The big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE) was evaluated with 4,461 seventh to ninth graders in Singapore where a national policy of ability streaming is implemented. Consistent with the BFLPE, when prior achievement was controlled, students in the high-ability stream had lower English and mathematics self-concepts (ESCs and MSCs) and those in the…

Metacognition is considered by most educationists to be an element necessary for many cognitive learning tasks. In general, within problem solving tasks, procedural, factual, and conceptual knowledge, by themselves, are insufficient for successful task completion. To be successful, the problem solver must usually demonstrate higher level cognitive…

The learning approaches of secondary students were studied for 495 eighth-, tenth- and twelfth-grade students in Singapore. The focus was on determining: (1) the dominant approach used by students in learning different academic subjects (English, Chinese, mathematics, and science); (2) the motive-strategy consequence in learning these different…