The current study was conducted to investigate the relationship between math anxiety and math achievement, highlighting differences in motivation based on age, and the mediating effects of task persistence as well as aspects of the expectancy-value theory. The students in the study (grade five N = 335, grade eight N = 251) were from Estonian…

Understanding math and the ability to use math in various situations can greatly contribute to a successful life. Different math skills are of importance for understanding and supporting math ability. In addition, math interest may influence math ability. We investigated the relationship between math conceptual and procedural skills, their…

Purpose: This paper aimed to examine moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) levels in physical education. Method: A review of reviews was conducted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. The screening process, data extraction, assessment of the risk of bias, and analysis of the…

This study explores the level of congruency between students' ratings of their own emotional and behavioral strengths and difficulties, and their teachers' ratings of these factors, when compared amongst two neighboring countries, Estonia and Finland. Secondly, it investigates the level of agreement between sixth grade students' ratings and their…

Living Book--Augmenting Reading for Life, a three-year EU-funded Erasmus + project (September 2016-August 2019), exploited the affordances of augmented reality (AR) and other emerging technologies in order to address the underachievement of European youth in reading skills. The program developed an innovative approach that empowers teachers from…

The study aims to examine students' awareness and reported use of learning strategies as well as their effectiveness for word recognition using a word list memorization task. The sample included 1039 Grade 2, 1069 Grade 4, 832 Grade 6, and 3752 Grade 9 students (aged 8-15 years) from 272 Estonian schools. More students in higher grades reported…

Self-regulation forms the rudiments for children's academic achievement and socialization. Although one's executive control and verbal skills are needed in both of the core aspects for academic performance: processing to regulate one's own learning and behavior, young students' cognitive capacity for that is still immature influencing the…

Education is seen as a resource at a global level but is currently considered to be in crisis in many parts of the world. This constitutes a significant drawback in terms of humanity's prosperity and well-being since education is the key not only to an educated workforce but also to humane, collaborative, and caring societies. Even within this dim…

Background: Most previous studies of teaching styles and reading skills have been cross-sectional. Longitudinal research is needed to clarify the direction of effects. The present longitudinal study examined the degree to which differences in teaching styles in the third grade predict the sixth-grade reading performance. The consistency of the…

Background: Bullying has been associated with many mental health problems. The effect of bullying has been found to be affected by the way students are involved in bullying. The purpose of the study was to explore the association between mental well-being, hopelessness, and being involved in bullying (as a bully, victim, or bully-victim), and to…

This study examined the effects of first-grade teachers' emotional support on task persistence and academic skills in the sixth grade and the mediational role of children's academic self-concept in these effects. Participants were 524 children (263 boys, X-bar age in the first grade = 7.47 years), their first-grade homeroom teachers (n = 53), and…

The present study examined the longitudinal associations between children's perceptions of parental involvement in math homework (control and support) and their math performance and motivation (task-persistent homework behavior and math self-concept). Children (n = 512) reported their perceptions concerning parental involvement in sixth-grade math…

Ethnic identification is closely tied to language. Society's appreciation of one's first language and the opportunity to use it may help strengthen ethnic identification. This research examined the relationship between ethnic identifications and school language and investigated other factors that potentially impact language-minority students'…

Outreach activities, like mobile science exhibitions, give opportunities to hands-on experiences in an attractive learning environment. We analysed attitudes, motivation and learning during a science exhibition visit, their relations to gender and future educational plans in Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Belgium (N = 1210 sixth-graders). Pupils'…