This study was designed to investigate the effects of strength of descriptors in teaching evaluation items on global ratings of the instructor and the course. Six teaching evaluation forms were selected for this study with items that varied in either the descriptor in the item stem or the descriptors labeling the scale points. The forms were…

In an effort to understand teacher-student relationships much research has investigated how teacher expectations of student performance in the classroom affect achievement growth. However, little research has focused on how teacher expectations of students' educational attainment are formed. In this paper, we examine how students' high school…

The present study examined the mediational role of academic motivation in the association between school self-concept and school achievement among 355 Indian immigrant adolescents in Canada and 363 Indian adolescents in India. Surveys were administered among Grades 9-12 students in Canada and India to assess their academic self-concepts, academic…

The purpose of this study was to explore relations between principals' self-efficacy, burnout, job satisfaction and principals' motivation to quit. Principal self-efficacy was measured by a recently developed multidimensional scale called the Norwegian Principal Self-Efficacy Scale. Burnout was measured by a modified version of the Maslach Burnout…

The resilience concept has often been criticized as simply reflecting the absence of neuroticism (i.e. vulnerability to stress and negative affectivity). Challenging this point of view, the aim of this study was to show that resilience could predict well-being in teachers above and beyond neuroticism. By contrast, we expected that resilience would…

There are websites where individuals anonymously provide informal reviews of professors. What impact do such sites have on student and professor motivational factors? Research suggests that undergraduate students are affected (e.g. Edwards et al. in "J Comput Mediat Commun" 14:368-392, 2009; Kowai-Bell et al. in "Comput Hum Behav" 27(5):1862-1867,…

This study set out to replicate a survey conducted 20 years ago on Finnish parents' social representations of educability. A nationwide sample of parents (N = 642) were asked to indicate their opinions on a set of statements pertaining to topical educational issues. The results indicated that educational discussion is still structured by two major…

Literature on racially prejudiced stereotypes suggests that students' academic self-concepts (ASC) can be damaged when a stereotype demeans the intelligence of their racial or ethnic group. There is little research on how students overcome this burden, but there is some evidence that the racial composition of friendship groups play a role. One…

Empirical evidence shows that educational experiences in the context of the outdoors lead to elevated self-esteem. Although elevated self-esteem is widely assumed to promote beneficial outcomes, recent evidence suggests that elevated self-esteem may also facilitate a variety of negative outcomes (i.e., increased prejudice, aggression, drug and…

The present work investigates the validation of a newly developed instrument, the attributional bias instrument, based on achievement attribution theories that distinguish between effort and ability explanations of behavior. The instrument further incorporates the distinction between explanations for success versus failure in academic performance.…

Participants (138 children; 7-12 years of age) rated how often nice and not nice behaviors occurred when (a) participants (boys/girls) were the actor and peers (males/females) were the target and (b) when participants were the target of peers' actions in a school setting. Children indicated they were nicer to their same-gender peers than to their…

This research examines the impact of same-sex versus opposite-sex social comparisons on the perception of one's own abilities at school and subsequent reported marks and academic choices. During their final year, male and female high school students were asked to describe themselves either in comparison with boys in their class, in comparison with…

The current study compared the effects of open versus closed group dynamics on perceived consensus, objective consensus, and perceived efficacy of collaborative learning in participants high and low in dispositional trust in the context of an Interactive Management (IM) session. Interactive management is a computer-mediated collaborative tool…

According to the literature, among social comparison mechanisms, identification with an upward target would be the most frequent mechanism that students report to use. However, it remains unclear how the identification and the contrast mechanisms contribute to the construction of pupils' scholastic perceived competence. The aim of this study was…

We conducted an investigation into a determinant of academic motivation that has implications for how we respond to school violence and tragedy. We conducted two studies to examine whether exposure to messages related to the salience of one's own mortality cause people to align their own academic beliefs more closely with stereotypical beliefs…