This study aimed at developing a valid and reliable scale to determine middle school students' sense of school belonging. In this respect, the relevant literature on the concept of belonging was reviewed, interviews were conducted with field experts and middle school students to determine items to be included in the scale. An item pool was created…

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of twelve-week service training on self-confidence in racquet sports. The universe of the study consists of the secondary schools in the province of Van, and the sample consists of 60 students from 10 to 14 years of age in Hasan Ali Yücel Secondary School in Van and TOBB Secondary School.…

The Bullying and Cyberbullying Behaviors Questionnaire--Short Form (BCBQ-SF) allows students to report their victimization and bullying behaviors. The questionnaire was completed by 1,003 middle school students (6th-9th grade; M[subscript age] = 12.78, SD = 1.43). Factor analyses supported an integrated two-factor structure with acceptable…

Middle school students participating in energy-monitoring activities guided by their teachers during 2009-2011 gained (p < 0.05) in content knowledge and became more positive in their dispositions toward STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). No comparison group data were gathered for this initial study. Activities were…

To elucidate the processes underlying the cultural construction of adolescence, this research examined youth's stereotypes about teens in Hong Kong and Chongqing, a relatively less developed city in Mainland China. Youth (N = 1,269) reported on their teen stereotypes and problem behavior in the fall and spring of 7th grade. Youth in Hong Kong (vs.…

This study examines the impact of students' self-directed learning (SDL) ability and parental expenditures for shadow education, and other factors, on academic achievement in South Korea during the pandemic. Busan Education Longitudinal Study panel data for 2019 (pre-COVID) and 2020-2021 (COVID) were utilized. National exam scores of middle and…

Today's modern landscape of leaders fails to accurately represent societal diversity. This inequity, as in all inequities, is not accidental, but instead the results of socially constructed norms that begin in childhood. In this dissertation, I question how internalized norms of white supremacy and patriarchy perpetuate racial and gender aligned…

Integrating sophisticated graphical analysis skills as they learn science is essential for K-12 students and emphasized in current standards. In this study, we iteratively designed a Graphing Integration Inventory (GII) over a three-year period, while also supporting students to develop their capabilities to use graphs to learn science content in…

The current article addressed middle school (13-15 years old) students' science-related career awareness (SCA) and aimed to determine the effects of a longitudinal intervention, which focused on integrating career education into science teaching, using a pre- and post-test design. During the intervention, five teaching/learning modules (TLMs) were…

The number of children who are obese and overweight continues as a public health challenge despite decades of research. The purpose of this article is to describe trends in body mass index (BMI) percentile data collected from 11- to 14-year-old school children in 2008-2009 and 2015-2016 in rural Wisconsin. The BMI percentiles from 1,347 students…

Although parental monitoring often reduces youth risk behaviors, some research on bullying perpetration has found that parental monitoring deters bullying while other research has found a null effect or a positive effect. We investigated the bidirectional relationships of bullying perpetration and parental monitoring from age 11 to 18 years,…

Investigations of differences between gifted and nongifted students have examined cognitive abilities, including intelligence quotient (IQ) differences, higher order thinking skills, and divergent thinking (DT). However, little is known about differences in problem finding (PF). Moreover, previous works on gifted students have never explored…

The aim of this study was to identify independent risk and protective factors associated with self-reported suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STB) among young adolescents by examining self-report data on mental health, substance abuse, violence involvement, social and economic challenges and supports, physical health and demographics in relation to…

This study identifies students' academic trajectories in the middle grades relative to a set of college readiness benchmarks. We apply math and reading college readiness benchmarks to rich longitudinal data for more than 360,000 students across the nation. Student-level and school-level demographic characteristics significantly predict academic…

Providing instruction in multiple languages has the potential to simultaneously help both native English speakers and English learners to develop language proficiency. "Dual language programs" can help native English speakers develop proficiency in a second language and English learners develop proficiency in both their native language…