It is well-documented that academic achievement is associated with students' self-perceptions of their academic abilities, that is, their academic self-concepts. However, low-achieving students may apply self-protective strategies to maintain a favorable academic self-concept when evaluating their academic abilities. Consequently, the relation…

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…

This study examined changes in pupils' agency beliefs and control expectancy from grade four to grade six, and whether they were associated with studying in a class with a special emphasis on a subject as compared to studying in a class without emphasis. After controlling for the effects of mother's education, prior school achievement, and gender,…

This study investigated the cross-lagged associations between teacher-student relationships and problem behaviors in a sample of 440 Finnish students (half of them identified as being at risk of reading difficulties). The degree to which these associations were moderated by a child's gender, academic performance, risk for reading difficulties,…

School climate which is strongly related with the students' outcomes includes some of the components, among which disciplinary climate in schools was expressed as the dominant one. Safety and order in schools which is strongly related with the physical and emotional security stated as one of the indicator of disciplinary climate in schools. In…

Finnish students have been among the world's strongest performers on standardized assessments throughout the past decade. Consequently, educators and scholars are interested in how to explain such results. A common explanation, as seen on social media, is that Finnish educators do not regularly assess their students. This study explores educators'…

This longitudinal study investigated the associations among children's externalizing problems, task-avoidant behavior, and academic performance in early school years. The participants were 586 children (43% girls, 57% boys). Data pertaining to externalizing problems (teacher ratings) and task-avoidant behaviors (mother and teacher ratings) were…

The aim is to describe the development of achievement in compulsory school in the Nordic countries from the 1960s. The study relies on published results concerning literacy and numeracy from the international large-scale assessments between 1964 and 2012. Among others, the following conclusions are drawn: (1) for most countries, a small but…

This study was designed to investigate friend influence on academic achievement and task avoidance during middle childhood in a sample of 794 participants in 397 stable same-sex friendship dyads (205 girl dyads and 192 boy dyads) from four municipalities in Finland: two in Central Finland, one in Western Finland, and one in Eastern Finland.…

Early childhood education and school readiness is essential to preparing children to succeed in an increasingly competitive global economy. Compared to other countries, however, the United States lags far behind on preschool, trailing a number of other countries in enrollment, investment, and quality. In February 2013, however, President Barack…

Although Finland currently holds the top ratings in international comparisons ranking education and children's health, there is evidence that the health of Finnish adolescents is being threatened by increasing obesity, serious risk behavior, and other health problems. In addition, subjective well-being at school is regarded as low by students.…

A latent variable structural model was constructed to test the relations among mothers' and fathers' parenting self-efficacy (PSE), their loneliness, and their child's peer-evaluated social competence, self-evaluated loneliness, teacher-evaluated motivational orientation, and academic skills. In order to do this, first the Self-Efficacy for…

This investigation of the possible effects of using calculators in mathematics teaching was based on an analysis of the cognitive and affective aims of mathematics education in the nine-year comprehensive school in Finland attended by all children aged seven through fifteen. The experiment consisted of a comparison of two fourth-grade classes…