The use of data for adaptive, tailor-made education can be beneficial for students with learning difficulties. While evaluating the effects of a data-based decision-making (DBDM) intervention on student outcomes, considerable variation between intervention effects, ranging from high-intervention effects to small or even negative intervention…

The current study explored the size, stability, and consistency of school effects, using 2 effectiveness indicators: achievements of students at the end of primary school and growth in achievement across 3 years of schooling. The sample consisted of the scores of 25,269 students on 3 subjects, taken in Grades 4 to 6 among 3 cohorts in 319 primary…

Morphophonological processing involves the phonological analysis of morphemes. Item-specific phonological characteristics have been shown to influence morphophonological skills in children. This study investigates the relative contributions of broad phonological skills and vocabulary to production and judgement accuracies of the Dutch past tense…

It is known that schoolteachers have difficulties supporting students with Social, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties (SEBD) in inclusive classroom settings. Despite the literature providing strategies for schoolteachers, little is known about strategy use in daily practice to influence the social participation of students with SEBD, and…

The aim of the present study was to examine the relation between decoding and segmental and suprasegmental phonology, and their contribution to reading comprehension, in the upper primary grades. Following a longitudinal design, the performance of 99 Dutch primary school students on phonological awareness (segmental phonology) and text-reading…

Word problems are often used to assess numeracy, despite the growing number of reports on difficulties students encounter with this genre of mathematical problems. These reports contend that a large number of difficulties are influenced by the way the problems are presented, that is, with verbal representations of the problem situations. These…

Background: The transition from primary school to secondary school is a crucial period of time for children and this may be especially the case for pupils with migrant backgrounds. While there has been considerable research on the transition from primary to secondary school, more needs to be known specifically about the experiences of this group…

Inquiry-based lessons have been demonstrated to improve children's scientific thinking (i.e. reasoning abilities and domain-specific knowledge). Although empirical evidence shows that inquiry-based learning requires instruction, research comes from two approaches that have not been bridged yet: direct instruction of scientific reasoning and…

This paper addresses the identification of pupils with special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream primary schools by their teachers. Data were analysed from two consecutive measurement occasions of a large cohort study in the Netherlands. The types and severity of pupils' problems, and their school careers were studied. Around 25% of the pupils…

This study examined whether Dutch children reared in families headed by female same-sex parents differ in civic competence from Dutch children reared by opposite-sex parents. The participants, drawn from a national sample, included 32 children (11-13 years old) parented by female same-sex couples who were matched on demographic characteristics…

A first application of multilevel latent class analysis (MLCA) to educational large-scale assessment data is demonstrated. This statistical technique addresses several of the challenges that assessment data offers. Importantly, MLCA allows modeling of the often ignored teacher effects and of the joint influence of teacher and student variables.…

The current study investigated how perceived popularity and collaboration quality were associated with knowledge gain of adolescents during a collaborative learning task. Participants included 264 children ages 10-12 years (52.3% boys), who collaborated 3 times in same-sex dyads on a computer assignment. Results indicated that the knowledge of the…

The "School Refusal Assessment Scale" (SRAS) was developed to identify four factors that might maintain a youth's school attendance problem (SAP), and thus be targeted for treatment. There is still limited support for the four-factor model inherent to the SRAS and its revision (SRAS-R). Recent studies indicate problems with the wording…

This study focused on effects of high-ability programs on students' achievement emotions, i.e. emotions that students experience that are associated with achievement activities. Participants were students in grade 4-6 of primary education: 218 students attended full-time high-ability programs, 245 attended part-time high-ability programs (i.e.…

Working memory is considered a well-established predictor of individual variation in reading comprehension in children and adults. However, how storage and processing capacities of working memory in both the phonological and semantic domain relate to reading comprehension is still unclear. In the current study, we investigated the contribution of…