While in most countries today women attain higher levels of education than men, on average, they are less likely than men to be employed and they earn less. There are many reasons why these gender gaps open; some are apparent in secondary school. For example, even when they outperform boys academically, girls are less likely than their male peers…

The present study focused on changes in volunteering over time among Italian adults and examined a model in which motives from self-determination theory (SDT) were hypothesized to influence a series of social-cognitive processes including self-efficacy judgments and constructs from the theory of planned behavior (TPB). The study was conducted with…

The authors examined the confidence of teachers from Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, and the United States (N = 1,375) to address civic topics with their students. The authors also used differential item functioning models to examine responses to items from the Teacher Confidence Scale of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational…

Analysis of the university careers of students who are training to become primary school teachers has shown that a certain number have real difficulty in passing examinations in the scientific and methodological fields. This paper uses both objective and subjective data to analyse the levels of competence in this cultural field, and the propensity…

In this study, 100 Italian eighth graders were divided into two groups to compare the effects of two instructional interventions--the first based on problem-solving through discussion, the second on individual problem-solving--on students' learning of two historical topics (World War I and the economic boom), interest and self-perception of…

Teachers' self-efficacy beliefs were examined as determinants of their job satisfaction and students' academic achievement. Over 2000 teachers in 75 Italian junior high schools were administered self-report questionnaires to assess self-efficacy beliefs and their job satisfaction Students' average final grades at the end of junior high school were…