Formal English language education in Taiwan now starts at Year 3 in primary school, with an emphasis on communicative proficiency. In addition to formal education, attending English cram schools after regular school has become a common phenomenon for Taiwanese students. The main purpose of gaining additional reinforcement in English cram schools…

The Norwegian language has two written standards, Bokmål (majority variety) and Nynorsk (minority variety), and children receive their schooling in one or other of them. Pupils schooled in Nynorsk acquire the Bokmål variety simultaneously through extracurricular exposure and thus develop what may be termed "bidialectal literacy". In this…

Background: School environments providing a wide selection of physical activities and sufficient facilities are both essential and formative to ensure young people adopt active lifestyles. We describe the association between school opportunities for physical activity and socioeconomic factors measured by low-income cutoff index, school size…

Applying latent class and regression techniques to data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (n = 997), this study explored the potential academic advantages of time spent in out-of-school activities. Of particular interest was how these potential advantages played out in relation to the timing and duration of activity…

International studies have shown that interest in science and technology among primary and secondary school students in Western European countries is low and seems to be decreasing. In many countries outside Europe, and especially in developing countries, interest in science and technology remains strong. As part of the large-scale European Union…

Out-of-class learning constitutes an important context for human development, and active engagement in out-of-class activities is associated with successful language development. However, not all out-of-class experiences are equally beneficial to learning, and it is of paramount importance to understand what quality out-of-class English language…

A literature review identified 12 strategies that have been empirically linked to improvements in graduate employability. A survey methodology was used to investigate self-reported use and/or perspectives on these strategies among four stakeholder groups. The following questions were asked: to students--What strategies are you using to improve…

The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to examine the relationship between college experience at a HBCU and students' critical thinking skills. The theoretical framework included Astin's theory of involvement and Facione's taxonomy of critical thinking. The research site was a private four-year HBCU in the state of Alabama. The…

Despite years of attention, gender inequity persists in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Female STEM faculty, positive social interactions, and enrollment in advanced STEM secondary coursework are supportive factors in promoting female students' persistence in STEM fields. To address the gap in understanding these factors,…

The purpose of this study is to investigate how learner variables, including language proficiency, motivation, effort, and family background affect Iranian language learners' EFL vocabulary strategy use? Subjects in this study were 450 EFL students (N = 450) at Payam e Noor University, Borazjan, Iran. After a placement test, they were grouped into…

The prediction of creative performance from ideation has shown promise, but questions remain. In this study, the relationship of ideational behavior and the creative performance of elementary school children (N = 255) was examined across 6 domains of creative performance: science, mathematics, technology, fine arts, music, and writing.…

The paper presents the results of a large-scale study on the scope of extracurricular education services and an assessment of the potential role of education outside the classroom and informal education in solving children's socialization issues. The study was carried out by questioning students as consumers of education services. A new instrument…

Prior research suggesting that longer bilingual experience benefits inhibitory control and monitoring has been criticized for a lack of control over confounding variables. We addressed this issue by using a propensity-score matching procedure that enabled us to match early and late bilinguals on 18 confounding variables--for example, demographic…

Background: Intrapersonal and external factors, including social pressures and the desire for acceptance from peers, influence sexual activity among adolescents. This study examined how personal characteristics, risky behaviors, normative beliefs, household factors, and engagement in extracurricular activities were related to high school freshman…

This paper analyzes the main problems and difficulties in current college English oral English teaching practice, illustrates the relationship between oral English teaching and cross-cultural communication competence. On the one hand, cross-cultural communication plays an essential role in oral English teaching; besides, oral English teaching…