The teacher training programme set up a five-day sports camp to explore the effects of intense contact on the attitudes, self-efficacy and behaviour of pre-service teachers regarding persons with disabilities. A questionnaire based on the components of the theory of planned behaviour was completed by 77 pre-service participants. General analyses…

In explaining why girls outperform boys in school, some studies focus on individual gender-identity. Others stress the interactional dimension of students exerting pressure to act in a more masculine/feminine way. Still other research examines the development of student cultures in specific school contexts. Considering the gender structure, this…

Research indicated overwhelmingly the desirability of self-regulated learning (SRL) in elementary education and the role of teachers therein. Specifically, revealing correlates of teachers' engagement in SRL classroom activities is desirable. The study's main aim is to identify teacher and school mechanisms that facilitate or impede elementary…

The acquisition of research skills is an important goal of secondary education. Still, insights on what learner characteristics stimulate and hamper research skills are lacking. Therefore, this study investigates the relationship between students' research skills (assessed by means of the Leuven Research Skills Test (LRST) and students' gender,…

Parents play an important part in adolescents' life and significantly contribute to youngsters' academic success. However, parents' and students' perceptions regarding parental involvement may differ and how these perceptions are related to school achievement and wellbeing have been poorly researched. Therefore, self-report measures assessing…

Increasing numbers of youngsters are at risk of early school leaving. In this study, we examine educational decision-making of inner-city youth during their educational trajectories and how this could contribute to the decision to leave school without an educational qualification. Based on interviews with 34 youngsters in a Flemish city (Antwerp,…

Professional learning communities (PLCs) are considered ideal contexts for teachers' professional development and school improvement. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the interplay between PLC characteristics (i.e. collective responsibility, reflective dialogue, and deprivatized practice) in secondary school departments, and understand what…

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is an important predictor of educational quality. PCK develops from various sources, such as teaching experience. Studies investigating the effects of teaching experience on PCK development mainly focus on the question whether experienced teachers differ from novices in the amount of PCK. In a mixed methods…

The contribution of data use in schools has been proven via visible changes in policy and practice in schools (instrumental effects), changes in practitioners learning or cognition (conceptual effects) and changes in opinions or attitudes regarding teaching or policy-making (symbolic effects). Nevertheless, limited research is available on the…

The present study examined how access to home and school IT resources impacted student mathematics achievement. Data comprised 144,395 secondary school students from 7,308 schools in 22 developed economies who participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012. Results of hierarchical linear modelling showed that after…

There is a growing expectation that schools should systematically collect and analyse data as a point of departure for decisions. However, research shows that teachers themselves are less convinced that they need to base their decisions on data, as they mainly rely on their intuition and experience. This article examines the extent to which…

Pupil well-being has been an important topic in educational research for some time. Differences between schools in their influence on the well-being of their pupils are attributed to the policy-making capacities of the school. Little is known about schools' policy-making capacities with regard to pupil well-being, and the impact of school culture…

The purpose of the present study is to explore non-truanting youngsters' perceptions of truants and truancy. In-depth qualitative interviews (N: 8) are used to explore inductively the perceptions of truancy among non-truanting pupils in secondary education in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium). We use survey analysis (N: 3314) to assess…

This study looks into the effects of school inspection in the context of Flemish education. Respondents in five primary case schools were interviewed before inspection, immediately after inspection and four months later (totalling 45 interviews with 15 respondents). Our results indicate that the inspection incites reflection amongst school staff…

Holding students back when they do not meet a specific attainment level is common practice in a lot of countries. However, this practice is not without controversy and recent studies point at the negative effects of grade retention, especially in the long-term. The majority of these studies focused on grade retention in primary education. In our…