Exploring why more boys than girls continue to study higher levels of mathematics in senior school when there appear to be no gender differences in achievement in earlier years is worthy of investigation. There are potentially many reasons why this occurs including career aspirations, interest, and attitudes. One factor explored in this study was…

The "Australian Curriculum: History" has emerged out of a neoliberal federal education policy landscape. This is a policy landscape where pragmatic and performative, rather than pedagogic concerns are clearly foregrounded, and this has implications for curriculum development and implementation. A useful way to conceptualise the features,…

The aims of this study were to examine whether adolescent self-efficacy mediates the associations between parental control, perceptions of the importance of healthy nutrition for child health and barriers to buying fruits and vegetables and adolescent fruit consumption using a theoretically derived explanatory model. Data were drawn from a…

Adolescents from grade 9 in Sydney Australia (N = 60) were interviewed regarding why they would or would not consider pursuing maths-related careers. Open-ended interview data explored the comprehensiveness of explanations within the Expectancy-Value framework. The Expectancy-Value model is the major motivational framework for explaining students'…

The author discusses the aims, outline, and evaluation of an existing self-paced ungraded mathematics program for grades eight, nine, and ten. (MN)

An ethnomethodological approach was used to analyze the organization of talk, the leader-student interaction, and resultant social order during group discussion among 2 male leaders and 15 ninth-grade Australian boys participating in a school-sponsored outdoor experience. Results focus on how the leaders structured the interaction and regulated…

Describes the integration of content from science, mathematics, and technology learning areas as well-grounded in the philosophy of middle schooling. Points out the absence of recent research on how students learn science and mathematics concepts in integrated settings. Analyses 9th grade students' learning experiences in a technology project of…

This paper addresses components of a 3-year longitudinal study in which 9th and 10th grade students in Australia, Canada, and Zambia participated in data-handling programs through networked learning communities. Of interest here are the students' responses to a selection of "ends-in-view" problems, which formed the major part of the…

This study examined whether U.S., Australian, and Swedish grade 9 male and female students' beliefs about themselves as learners of mathematics and English/Swedish differed. The cohort of grade 9 students from one coeducational school in each country participated in the study. Questionnaires were distributed in the three countries and contained…

A study of ninth-graders' attitudes toward teachers' classroom discipline techniques found that commonly used techniques cause student anxiety and disrupt student work, indicating a need for teacher behavior changes. (MSE)

Determined reliability/usefulness of a simple anxiety measure administered to 2,068 grade eight and nine students. Also found relationships between anxiety and such classroom characteristics as participation, teacher support, and competition. Suggests use of the measure in guiding teachers to change classrooms to reduce student anxiety. (JN)

Although numerous cross-sectional studies have documented the coping responses of young adolescents of different ages and of both sexes, few studies have tracked the developmental stages of coping within adolescents. A longitudinal study of adolescent coping was conducted in metropolitan Melbourne, Australia. During the 5-year study, 168 students…

A study was conducted to determine the influence of family background and attitudinal factors on occupational aspirations of Year 9 students in Victoria, Australia. A survey was made of all Victorian Year 9 students and comparisons were made between groups of students who aspired to different occupations. Discriminant function analyses were…

Grade level and sex differences in attitudes to English, mathematics, social studies and art were explored among a sample of students in grades 7 through 10. Student attitudes generally were most favorable toward English, then toward mathematics, social studies, and (least favorable) art. (Author/MLW)

Describes a study of Australian independent schools that assessed the use of laptop computers in science classrooms in grades eight and nine. Highlights include students' perceptions of teachers' interpersonal behavior; associations between teacher-student interpersonal behavior and students' attitudes to science and their enquiry skill…