Research has shown that youth and their communities benefit from civics education, with its aim to prepare citizens for democracy. However, civics education for adolescents in the United States is not equitable, and determining how to best measure aspects of civic development in younger adolescents is a challenge. In this qualitative study, we…

The role of the parents is crucial in the children's effective functioning, having a long-term effect on the physical, mental and social health of the individuals. Sense of coherence is one of the most important elements of mental health, having a significant effect on the various aspects of life. So do parental goal emphasis by setting the main…

Urban middle school students (N = 1,057; M[subscript age] = 12.06) viewed Facebook-like profiles of peers who varied by race/ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation and indicated the social class (SC) of those peers along two dimensions--family income and social class position. As hypothesized, most profiles were perceived as middle class and…

Scholars have differentiated other-oriented (OO) purpose (i.e., a personally meaningful life aim intended to contribute to the world beyond the self) and self-oriented (SO) purpose (i.e., a personally meaningful life aim without intention to contribute beyond the self). OO purpose is associated with adolescent thriving, yet little is known about…

Data from the School Crime Supplement (SCS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey, a nationally representative sample survey of students ages 12 through 18, were used to analyze trends in hate-related words. The SCS study is completed every other year. Data from seven consecutive surveys are included in this report: school years 2000-01,…

It is critically important to understand why victims of bullying decide to seek help when they do, particularly from adults, because this reduces the probability of being victimized in the future. This study sought to understand more clearly the patterns of help-seeking by students who reported being victims of bullying. Participants were students…

In this study we examined adolescents' physical activity (PA) stability as well as individual differences in PA across grades 7-9. In addition, we tested the predictive role of adolescents' self-determination and goal orientations in physical education at grade 6 in relation to their PA development. Adolescents' (N = 812) self-reported PA was…

We examined the moderating effects of mastery goals and academic contingency of self-worth (CSW-A) on how perfectionistic discrepancy associates with academic efficacy and satisfaction with life among gifted students in middle and high school. Participants in this study were 144 gifted students from 6th to 12th grade in a suburban Midwest U.S.…

In a series of 4 studies we investigated the relations of mastery goal structure and 4 dimensions of the classroom social climate (teacher academic support, teacher emotional support, classroom mutual respect, task-related interaction). We conducted multidimensional scaling with separate adolescent samples that differed considerably (i.e., by…

Motivation is a fundamental educational challenge for adolescents in the United States, and particularly for immigrant youth. The motivation to achieve, especially in mathematics, declines during adolescence. Most of what is known about motivation is based on studies of predominately middle-class White students; yet the influx of immigrants over…

In this study, first- and second-order confirmatory factor analyses were used to investigate the structure of the different types of academic, social, and future goals pursued by adolescents in school, and whether goals can be hierarchically organized. A multiple goals perspective on goal preferences was adopted. The study was based on 10,000…

This research focuses on the interaction between students' domain-specific expectancies and values as a predictor of test anxiety. A subsample of adolescents from the MSALT dataset are used in the current study; students complete measures during the spring of sixth grade and again during the spring of seventh grade. Overall, findings provide…

What type of work goals provide adolescents with the sense that schoolwork is important and that their lives are meaningful? This mixed-methods study of a diverse sample of 6th-, 9th-, and 12th-grade adolescents (N = 148) investigated the relationship between work goals, purpose, and meaning using a semistructured interview and a survey. Interview…

Achievement goal theory distinguishes between mastery goals (the goals of developing competence) and performance goals (the goals of demonstrating competence) [Ames [1992] "Journal of Educational Psychology" 84: 261-271]. In this study, we employed this theory aiming to better understand why adolescents' motivation to learn science…

This is a mix methods follow-up study in which we reconfirm the findings from an earlier study [Vedder-Weiss & Fortus [2011] "Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 48(2)", 199-216]. The findings indicate that adolescents' declining motivation to learn science, which was found in many previous studies [Galton [2009] "Moving to…