Empirical studies have demonstrated that students who are taught in a group of students with higher average achievement benefit in terms of their achievement. However, there is also evidence showing that being surrounded by high-achieving students has a negative effect on students' academic self-concept, also known as the big-fish--little-pond…

We replicated and extended prior research investigating a theoretically guided intervention based on expectancy-value theory designed to enhance student learning outcomes (e.g., Hulleman & Harackiewicz, 2009). First, we replicated prior work by demonstrating that the utility value intervention, which manipulated whether students made…

Background: Contemporary models of student learning within higher education are often inclusive of processing and regulation strategies. Considerable research has examined their use over time and their (person-centred) convergence. The longitudinal stability/variability of learning strategy use, however, is poorly understood, but essential to…

Background: Only a handful of longitudinal studies have explored the effects of both parents in early parenthood on children's cognitive development, and no study has controlled for simultaneous early childhood education and care (ECEC) experiences. Aims: To examine the similarity of each parent's cognitive guidance and contribution to children's…

Based on social learning theory, this study aimed at providing a better understanding of the influence of social interaction on adolescents' conflict coping strategy. This study used the data from the Taiwan Educational Panel Survey (N = 8717) to test the unique contribution of religious involvement, parent-child interaction, teacher-student…

Background: Traditional measures of school readiness are labour-intensive and do not assess family support. Aims: The current study used the newly developed Brief Early Skills and Support Index (BESSI: Hughes, Daly, Foley, White and Devine 2015) to examine 6-month longitudinal stability and change in teachers' ratings of young children's school…

Background: Researchers often report and discuss gender differences. However, recent research has drawn attention to interaction effects between gender and other social categories. Aims: This study analysed the development of disparities in students' reading-related self-concept, intrinsic motivation, and behaviour, as they relate to differences…

Background: Young people with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) face many educational challenges, particularly in terms of academic achievement, social inclusion, and mental health. School connectedness is linked to many positive outcomes and may be of particular salience at the primary-secondary school transition, when young people with ASC are…

Background: Prior studies on fraction magnitude understanding focused mainly on students with relatively sufficient formal instruction on fractions whose fraction magnitude understanding is relatively mature. Aim: This study fills a research gap by investigating fraction magnitude understanding in the early stages of fraction instruction. It…

This study explored the developmental trajectories of academic achievement and the contributions of early social behaviors and problems to these trajectories in Chinese children. Data were collected each year in 5 consecutive years from a sample of elementary schoolchildren in China (initially N = 1,146, 609 boys, initial M [subscript age] = 8.33…

This study utilized latent class analysis (LCA) to identify 5 discernible profiles of Latino children's (N = 1,253) social-emotional, physical, and cognitive school readiness at the time of kindergarten entry. In addition, a growth mixture modeling (GMM) approach was used to identify 3 unique literacy achievement trajectories, across Grades 2-5,…

This study investigated the prevalence and stability of latent classes at risk for reading disabilities (RD) in elementary-aged children whose first language is Spanish. To this end, children (N = 489) in Grades 1, 2, and 3 at Wave 1 were administered a battery of reading, vocabulary, and cognitive measures (short-term memory [STM], working memory…

Children with higher working memory or updating (WMU) capacity perform better in math. What is less clear is whether and how this relation varies with grade. Children (N = 673, kindergarten to Grade 9) participated in a 4-year cross-sequential study. Data from 3 WMU (Listening Recall, Mr. X, and an updating task) and a standardized math task…

Children experience good and bad days in their performance. Although this phenomenon is well-known to teachers, parents, and students it has not been investigated empirically. We examined whether children's working memory performance varies systematically from day to day and to which extent fluctuations at faster timescales (i.e., occasions,…

Background: It is often argued that the negative development of intrinsic motivation in elementary school strongly depends on the presence of school grades because grades represent extrinsic consequences and achievement feedback that are supposed to influence intrinsically motivated behaviour. However, only a few studies have tested this…