Studies have shown that the School Kindness Scale (SKS) has adequate psychometric properties in different societies such as Canada, Turkey, and the Philippines. However, there is scarce evidence on the psychometric validity of this scale across multiple societies and educational contexts. This study explores the cross-national invariance of the…

Homework is a multifaceted process that involves a complex interplay of factors. However, the processes underlying homework behavior are not yet fully understood. In Study 1, we tested a model of homework processes by examining the influences and consequences of homework behavior based on 473 Chinese students. In Study 2 with 159 British students,…

The United States and the United Kingdom have used standardized high-stakes testing as a measurement of students' cognitive level to determine success in the 21st century. Standardized tests have given teachers guidance to help them determine what to teach students and how to teach to the test. With such increased emphasis on high-stakes…

This study challenges prior evidence on the impact of Korea's high-stakes school accountability policy as a tool to improve overall achievement and close achievement gaps. Applying difference-in-differences method, the study compares Korean high school students' reading and math test score trends before and after the policy based on the National…

Educational partnership between schools and higher education institutions has become an important tool towards enhancing students' achievement levels in both contexts and increasing students' college readiness level. It has also been identified as one key element of educational reform. The present paper reviews a number of models of…

The PISA 2009 data (in reading) investigated the effectiveness of one year of schooling in seven countries: Russia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Germany, Canada, and Brazil. We used an instrumental variable, which allowed us to estimate the effect of one year of schooling through the fuzzy method of regression discontinuity. The analysis was…

The purpose of the study was to use model-based clustering to identify adolescent time attitude profiles in a sample of students from an urban high school using Adolescent Time Inventory-Time Attitude (ATI-TA) scores and to examine the association of ATI-TA profiles with demographic variables and grade point average (GPA). Three ATI-TA profiles…

When Daniel Patrick Moynihan raised the issue of family structure half a century ago, his concern was the increase in black families headed by women. Since then, the share of children raised in single-parent families in the United States has grown across racial and ethnic groups and with it evidence regarding the impact of family structure on…

Discourses about the value of effort and hard work are prevalent and powerful in many western societies and educational contexts. Yet, paradoxically, in these same contexts effortless achievement is often lauded, and in certain discourses is heralded as the pinnacle of success and a sign of genius. In this paper we interrogate discourses about…

The aim of this study is to assess the cross-cultural applicability of the Chinese version of the Inventory of School Motivation (ISM; McInerney & Sinclair, 1991) in the Hong Kong context using both within-network and between-network approaches to construct validation. The ISM measures four types of achievement goals: mastery, performance,…

The authors examined the relations between two socially oriented dimensions of student motivation and academic achievement of Native (Navajo) American and Anglo American students. Using confirmatory factor analysis, a multidimensional and hierarchical model was found to explain the relations between performance and social goals. Four first-order…

This article reveals how test-based performativity pressures interfere with the pedagogical approaches preferred by teachers of second-language learners. Our findings derive from ethnographic research conducted in two non-mainstream high schools: one in a US city and other one in a Swedish city. Both schools serve immigrant students who speak…

A classic distinction in the literature on achievement and motivation is between fear of failure and success orientations. From the perspective of self-worth theory, these motives are not bipolar constructs but dimensions that interact in ways that make some students particularly vulnerable to underachievement and disengagement from school. The…

Spanning multiple subjects and age groups, U.S. students rate poorly while Japanese students rate highly when subject to international testing. Japanese children complete twice as much homework as their U.S. counterparts and sometimes attend school on Saturdays. The literature review looks at motivation in both U.S. American and Japanese students…

Prior research on oppositional culture theory has generally focused on beliefs about the opportunity structure, or the "acting white" hypothesis, as an explanation for racial differences in school achievement. However, little attention has been given to the mechanism by which these beliefs affect achievement: schooling behaviors. The authors posit…