report writing phase of an experimental science learning project with four ninth grade students in Finland. Identified four patterns of interaction that differed in terms of their symmetry of knowledge-based roles and…

Data for 1,833 Norwegian students in grades 4, 7, and 9 show that learning disabled (LD) (n=214) and low achieving (not diagnosed as LD; n=156) attributed success in mathematics and language to ability to a greater extent than other students. LD students showed more helplessness than other low achieving students, although these students showed…

Revises the concept of "literary competence" based on the texts produced by two Russian high school students. Shows that literacy competence cannot be reduced to internalized literary conventions, although these are a fundamental component of literary competence, and proposes a model of literary competence. Also explores merits and weaknesses of…