High sensitivity is often considered a characteristic of giftedness, but scientific evidence for this is limited. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate whether gifted children rate themselves higher in sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) than their peers. A total of 882 children from Grades 4, 5, and 6 of primary school participated. They…

Data from whole-class discussions in Dutch upper primary school show that teachers occasionally explicitly take downgraded epistemic stances through epistemic disclaimers such as 'ik weet het niet' (English: "I don't know (it)"), which contrasts with their institutionally assigned epistemic authority. In the current study, we have…

Creative thinking is an important aspect of education. However, students differ widely in their ability to think creatively. Working memory might explain these differences. Therefore, this study focuses on how different aspects of WM can explain differences in divergent thinking, both separately and conjointly. To do so, latent profile analysis…

Student-teacher relationship drawings were employed to investigate how students' mental representations of student-teacher relationships were affected by their gender, age, and shyness across the Netherlands and China. The sample included 752 third- to sixth-graders (48.5% boys; M[subscript age] = 9.96) from the Netherlands and 574 third- to…

Second language proficiency may be related to first language acquisition (Ganschow & Sparks, 1991), but relatively little is known about the relation between first and second language grammatical proficiency in primary school children who are in their first stages of foreign language learning. This study aims to determine whether differences…

In this quasi-experimental study involving 23 fourth grade teachers, we investigated the effect of implementing teacher-child dynamic mathematics interviews to improve mathematics teaching behavior in the classroom. After a baseline period of 13 months, the teachers participated in a professional development program to support the use of dynamic…

This longitudinal study (three waves across a school year) investigated the links between children's motivations to respond without prejudice and their ethnic outgroup attitudes at the between-person level (means and changes over time) and the within-person level (time-specific fluctuations). Participants were 945 ethnic majority students…

Creativity is an understudied topic in elementary school mathematics research. Nevertheless, we argue that creativity plays an important role in mathematics, but that more research is needed to understand this relation. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate this relation, specifically between domain-general creativity, domain-specific…

Many students infrequently read during leisure time. Due to fast, unconscious decisions, they may overlook the possibility of reading. We tested the impact of nudging on reading frequency, reading attitude, and reading skills. Two studies targeting Grades 4 to 6 (N = 105) and Grades 7 and 8 (N = 146) compared: (1) a nudging condition--participants…

This longitudinal study investigated bidirectional associations between pupils' social competence and their interpersonal relationships and classroom climate in segregated special education schools for pupils with emotional and behavioral disorders in the Netherlands. Participants were in Grade 4 and 5 in School Year 1 (N = 441) and Grade 5 and 6…

This longitudinal study examined bidirectional associations between special education pupils' teacher-child relationship characteristics (quality, satisfaction, and conflict), classroom structure, and behavioral problems (externalizing and attention-hyperactivity). A secondary goal was to investigate the extent to which severity of behavioral…

School closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic raised concerns about increases in educational inequality. We examined the magnitude of the impact of the first school closure for vulnerable student groups in particular. This study was conducted among 886 Grade 3-5 students in the Netherlands in schools serving a high percentage of students from…

Many children who are victimized by their peers do not tell their teachers. Subsequently, teacher intervention and support are not likely to take place. To investigate the role teachers can play to promote disclosure by victimized students, we examined (1) the prevalence of disclosure to teachers, and (2) the extent to which teachers' responses…

The present study examined the psychometric properties of Student-Teacher Relationship Drawings (STRDs) to assess student-teacher relationship quality in a cross-cultural context. A sample of upper elementary school students from both the Netherlands (N = 752) and China (N = 574) was included. Results showed sufficient inter-rater reliabilities of…

Trend results from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) show a decline from 2001 through 2016 in most countries in fourth graders' and their parents' reading attitudes, as measured by students like reading and parents like reading scale scores. Average students like reading scale scores, as reported by the students…