Middle school offers an entryway onto the path of college readiness. However, many practitioners and researchers have focused their efforts on high school students. Remaining is a population of potential college-going students, whose opportunities to prepare for college at an earlier stage are overlooked because middle school is not viewed as the…

Several factors influence adolescents' life satisfaction. At school, peer relatedness and school supportiveness, as well as individual self-perceptions such as academic self-efficacy, promote life satisfaction. Yet school is a context within which risks such as victimization can occur. The aim of this study was to test a model of relations of…

This cohort-sequential study compared the development of self-perception of ability in Icelandic school children with and without learning difficulties (LD). Participants (N = 198) were students with LD (n = 33) in Grade 4 through 8 and their classmates without LD (n = 165). Self-report measures were taken six times to assess students' perception…

The study aimed to explore the development trend of positive mental health and the interaction between adolescents' perceived family support and positive mental health. A 3-year longitudinal survey of perceived family support and positive mental health (resilience and self-efficacy) for four waves was conducted with 564 junior high school students…

Writing has a significant role in students' academic and lifelong learning. Therefore, educators constantly seek novel ways to develop students' writing skills. This study aims to examine the effect of digital storytelling on secondary school students' creative writing skills and writing self-efficacy. The participants were 15 6th grade students…

Gestalt perception relates to inferring a holistic scene from separate elements. Using this theory, an application game named Gestalt Puzzle was designed for students to play by recognizing a few parts of an image to reason the whole image of a particular object. Cognitive style can be divided into field independence (FI) and field dependence (FD)…

Introduction: In today's world, which is progressively oriented towards science and technology and facing a growing demand for skilled professionals, it becomes essential to identify the factors that encourage individuals to pursue careers in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Previous research has shown that…

We examined the extent to which self-efficacy and growth mindsets predict reading comprehension growth in sixth grade and the moderating role of initial word reading. Students (N = 303) reported on their self-efficacy as well as domain-general and reading-specific mindsets at the beginning of sixth grade. They completed brief bi-monthly reading…

Many studies in the literature have addressed reading comprehension, the ultimate goal of the reading process, due to its complex nature. These studies have focused on various areas, such as the nature of reading comprehension, how it occurs, the factors that affect the process of comprehension, reading comprehension impediments, and how to…

This study was carried out to determine the effect of Scratch-based coding applications integrated into the 5E learning model used in science teaching on students' computational thinking skills and self-efficacy towards block-based programming. In addition, students' perceptions of the activity were measured after each Scratch activity, which was…

National and local data show that many female students lose interest in STEM at an early age, female students that remain interested in STEM show partiality for life sciences. This results in gender stratification in STEM subject areas and is evident in high school enrollments in elective courses. This three-manuscript dissertation investigates…

Growth mindset has been shown to predict academic achievement in a variety of student populations, though the strength of the relationship can vary depending on the characteristics of the students examined. Using a large-scale sample of middle school students from a diverse district in the United States, we examine how multiple facets of students'…

As historically construed, both engineering culture and school science culture marginalize girls. With the focus on engineering in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), engineering education researchers have called for a more targeted investigation of how girls at the K-12 level engage in engineering. This study investigates, through…

Artificial intelligence (AI) education in kindergarten through high school (K-12) is advancing in many countries, including the United States. The purpose of this research has been to better understand the impact of participation in an AI course on the sixth, seventh, and eighth-grade students' overall interest, career interest in AI, and…

With the implementation of Next Generation Science Standards, educators shifted from lecturer to facilitator using inquiry-based learning approaches. Teachers may express anxiety about this role reversal in providing scientific instruction. This study addressed conflicting perspectives in the implementation of inquiry-based learning approaches as…