For lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer (i.e., sexual minority [SM]) youth, coming out is an important developmental milestone and is typically associated with positive well-being. However, coming out in high school may entail a higher risk of school-based victimization. Due to the greater risk of homophobic bullying, the implications of being out in…

Background: Students' social emotional competencies (SECs; also known as non-cognitive skills) are the skills or knowledge that allow them to successfully navigate social and academic environments such as self-management, social awareness, and relationship skills. Research has established cross-sectional associations between SECs and student…

Many adult English learners enroll in U.S. Adult Basic Education programs every year. The federally defined goal of these programs is to increase adult learners' skills to enable them to enter the workforce, but it is not clear whether this purpose matches learners' own motivations for entering these programs. Using the lens of self-authorship…

The inclusion of a mentor teacher in a novice teacher induction program dramatically improves early career teacher feelings of satisfaction and desires to remain in the profession. Mentors require various tools and trainings to best develop resilient novice teachers. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine mentoring experiences…

Possession of hope and meaning in life is critical for mental health, especially in times of adversity. In previous research, the most frequently used measure to assess hope has been the "Dispositional Hope Scale." However, there has been debate over some aspects of the scale's factor structure. Similarly, meaning in life has been…

Grit is theoretically defined as the combination of perseverance and passion for long term goals. Both of these constructs are likely to be relevant for our understanding of how language acquisition occurs and for explaining between-person differences in the rate of language acquisition. Despite this relevance, there are methodological and…

To prepare for college and careers, students at all grade levels can begin identifying the course for their futures. By incorporating purposeful activities, teachers can give students opportunities to visualize and state their future goals.

A problem in the field of education is a high rate of teacher turnover. Because the problem is reaching a crisis level, the purpose of this qualitative descriptive dissertation study was to describe influences of an Educational Support Program for novice teachers relative to their feelings of support, job satisfaction, and teacher self-efficacy.…

Grade retention is one of the most discussed and controversial educational measures, and yet, it is still widely applied in many countries. Research investigating the effects of grade retention on students' psychosocial variables presents mixed findings, partly due to the variables assessed, methodological issues, and the length of the studies.…

This study used the standard setting to establish cutscores for the fidelity of implementation of an evidence-based intervention, the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction (SDLMI) designed to enhance goal-directed actions in secondary students with and without disabilities. Cutscores were then applied to fidelity data from a large,…

While self-assessment is a widely explored area in educational research, our understanding of how students assess themselves, or in other words, generate self-feedback, is quite limited. Self-assessment process has been a black box that recent research is trying to open. This study explored and integrated two data collections (secondary and higher…

The aim of the present cross-sectional study was to investigate the relationship between academic self-efficacy, life goals and subjective well-being of middle school students. The study group for the research comprised 434 middle school students. According to the findings, subjective well-being was correlated at a significant level with academic…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how high school marching band instructors described extra-musical life skills teaching strategies in Northern California within the Western Band Association (WBA) organizational circuit. Theoretical foundations of this study were social emotional learning (SEL) based on the seminal…

Although an emergence of literature focuses on the college transition process, few studies exclusively highlight the experiences of first-generation and racially underrepresented students. Several structural factors hinder the progress and development of marginalized students as a result of the intersection of racism and classism. Pre-college…

This paper focuses on data from a study of middle- to upper-middle class Scottish S2 ([approximately]seventh grade) students who participated in Inspiring Purpose, a school-based character development program, during the 2016 to 2017 school year. Directed by their teachers, participating youth reflected on values and future aspirations and…