Adolescents develop skills and ideas from their interest-driven practices, which shape a type of literacy that may differ from the traditional ideas of literacy. This paper takes a qualitative approach to identify adolescents' activities through interest-driven participatory design. We interacted with grade 9 students at a Western Canadian school…

In this design-based study, a flipped learning approach using audio-visual resources as prelearning activities was examined in grades 6, 7, and 9 with four teachers and 65 students over one school year. The purpose of this study was to explore the implementation of a technology-enhanced pedagogy in science, math, and social studies. The…

Streaming students in secondary mathematics classrooms is a common practice in the province of Ontario, although there is conflicting evidence of its benefits. In this province, three streams of mathematics are available in grade 9. One of these streams, termed "locally developed," is based on the idea that school boards and teachers…

Bullying is a peer relational problem that can inflict psychological harm onto both those who are victimized and those who witness it occur. Fostering a positive classroom environment is an important protective factor in preventing bullying. Authoritative classroom climates may protect victimized and bystander youth from negative mental health…

Educators and parents alike have high expectations that adolescents behave prosocially and, within the context of schools, this is evident in curriculum grounded in social and emotional learning and in kindness-themed school-wide initiatives. Despite this emphasis on kindness, relatively little is empirically known about how adolescents enact…

School is where adolescents spend the largest share of their waking time. The present study focused on the factors that contribute to students' adjustment to school from a self-determination perspective. We tested the predictive value of parental behaviors (autonomy support, structure, and involvement) on the different dimensions of school…

This research examined Grade 6-10 Ontario Certified Teachers' (n = 24) perceptions of assistive technology (AT) and the factors correlated with perceived usefulness of AT. A mixed methods design that included a survey consisting of open- and closed-ended items elicited information about teachers' AT knowledge and training, their basic computer…

This study describes the work of one high school team in designing, developing, supporting, and field-testing a new course to support numeracy and general learning skills for a particularly diverse population of students. The rationale, curriculum design, and pilot implementation of the course are situated in existing curriculum structures and…

Background: Uncertainty is a crucial element of scientific knowledge growth. Students should have some understanding of how science knowledge is developed and why scientific conclusions are considered more or less certain than others. A component of the nature of science, it is considered an important aspect of science education and allows…

This 2-year prospective study aimed to examine the predictive role of students' achievement goals (mastery-approach and performance-avoidance) on socioemotional adjustment in high school by assessing the potential mediating contribution of academic motivations. A total of 407 high school students (46% boys) were surveyed each year in Secondary 2…

In response to concerns expressed by high school counselors, the researchers developed a quantitative Likert-scale survey to examine the relationships between academic performance (defined as school attendance and final grades) and recreational video gaming and texting. Questions about video gaming and texting were included with other questions…

Encouraging early development of career maturity has a wide variety of benefits for both students and society (Berger et al., 2007; Council of Canadian Academies, 2015; Hedlund, 1993; Hektner 1995; Welde et al., 2016). This large study of students in grades 6-9 in Nova Scotia showed that such programs are currently needed, especially regarding…

This article explores student motivation to learn French as a second language (FSL) in school. Ontario Grade 9 students (N = 63) were surveyed on their intention to (dis)continue studying French in the Core French (CF) program in Grade 10 when FSL becomes optional. Survey participants shared their reasoning, and a subset (n = 7) took part in a…

This study examines teacher perceptions of their experiences with Project Based Learning (PBL) at a secondary school in Western Canada. This PBL initiative included English language arts, mathematics, science, and digital literacy courses and all the grade nines at this large secondary school. This article reports on two teacher focus group…

Bullying and mental health problems are pressing concerns for adolescents. Given their burden, we need to find efficacious ways to prevent these experiences. However, existing prevention programs tend to be single-issue and may not focus on the universal capacities required to reduce these problems among youth. To this end, we evaluated the…