Background: Fractions continue to pose a critical challenge for students and their teachers alike. Mathematics education research indicates that the challenge with fractions may stem from the limitations of part-whole concepts of fractions, which is the central focus of fractions curriculum and instruction in the USA. Students' development of more…

Automatic question generation can help teachers to save the time necessary for constructing examination papers. Several approaches were proposed to automatically generate multiple-choice questions for vocabulary assessment or grammar exercises. However, most of these studies focused on generating questions in English with a certain similarity…

The self-fulfilling prophecy model of Brophy and Good was applied to the area of teacher judgement in order to disclose the processes of how teacher judgement of student achievement influences students' future academic outcomes. It was assumed that achievement and achievement motivation might be affected through the mediating processes of…

Inequity between urban and rural education prevalently exists in China. A lack of qualified teachers is the main reason for disadvantaged education in rural areas. In order to solve this problem, Live Broadcast Classroom was adopted for use in grade 5 English classes. 90 students and 3 teachers of 3 classes from two primary schools in Yunnan…

Engagement in academic tasks is important. However, compared to the large body of research on task engagement, the number of studies on task disengagement is quite limited. The aim of this study is to examine the associations between the motivational (self-determination) and attitudinal antecedents (learning orientations) of task disengagement.…

Social skills involved in leadership were examined in a problem-solving activity in which 252 Chinese 5th-graders worked in small groups on a spatial-reasoning puzzle. Results showed that students who engaged in peer-managed small-group discussions of stories prior to problem solving produced significantly better solutions and initiated…

The goal of this study was to explore longitudinal associations between peer victimization and academic achievement in Chinese children. Participants were N = 805 3rd-grade students (486 boys, 319 girls; M[subscript age] = 9.5 years, SD = 3 months) attending primary schools in Shanghai, People's Republic of China. At Time 1 and Time 2 (2 years…

The purpose of these exploratory studies was to examine Chinese and American elementary teachers' perceptions of how various classroom activities contribute to student creativity, and how often teachers report engaging their students in these activities. Third, fourth, and fifth grade teachers in the Midwestern United States (N = 51) and in…

This study investigates how 217 students in Years 5, 6 and 7 from three schools in Nanjing, China, link number and algebra (called relational thinking in this study). It categorizes their performances in terms of five levels, and uses these levels to create profiles of algebraic thinking across Years 5, 6, and 7. The study examines the…

This study examined loneliness and its associations with social functioning in children across different historical times and contexts in China. We collected data from urban and rural groups of school-age children (N = 2,588; M age = 10 years) using self-reports and peer assessments. The results indicated that children in 2002 and 2005 urban…

Three studies were conducted to explore Chinese children's understanding of shyness. In Study 1 (N = 174, M age = 10.18) interviews with Chinese children revealed a group of diverse attributes that characterized their conceptions of shyness. In Study 2 (N = 273, M age = 10.19) a rating procedure was used to identify attributes that were…

This paper reports on three studies of shy behavior in Mainland Chinese children. In Study 1 (N = 107, M age = 10.05), a Chinese Shyness Scale (CSS) was developed based on Chinese teachers' open-ended descriptions of children's shy behavior. In Study 2 (N = 388, M age = 10.80) and Study 3 (N = 198, M age = 10.20), the construct validity of the two…

The primary aim of the present study was to investigate whether variations exist in child and parent attributions in predicting child academic achievement within a culture and between cultures. Participants were 158 students and their parents from three different primary schools in Hong Kong, including one British international school consisting…