Background: In the Chinese educational system, there has been an ongoing debate between using examination- or quality-oriented education. The Chinese concept of psychological "suzhi" was proposed based on quality-oriented education, and a positive link between psychological "suzhi" and academic achievement was found by…

Background: A considerable proportion of secondary school students gets additional support from private tutoring lessons. Empirical findings on the effectiveness of private tutoring are inconclusive. The instructional quality of the tutoring lessons might influence their effectiveness. Aims: We analysed (1) whether students privately tutored in…

Background. Previous research has shown that observation can be effective for learning in various domains, for example, argumentative writing and mathematics. The question in this paper is whether observational learning can also be beneficial when learning to perform creative tasks in visual and verbal arts. Aims. We hypothesized that observation…

Background: Recent studies have investigated the causal attributions for difficult pupil behaviour made by teachers, pupils, and parents but none have investigated the temporal stability or predictive validity of these attributions. Aims: This study examines the causal attributions made for difficult classroom behaviour by students on two…

Background: Most previous studies in Western societies have demonstrated a general decline in school motivation. However, it is not clear whether motivational decline occurs uniformly for all students. The moderating effects of individual and cultural differences on students' motivational decline need to be further explored. Aims: This study aimed…