This study investigated students' attitudes towards physics in Nine Year Basic Education (9YBE) in Rwanda. Data were collected from 380 students from Kayonza and Gasabo Districts using a physics attitudes test. Findings illustrated that more than a quarter of participants felt that learning physics is boring. About 39% think that the subject of…

Many school systems ask teachers to assess and report upon aspects of student performance beyond academic achievement. In Ontario, K-12 teachers assess a common set of six Learning Skills and Work Habits. How well teachers are able to undertake these assessments is not well studied. This study examines Grade 9 and 12 report card data from two…

Students of middling achievement who achieve intermediate results on the Basic Competence Test, a national high-stakes entrance examination in Taiwan, experience the highest test anxiety. The present study explored why such students experienced greater test anxiety and the source of that anxiety. A questionnaire survey was administered to 5,220…

Previous research has shown that adolescent peer groups play a role in maintaining and exacerbating demographic differences in achievement. However, there is still limited knowledge about the malleable factors that contribute to these achievement disparities. This short-term longitudinal study examined one such malleable factor--namely, perceived…

Mathematics as a discipline is considered as one of the most difficult subjects among Filipino learners. This study was conducted in a public national high school in the Mandaue City Division, Cebu, Philippines. The respondents were the 177 Grade 9 students enrolled in mathematics. These respondents were selected using probability random sampling.…

Discourses about the value of effort and hard work are prevalent and powerful in many western societies and educational contexts. Yet, paradoxically, in these same contexts effortless achievement is often lauded, and in certain discourses is heralded as the pinnacle of success and a sign of genius. In this paper we interrogate discourses about…