Research on sex differences in children's achievement orientations has suggested that girls have less confidence in their ability than boys, especially among bright children. To examine how sex differences in achievement orientation vary across achievement levels, 250 fifth grade children completed a questionnaire which assessed their preference…

Adults viewed silent videotapes of high- and low-achieving children and estimated the level of understanding revealed by each child. Observers accurately differentiated between understanding and not understanding in spontaneous and deliberate conditions. In the spontaneous conditions, high achievers were perceived as understanding more than low…

Two experiments investigated the effects of four teaching treatments on sixth graders' learning of an ecology curriculum. Recitation was more significant in improving learning than the other treatments--probing or followup questioning; redirection of a question to another student; and higher cognitive questioning. (Author/CP)

This study observed 36 fourth-grade teachers and randomly targeted students in each class to see if teacher-student interaction patterns which facilitated low-level mathematics learning were the same as those which facilitated high-level learning for boys and girls. Results are discussed. (Author/MT)

Mean response times and slope of response times were correlated with intelligence and achievement for 94 sixth-graders. Mean response time reliability was greater than that of slope, and correlated significantly with IQ and achievement. Speed of processing information generalized across experimental tasks and reliably indicated intellectual…

Instructions involving high-level questions and answers either were or were not given to fifth and sixth graders in three learning environments: cooperative, competitive, or independent. Students who received the instructions showed greater gains in recognizing and generating high-level questions. (GDC)

Studied the ability of logical test design (LTD) to predict student performance in reading Roman numerals for 211 sixth graders in Mexico City tested on Roman numeral items varying on LTD-related and non-LTD-related variables. The LTD-related variable item iterativity was found to be the best predictor of item difficulty. (SLD)

Fifty-five males with learning disabilities and 55 average-achieving males in grades 6-7 studied paired associates of varying difficulty levels, through image construction or pairing rehearsal. Regardless of item type or presentation rate, both groups of students benefited from imagery instructions, with great similarity in between-condition…

A culturally and economically diverse group of 361 urban seventh graders rated their perceptions for liking and difficulty of core academic subjects and their attributions for mathematics test performance. Results suggest that boys and girls are not significantly different in their perceptions and in their attributions for lack of success. (SLD)

Academic risk taking--the selection of schoollike tasks ranging in difficulty and probability of success--was examined for 602 students in grades 4, 6, and 8 in Taiwan. Results of a self-report measure of tolerance for failure and a risk-taking task are discussed concerning self-enhancement versus self-assessment goals, metacognitive skills, and…