Authors evaluated the Student Behavior Checklist-Brief (SBC-B) to test whether teacher-reports of student learning approach (i.e., learned helplessness [LH] and mastery orientation [MO]) were invariant across academic subjects. The current sample includes ethnically diverse seventh and eighth grade students (N = 145; 53 percent male) and six teams…

Background: Research has shown that students experience less stress in physical education (PE) than in other school subjects; some even find it stress-relieving. Nevertheless, there is a substantial group of students who regularly experience stress in PE. Knowledge of stressors and the attributes of different coping strategies to deal with those…

Measurement limitations have hindered research on learned helplessness (LH) and mastery orientation (MO) in the classroom. We reduced the 24-item Student Behavior Checklist to a 6-item scale and tested the abbreviated measure for evidence of reliability and validity in a sample of 5th and 6th graders (N = 299). We then replicated findings in an…

In all educational settings, teachers are likely to encounter learners with different emotional and cognitive characteristics, particularly learners who are demotivated or disengaged and as a result misbehave in the classroom. Learned helplessness (LH) is associated with such emotional and motivational deficits in academic performance. This study…

Not all children cope equally well with the stresses and traumas life throws their way, and every educator recognizes that "deer in the headlights" look some children get when current events and past traumas combine to trigger a fight-or-flight stress response. No matter how safe the classroom may be in reality, trauma deactivates cognitive…