Understanding educational aspiration is pivotal for studying access to and success in higher education, given its influence on academic, occupational, and societal trajectories. Yet, aspiration is a challenging topic to research, in part because of its complex definitions, measurements, and contexts. This review focuses on the educational…

Background: Hands-on activities and makerspaces have rapidly gained popularity in recent years. One of the reasons for this is that they have the potential to stimulate interest and identity development in STEM or STEAM. Taiwan has organized many technology and science competitions for students to raise their interest and creativity in the past…

Twenty-first century chemistry education researchers reported challenges in chemistry education pertaining to high school chemistry teaching-learning outcomes. Even though all studies intended to improve chemistry teaching-learning outcomes, unfortunately the impact of chemistry education research found not to be much encouraging. A few of these…

The investigation has demonstrated that the science teaching strategy employed moderates the interest of students in learning the subject, along with academic achievement. In this article we used a mixed method design in a sample of secondary education students (n = 57) to examine the effect of the participative teaching approach in attitudes…

Based on self-determination theory and achievement goal theory, this study provided a serial multiple mediation model that examined how students' perceptions of teacher autonomy support (PTAS) relate to different achievement motivations (mastery and performance-approach goals), and further associate with students' intellectual risk-taking (IRT)…

Many prosocial behaviors involve social risks such as speaking out against a popular opinion, bias, group norm, or authority. However, little is known about whether adolescents' prosocial tendencies develop over time with their perceptions of social risks. This accelerated longitudinal study used within-subject growth-curve analyses to test the…

This study examines the relationship between perceived stress, nonverbal cognitive functioning, and statewide academic scores in both Latinx and European American elementary students in rural school districts. A total of 44 third graders participated in the study, including 13 Latinx students and 31 European American (EA) students. Perceived…

School bullying is associated with a host of unfavorable psychosocial outcomes, even as victims enter college. Thus, the identification of modifiable protective factors remains an important goal of psychological research in the context of resilience theory. The purpose of this study was to examine the moderating effect of natural mentoring…

Testing has been a contested aspect of education for decades. The way in which testing, standardized tests, and student motivations correlate is a separate issue. This action research study investigates the relationship between pre-tests and students' perception of their personal growth. Three classes of 11th grade U.S. History were utilized to…

Recommendations for teaching the nature of science (NOS) are grounded in a deficit view of students and/or the public--wherein people accept pseudoscientific claims, particularly about evolution, because they do not adequately understand what counts as being "scientific." Under the deficit view, correct views of science are defined by…

In 2013, a bivariate designed instrument of personality descriptors was given to a district school system to correlate difference between the teacher population and that of the administration. Results indicated a correlated population grouping where the two groups were similar in generalized personality constructs. Results indicate the leadership…

The purpose of this predictive correlational study was to determine if a predictive relationship existed between teacher-student rapport, as perceived by students, and biology achievement scores. The Teacher-Student Likert Scale Questionnaire was used to measure students' perceptions of rapport with their science instructor. Students' scores on…

This mixed-method double-blind study was designed to examine the relationship and impact of mindset, grit, and the influence of family members in the postsecondary goal selection process of students in one rural high school in Berks County, Pennsylvania. The population for this study consisted of twelfth grade students (N = 135). The study was…

School engagement is a key factor in maintaining school attendance and in diminishing dropout rates. In this study, four dimensions that compose school engagement--cognitive, affective, behavioral, and agentic--were evaluated with a self-report questionnaire (Veiga, 2013), and comparisons between rural and urban schools were made. A total of 802…

This study explored the relationship between school level and the psychosocial construct of an academic mindset operationalized on the Likert-style Project for "Educational Research That Scales" (PERTS) instrument; widely used in testing academic mindset interventions at the classroom level. Analyses were conducted using existing school…