We examined the prevalence of comorbidity of dysfluent reading and math skills longitudinally in a representative sample (N = 1,928) and the stability of comorbid and single difficulties from first to fourth grades. The findings indicated that half the children who showed very low performance in one skill also evidenced low or very low performance…

Difficulties with rational numbers have been explained by a natural number bias, where concepts of natural numbers are inappropriately applied to rational numbers. Overcoming this difficulty may require a radical restructuring of previous knowledge. In order to capture this development, we examined third- to fifth-grade students' understanding of…

The main aim of this article was to investigate the educational potential of a game-based math game competition to engage students in training rational numbers. Finnish fourth (n = 59; M[subscript age] = 10.36) and sixth graders (n = 105; M[subscript age] = 12.34) participated in a math game competition relying on intra-classroom cooperation and…

Many people have serious difficulties in understanding rational numbers, limiting their ability to interpret and make use of them in modern daily life. This also leads to later difficulties in learning more advanced mathematical content. In this study, novel tasks are used to measure 263 late primary school students' spontaneous focusing on…

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…

Background: Large-scale cross-national studies designed to measure student achievement use different social, cultural, economic and other background variables to explain observed differences in that achievement. Prior to their inclusion into a prediction model, these variables are commonly scaled into latent background indices. To allow…

This study examined whether the degree to which bullying is normative in the classroom would moderate associations between "intra"- (cognitive and affective empathy, self-efficacy beliefs) and "inter"personal (popularity) factors and defending behavior. Participants were 6,708 third- to fifth-grade children (49% boys;…

This longitudinal study aimed to investigate the extent to which primary school text comprehension predicts mathematical word problem-solving skills in secondary school among Finnish students. The participants were 224 fourth graders (9-10 years old at the baseline). The children's text-reading fluency, text comprehension and basic calculation…

Research Findings: The purpose of this study was to identify the developmental trajectories of impulsive behavior among 378 Finnish children who were followed from kindergarten to 4th grade. In addition to ratings of children's impulsivity, the analyses included measures of motivation, cognitive skills, socioemotional adjustment, and…

Although knowledge on the psychosocial (mal)adjustment of bully-victims, children who bully others and are victimised by others, has been increasing, the findings have been principally gained utilising a single method to identify bully-victims. The present study examined the psychosocial adjustment of bully-victims (as compared with pure bullies…

In Finland, schools' effectiveness in fostering the development of transversal skills is evaluated through large-scale learning to learn (LTL) assessments. This article presents how LTL skills--general cognitive competences and learning-related motivational beliefs--develop during primary school and how they predict pupils' CPS skills at the end…

A 2-year, participatory action research school health study focused on developing components for home-school partnerships to support children's health learning process. Two intervention schools implemented strengthened health and collaboration-orientated activities; two control schools followed the national core curriculum without extracurricular…

Social psychologists have suggested that language-based ideologies related to "stereotype threat" (i.e. variations in performance-based on ability perceptions of language groups) may affect students' academic achievement regardless of school language support. However, it is unclear whether efforts to support students' first language…

Learning objects (LOs), generally understood as digital learning resources shared and accessed through the Internet and reused in multiple learning contexts, have aroused enthusiasm in the field of educational technology. Although LOs offer many possibilities to change educational practices, there is a lack of empirical evidence on the…