Examined whether children's causality beliefs about school performance show similar developmental profiles across six distinct sociocultural settings. Found markedly similar developmental patterns in their beliefs about the importance of effort, ability, luck, teachers, and unknown factors as influences on school performance. Found that factors…

This article describes a series of studies that examine the development of literacy in elementary school Spanish-speaking second-language learners. Findings from the research that addresses our first question-regarding cross-language relationships-indicate that first-language reading skills are related to second-language reading skills, but that…

In today's global society, individuals with an understanding of different cultures that have the ability to apply this understanding to real world problem solving are more likely to become leaders. Preparing students for a global society is becoming a significant part of education. While many international online exchange projects have been…

This study surveyed fourth-grade students (N=677) and teachers (N=489) from China, Taiwan, and the United States regarding their views toward different classroom management strategies in dealing with four kinds of classroom behaviors: (1) causing a disruption by talking to other students; (2) giving a wrong answer to a question; (3) behaving well;…

This document presents the results of three studies about how children interpret observations of the biological phenomena of decay. The objectives of this report were to: (1) document and compare the ideas used by elementary school children in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada; (2) document how these ideas changed from age 5 to 16;…

A year-long cooperative study examined school readiness and academic achievement of normal and at-risk students. Subjects were 360 Russian and 400 American first-graders. A Russian-developed diagnostic screening instrument was used to identify at-risk individuals. Data were then collected through achievement tests at the beginning and end of the…

Study examined whether 50 Korean children made conceptual distinctions between morality and social convention. Findings indicated that, at all ages, children treated moral transgressions as more generally wrong and independent of rules than conventional transgressions. (Author/RWB)

The purpose of the study presented in this paper is to investigate how students deal with the concepts of infinity and limit. Based on the communicational approach to cognition, according to which mathematics is a kind of discourse, we try to identify the characteristics of students' discourse on the topic. Four American and four Korean students…

Study of the performance of nearly 2,000 students in grades 2 through 9 on a variety of mental computation tasks using visual and oral presentation found a wide variation in performance within the sample of each country at each grade level. (33 references) (MKR)

Studies whether Chinese children are more cooperative, whereas U.S. children are more competitive, using 76 10- to 12-year-old children in each country. Results using the Social Values Task indicate that Chinese children favor strategies that result in equality and group enhancement, and U.S. children favor individualistic and competitive…

A mathematics achievement test was taken by 132 U.S. and 110 Japanese fifth graders. Scores were higher for the Japanese, and relatively better for computation than problem solving. The reverse was true for the U.S. students. Results are discussed in terms of amount and kind of exposure to mathematics. (SLD)

Research on cognitive representation of numbers and understanding of place value of U.S. and Japanese first graders was extended to France, Sweden, and Korea (118 subjects; approximately 24 from each of the 5 countries). Basic differences in children's cognitive representations of number are influenced by characteristics of their languages. (SLD)

Interviews with 154 elementary school students in Northern Ireland and the United States found that students in both countries were very interested in history and learned about history from family and the media, as well as school. However, the two groups of students had different views on the importance of history and reasons for studying it.…

This study examined the efficacy of a school-based exercise and nutrition program with a parent component. Third-grade children (N = 238) from six elementary schools participated in the study, with three schools randomly assigned to a program group and the other three schools to a control group. The program group received a health-related fitness…

It is argued that mastery learning is one explanation for the documented differences in mathematics achievement between Japanese and American students. Given its emphasis on mastery at one stage before moving on to the next stage, and the potential accumulated benefits of this approach over time, mastery learning appears to be very similar to what…