The quality of life of students at school is an increasingly topical issue in relation both to public health issues, made more acute by the pandemic and successive confinements, and to the technical nature of future jobs which means training has become an economic issue. There are therefore two issues, one linked to health and the other to school…

Although differences in academic motivation may exist across cultures, research on academic motivational goals has been Western-focused and relied on Western originated questionnaire. There is a dearth of studies adopting bottom-up, emic, and in-depth approaches to explore East Asian students' academic motivation. This study describes Chinese…

The acquisition of research skills is an important goal of secondary education. Still, insights on what learner characteristics stimulate and hamper research skills are lacking. Therefore, this study investigates the relationship between students' research skills (assessed by means of the Leuven Research Skills Test (LRST) and students' gender,…

This study was grounded in the social cognitive career theoretical framework (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994). The purpose of this four-year longitudinal study was to examine the factors that may have contributed to students' motivation to develop STEM interest during secondary school years. The participants in our study were 9th-11th grade high…

This longitudinal person-centered study aimed to identify profiles of subjective task values and ability self-concepts of adolescents in the domain of mathematics, English, biology, and physics in Grades 10 and 12. We were interested in gendered changes of profile membership, and in relations between profile membership and educational and…

Helping raise the Hispanic college graduation rate is an urgent goal, given the persistently high rate of poverty among Hispanic families, growth of the Hispanic population to account for one in five college-age Americans, and mounting concerns about racial and economic inequality. The question is, how? One potential strategy involves helping high…

One of the primary goals of teacher education is to aid preservice candidates in formulating a personal philosophy of teaching that is research-based. Teacher candidates should recognize that their philosophy of teaching and learning must be grounded in research-affirmed theory, certain dimensions of which (e.g., motivation) are critical to…

This article highlights the voices of two 11th grade boys of color (one Black and one Latino), attending one U.S. urban charter school, as they describe the various ways their families supported their college going efforts. This study finds that these participants were equipped with what the author conceptualizes as "college going familial…

In this report, we describe the development of an extension of the "SuccessNavigator"® assessment for late high school settings. We discuss the assessment's conceptualization and support its application with psychometric studies detailing scale development in terms of structural analyses, reliability, and several other aspects of…

Student self-concept of math ability (SCMA) and math utility value shape course-taking patterns, achievement, and entree into mathematics-intensive college majors (Eccles & Wigfield, 2005). The development of SCMA and math utility value are embedded in social contexts (Marsh et al., 2005). School racial climate is a particularly important…

Do high school students who are predisposed to enroll in dual-credit courses already possess high levels of motivation or college and academic self-efficacy? Students in this study reported being academically motivated, but they did not report high levels of confidence in their ability to perform certain college-associated tasks. Of 52 items…

Research shows that carefully planned acceleration offers academic benefits with little social or emotional risk to high-ability learners. However, acceleration is underutilized and little is known about students' motivations to accelerate. In this study, 21 high-ability high school students in Grades 11 and 12 took part in a structured…

This study extends previous research on the long-term connections between motivation constructs in expectancy-value theory and achievement outcomes. Using growth mixture modelling, we examined trajectories of change for 421 students from 4th grade through college in their self-concept of ability (SCA) in math, interest in math, and perceived…

The Advanced Virtual Academy (AVA) Twilight High School (THS) provides Houston Independent School District (HISD) high school students opportunities to earn credits toward graduation and pass state-mandated assessments. The program targets students who are at risk of not completing courses required to earn a high school diploma. This 2014-2015…

We need to come together as a team and become one system of total quality improvement regarding the education of our nation's children. In order to achieve a gold standard in the education of our nation's children, leadership has to be willing to go against the status quo and build bridges for long-term sustainable change. In order to survive,…