This study focused on students enrolled in obligatory vocational education courses in German secondary schools that aim to support students' career exploration. The study examined the relations between student-perceived classroom characteristics (support for autonomy, competence and relatedness), students' intrinsic motivation and their career…

This longitudinal study aimed at examining the relationship between children's task persistence, mothers' academic help, and the development of children's literacy skills (reading and spelling) at the beginning of primary school. The participants were 870 children, 682 mothers, and 53 class teachers. Data were collected three times--at the…

This study examined the role of family-related (mother's education, depressive symptoms and child's gender) and kindergarten-related (teacher's experience, teaching practices and class size) factors in mothers' and teachers' mutual trust in Estonia and Finland. Six hundred eighteen (206 Estonian and 412 Finnish) mothers of kindergarten children…

This study evaluates the psychological reality of two sets of epistemic beliefs, or epistemic "worldviews", called "mechanism" and "organicism." One author who described these two worldviews, Stephen Pepper, hypothesised that they appear to possess domain-general characteristics. Although Pepper's ideas have had a…

This study examined 307 elementary school children's judgements and reasoning about bullying and other repeated transgressions when school rules regulating these transgressions have been removed in hypothetical school situations. As expected, children judged bullying (repeated moral transgressions) as wrong independently of rules and as more wrong…

Over the past decades, many schools have adapted towards social constructivism with the aim of enhancing students' motivation. There are a variety of perspectives in educational theory, with social constructivist views standing in contrast to traditional views. Hence, we compared students' motivation (levels and developments) in social…

This study investigated the hypothesis that prompting students to self-assess their interest and understanding of science concepts and activities would increase their motivation in science classes. Students were randomly assigned to an experimental condition that wrote self-assessments of their competence and interest in science lessons or a…

First-year university students (n = 199) completed an online questionnaire that queried their purchase of paper books and eBooks for university study and personal interest. The questionnaire also required students to rate their learning characteristics including reading strategies, study self-regulation, learning control beliefs and achievement…

Video games are a very common leisure activity among teenagers and the aim of this study is to analyse their relations with cognitive and school performances. This study is part of a broad survey, conducted on 27,000 French teenagers (14.5 years old) in middle school (9th grade). The survey contained both a questionnaire on leisure activities…

Fear appeals are messages that focus on avoiding the negative consequences of failure. They are often used by teachers as a motivational tactic prior to high-stakes examinations. In this study, we examined whether 566 secondary school students, from 26 different classes, approaching high-stakes examinations appraised fear appeals as threatening or…

The primary aim of this study was to investigate the correlation between game addiction and academic achievement. The secondary aim was to adapt a self-report instrument to measure game addiction. Three hundred and seventy high school students participated in this study. Data were collected via an online questionnaire that included a brief…

In order to extend previous research on the twofold multidimensionality of academic self-concept (i.e. its domain-specific structure and separation into competence and affect components), the present study tests its generalisability among vocational students from mainland China. A Chinese version of self-description questionnaire I was…

This study investigated the relation between motivational goals and university intentions, school valuing and school achievement. The premise of this study is that motivational goals play a key role in academic values and achievement. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to establish the construct validity of the motivational measures drawn…

The dominant achievement goals (DAGs) of 7,008 students in the third grade of Dutch secondary education (US grade 9) were investigated, based on Elliot & McGregors' 2 × 2 framework (2001), in relation to track-level and motivational variables. We found the mastery-approach goal and the performance-approach goal, generally considered adaptive,…

This study investigated gender- and age-related differences in academic motivation and classroom behaviour in adolescents. Eight hundred and fifty-five students (415 girls and 440 boys) aged 11-16 ("M" age = 13.96, "SD" = 1.47) filled in a questionnaire that examined student academic motivation and teachers completed a…