Bullying is a goal-directed behavior that has long been in the spotlight of worldwide school mental health programs and research. However, the role of popularity goals in bullying and its potential mechanisms are unclear for adolescents in a non-Western cultural context. Based on 333 Chinese adolescents (52% female), the current study was the…

Exploring the factors that benefit academic persistence may facilitate adolescents' positive outcomes to increase the likelihood of future success, especially for adolescents with low family socioeconomic status (SES). Previous research has highlighted the merits of both motivational beliefs (e.g., self-efficacy and interests) and learning…

Background: In the Chinese educational system, there has been an ongoing debate between using examination- or quality-oriented education. The Chinese concept of psychological "suzhi" was proposed based on quality-oriented education, and a positive link between psychological "suzhi" and academic achievement was found by…

Although school climate plays an important role in the development of adolescent prosocial behaviors and problem behaviors, little is known about the mechanisms underlying school climate's impact on such behaviors, particularly in Chinese adolescents. This study used a multi-informant approach to investigate the mediating role of social-emotional…

Phubbing, the ignoring of one's companions to pay attention to one's phone, is ubiquitous. Yet far less is known about its interpersonal transmission. Based on the social learning theory and the theory of normative social behavior, this cross-sectional study tested the associations between perceived parental phubbing and teenagers' phubbing. Two…

The current investigation used latent profile analysis (LPA) to categorise students according to their strategies for managing mathematics homework. A sample of 918 Chinese students in grades 7-9 rated their use of seven homework management strategies; namely, arranging the environment, managing time, monitoring motivation, managing emotion,…

Research has demonstrated that parental autonomy-support and control are two related but distinct factors. However, little research has investigated the different levels of parental autonomy-support (versus control) and the effects of these differences on student outcomes. This study addresses these gaps by identifying a typology of parents who…

Research into metacognition has found it to facilitate self-regulation and correlate to learners' L2 writing level. Following Lee & Mak's (2018) framework of Metacognitive Instruction (MI) for L2 writing classrooms, this study applies Dynamic Assessment (DA) to writing MI (MI-DA) in a rural middle school EFL class in China. A one-semester…

To elucidate the processes underlying the cultural construction of adolescence, this research examined youth's stereotypes about teens in Hong Kong and Chongqing, a relatively less developed city in Mainland China. Youth (N = 1,269) reported on their teen stereotypes and problem behavior in the fall and spring of 7th grade. Youth in Hong Kong (vs.…

Recent research has shown that internal factors are important predictors of adaptation, but little research has studied the relationship between a sense of coherence and school adaptation. The present study examined the mediating and moderating mechanisms underlying this relationship. A total of 1,072 middle students completed self-report…

The longitudinal associations between popularity, overt aggression, and relational aggression were assessed in middle school and high school cohorts drawn from a large urban Northwest Chinese city. The middle school (n = 880; 13.33 years.) and high school samples (n = 841; 16.66 years.) were each followed for 2 years. In the concurrent regression…

The aim of this study was to develop a scale to measure students' STEM continuing motivation (CM). In accordance with the conceptualisation of CM by Maehr (1976. Continuing motivation: An analysis of a seldom considered educational outcome. "Review of Educational Research," 46(3), 443-462. doi:10.3102/00346543046003443), we define STEM…

Most studies of school bullying in China are atheoretical. To fill the gap in the literature, we introduce criminological theories in an attempt to test propositions broadly derived from these perspectives in the study of physical bullying. Relying on data collected from 12 middle schools (Grades 7 to 9) in three cities with information on both…

Few studies, if any, have systematically investigated the connection or relationship between geography curriculum and scientific literacy. With this realization, in this article, we examined the potential contribution of geography curriculum to developing students' scientific literacy, with China's middle-school geography curriculum as an example.…

Based on the interplay between achievement goals theory and social comparison theory, our study focused on how achievement goals relate to subjective well-being in the school context in Chinese adolescents. Specifically, we addressed a theoretical model that specified that academic social comparisons and self-esteem would serve as mediators in the…