Scholars report that the students' interest in STEM declines and suggest to approach them earlier. This case study with the convenient sample of seven primary school students investigates the students' view of science and scientists and examine the following research questions in the Dutch lower secondary school context: (1) What are young…

Inquiry-based working contributes to teacher professionalization and educational improvements. This article presents the key findings of a qualitative case study carried out in three primary schools in the Netherlands. That study focused on the inquiry-based working of school boards, school leaders and teachers, with the goal of better…

Purpose: The paper aims to examine to what extent and why parental involvement as well as characteristics of ethnic school population influence social skills scores (social position, behavioural skills) of students. Design/methodology/approach: The study used the COOL5-18 database (2010) that included 553 Dutch primary schools and nearly 38,000…

Principals (policy makers) have debated the progress in U.S. student performance for a half century or more. Informing these conversations, survey agents have administered seven million psychometrically linked tests in math and reading in 160 waves to national probability samples of selected cohorts born between 1954 and 2007. This study is the…

Notwithstanding dramatically low levels of professed religiosity in Western Europe, the religious school sector continues to thrive. One explanation for this paradox is that nowadays parents choose religious schools primarily for their higher academic reputation. Empirical evidence for this presumed denominational advantage is mixed. We examine…

The purpose of this study was to identify and validate subtypes of peer status by integrating preference and popularity into a single framework. Person-oriented analyses were performed among 3,630 children and adolescents of different cohorts in primary and secondary education. In the young age groups (Grade 3/4 to Grade 7), three clusters were…

Using self-report questionnaires, a survey among 606 Dutch primary school children aged 10 to 12 years examined relationships among social support, gender, victimization, and depressive feelings. Hierarchical regression analyses confirmed that victims and bully/victims would report more depressive feelings than uninvolved children. There was no…

Eight language curricula that are widely used in the Netherlands for children up to grade 8 were evaluated. Questions examined were: (1) whether the use of a particular curriculum results in greater achievement in specific language areas; (2) what differences and similarities exist among these curricula; (3) do differences exist in the ways in…

A study involving 34 Dutch eighth-grade teachers and their classes explored the accuracy, reliability, and predictive validity of a logbook procedure for assessing the opportunity to learn mathematics. Results suggest that the logbook approach is reliable and that the variables measured are good predictors of the learning progress. (SLD)

This study assessed how specific cognitions and feelings, measured in actual learning, influence learning intention and achievement in mathematics for 80 male and 80 female Dutch eighth graders. Results support a hierarchical model of adaptable learning. Traitlike variables influence task appraisals, which determine willingness to invest effort…

As part of an educational reform in the Netherlands, teachers were required to implement models of adaptive instruction, including group-based mastery learning. It was expected that mastery learning would raise achievement and reduce differences in achievement among children of different social classes and between girls and boys. In 1987, students…