Unlike organized activities such as sports and arts, civic activities in adolescence (e.g., volunteering, student government) have been less studied in relation to school success and almost all existing evidence consists of cross-sectional findings. In a longitudinal study, 1035 pupils (64% females, 20% nonwhite, M[subscript age] = 14.21 years)…

In this descriptive study, the academic success (graduation rate, graduating grade-point-average, semesters to graduation) and the patterns of academic engagement (time from first to last enrollment, characteristics of the "time-outs" taken, between-semester volatility in grade-point-average) for five groups of students with psychiatric…

Few studies have examined the contribution of individual psychological factors to long-term indicators of academic success. This study examines the influence of personality and individual difference factors in relation to retention. In this study, 290 Canadian undergraduate students completed measures of personality, resiliency, perfectionism, and…

Increasingly, students engage in multitasking during lecture by shifting their attention between class material and irrelevant information from texts and webpages. It is well established that this divided attention impairs memory and learning. Less is known about how to correct the problem. This study used an educational intervention in the form…

The Canadian Academic English Language (CAEL) assessment is a proficiency test for university admission. Most research has focused on the paper edition, not the recent computer edition (CE). Validity research on other proficiency tests found that relationships between proficiency scores and academic achievement measures can be tenuous because…

The directionality and longitudinal course between perfectionism and academic achievement throughout adolescence remains unclear as most studies rely on cross-sectional or short-term data and many examine these associations in university students who do not represent the full spectrum of learners. Moreover, most studies are hampered by their…

Research on the impact of the visual design of the user interface of learning management systems (LMS) on learning experience is sparse. The purpose of this study was to conduct a preliminary examination of students' perceptions of the visual design of their postsecondary institutions' LMS and their learning experiences using survey methodology (N…

This study investigated the effectiveness of a combined academic and personal counselling initiative on student performance and emotional well-being outcomes of 289 at-risk students at a Canadian University. Criterion for risk included academic struggles, mental health distress, or both. The program was developed to be tailored to individual…

In many educational settings, students may have an incentive to take courses where high grades are easier to achieve, potentially corroding student learning, evaluation of student achievement, and the fairness and efficiency of post-graduation labor outcomes. A grading system that takes into account heterogeneity of teacher standards and student…

Grading practices at Dalhousie University have changed considerably over the past 120 years. From 1901 until the early 1970s, Dalhousie used a variant of the British system. Initially, a grade of 65% or higher was required for distinction. In 1937, Dalhousie moved to a 2-category system (Distinction vs. Ordinary Pass) and in 1942 the distinction…

This study aimed to determine the effects of university students' gender, weekly study hours, academic motivation, metacognition, and self-regulated learning levels on their overall academic achievement and to examine whether academic motivation, metacognition and self-regulated learning total scores predicted their GPAs. This study utilized a…

This article presents an independent large-scale experimental evaluation of two online goal-setting interventions. Both interventions are based on promising findings from the field of social psychology. Approximately 1,400 first-year undergraduate students at a large Canadian university were randomly assigned to complete one of two online…

Purpose: We examined the influence of human and psychological capital variables on the reporting of stress affecting Canadian post-secondary students' academic performances. Methods: This cross-sectional study used the Spring 2019 National College Health Assessment-II data collected across 58 Canadian post-secondary institutions from 55,284…

In order to effectively support students' learning and development at university, we need a better understanding of what helps undergraduate students thrive in the university environment. In this study, we surveyed 204 senior undergraduate students at a large research-intensive university in western Canada to explore factors related to thriving as…

This study examined differences in the psychological constructs of motivation, academic self-efficacy, and learning strategies between higher education students who participated in a work-integrated learning (WIL) programme and those who did not. Undergraduate WIL (n = 1048) and non-WIL (n = 656) students in all years of study and from several…