Gender differences in elementary school students' fraction learning: roles of spatial ability and mathematical anxiety.

Aim: In this study, we examined gender differences in fraction learning and explored potential underlying mechanisms.

Methods: The mediating effects of spatial ability and mathematical anxiety on gender differences in fraction learning were tested in elementary school students. A total of 165 sixth-grade students (83 girls) from public elementary schools participated in the study.

Trajectories of Perceived Parental Psychological Control and the Longitudinal Associations with Chinese Adolescents' School Adjustment across High School Years.

Past research supports the detrimental effects of parental psychological control on adolescent school adjustment in both emotional and academic domains. However, how psychological control changes during adolescence, and how such developmental course is related to adolescent psychological well-being and academic functioning are unclear. The direction of effects between parenting and child behaviors is also inconclusive.

Two Morphological Awareness Components Have Different Roles in Chinese Word Reading Development for Primary Schoolers.

Morphological awareness is multi-factorial by nature and consists of general morphological knowledge and morphological meaning analysis; the first refers to the recognition and manipulation of morphological structures, and the second refers to the inference of word semantics by utilizing morphological knowledge. Contrasting the roles of two morphological awareness components in word reading could help resolve the controversy about whether morphological awareness could independently contribute to Chinese word reading. Thus, the study explored how morphological awareness components contributed to word reading development in Chinese context.

Cascaded processing in naming and reading: Evidence from Chinese and Korean.

Previous studies have shown that the ability to simultaneously process multiple items when these appear in serial format (called "cascaded" processing) is an important element of reading fluency. However, most evidence in support of cascaded processing comes from studies conducted in European orthographies. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to examine whether the same findings generalize to nonlinear and nonalphabetic orthographies (i.

Responses to academic stress mediate the association between sleep difficulties and depressive/anxiety symptoms in Chinese adolescents.

Objective: Sleep difficulties are pervasive in Chinese adolescents, which exert aversive influence on their emotional health. However, the underlying mechanisms of this effect remain unclear. This study addressed whether stress responses mediate the concurrent and prospective relationship between sleep difficulties and depressive/anxiety symptoms in Chinese adolescents.

Influence of parental academic involvement on the achievement goal orientations of high school students in China: A latent growth model study.

Background: Many studies on parental involvement in their children's education have limitations in cross-sectional designs in spite of examining the relationships between this involvement and achievement goal orientations. Thus, little is known about whether and how parental involvement affects achievement goal orientations over time.

Aims: This study examines the influence of parental involvement on achievement goal orientations among Chinese high school students.

Parental psychological control and academic functioning in Chinese high school students: A short-term longitudinal study.

The present study aimed to examine the reciprocal relationship between parental psychological control and students' academic functioning in urban China. Participants were 731 Chinese high school students in grade 10 (356 boys; M  = 15.64 years, SD = 0.

The Structure of Speed of Processing Across Cultures.

We examined whether a general processing factor emerges when using response times for cognitive processing tasks and whether such a factor is valid across three different cultural groups (Chinese, Canadian, and Greek). Three hundred twenty university students from Canada ( = 115), China ( = 110), and Cyprus ( = 95) were assessed on an adaptation of the Das-Naglieri Cognitive Assessment System (D-N CAS; Naglieri & Das, 1997). Three alternative models were contrasted: a distinct abilities processing speed model (Model 1) that is dictated by the latent four cognitive factors of planning, attention, simultaneous and successive (PASS) processing, a unitary ability processing speed model (Model 2) that is dictated by the response time nature of all measures, and a bifactor model (Model 3) which included the latent scores of Models 1 and 2 and served as the full model.

Different Subcomponents of Executive Functioning Predict Different Growth Parameters in Mathematics: Evidence From a 4-Year Longitudinal Study With Chinese Children.

Executive functioning (EF), an umbrella term used to represent cognitive skills engaged in goal-directed behaviors, has been found to be a unique predictor of mathematics performance. However, very few studies have examined how the three core EF subcomponents (inhibition, shifting, and working memory) predict the growth parameters (intercept and slope) in mathematics skills and even fewer studies have been conducted in a non-Western country. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine how inhibition, shifting, and working memory predict the growth parameters in arithmetic accuracy and fluency in a group of Chinese children ( = 179) followed from Grade 2 (mean age = 97.

Developmental Trajectories of Attention in Typically Developing Chinese Children: A Four-Wave Longitudinal Study.

We conducted a 4-year longitudinal study to investigate trajectories of attention in a sample of 145 Chinese children. The Test of Everyday Attention was administered and latent growth modeling was used to capture developmental trajectories. We found that children's selective attention showed a linear increase, whereas attentional control and sustained attention increased rapidly then slowed down over 4 years.

Is processing of symbols and words influenced by writing system? Evidence from Chinese, Korean, English, and Greek.

We examined cross-linguistic effects in the relationship between serial and discrete versions of digit naming and word reading. In total, 113 Mandarin-speaking Chinese children, 100 Korean children, 112 English-speaking Canadian children, and 108 Greek children in Grade 3 were administered tasks of serial and discrete naming of words and digits. Interrelations among tasks indicated that the link between rapid naming and reading is largely determined by the format of the tasks across orthographies.

The Role of Mothers' Child-Based Worth in Their Affective Responses to Children's Performance.

This research examined whether American and Chinese mothers' tendencies to base their worth on children's performance contributes to their affective responses to children's performance. Study 1 used daily interviews to assess mothers' warmth (vs. hostility) and children's school performance (N = 197; M  = 12.

Differential mesolimbic and prefrontal alterations during reward anticipation and consummation in positive and negative schizotypy.

Schizotypy is associated with anhedonia. However, previous findings on the neural substrates of anhedonia in schizotypy are mixed. In the present study, we measured the neural substrates associated with reward anticipation and consummation in positive and negative schizotypy using functional MRI.

Multivariate Neural Representations of Value during Reward Anticipation and Consummation in the Human Orbitofrontal Cortex.

The role of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) in value processing is a focus of research. Conventional imaging analysis, where smoothing and averaging are employed, may not be sufficiently sensitive in studying the OFC, which has heterogeneous anatomical structures and functions. In this study, we employed representational similarity analysis (RSA) to reveal the multi-voxel fMRI patterns in the OFC associated with value processing during the anticipatory and the consummatory phases.

Mothers' Goals for Adolescents in the United States and China: Content and Transmission.

This research examined children's socialization toward culturally valued goals during adolescence in the United States and China. 223 mothers listed and ranked their 5 most important goals for their children (mean age = 12.85 years).

The role of rapid naming in reading development and dyslexia in Chinese.

We examined in a series of studies the mechanism that may underlie the relationship between Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) and reading (accuracy and fluency) in Mandarin Chinese. Study 1 examined the "arbitrary" connections hypothesis in a sample of Grade 2 children (N=182). Study 2 contrasted the phonological processing, orthographic processing, and speed of processing hypotheses in a sample of Grade 2 children followed until Grade 5 (N=72).

Why are Chinese mothers more controlling than American mothers? "My child is my report card".

Chinese parents exert more control over children than do American parents. The current research examined whether this is due in part to Chinese parents' feelings of worth being more contingent on children's performance. Twice over a year, 215 mothers and children (Mage  = 12.

Latent factor structure of the Das-Naglieri Cognitive Assessment System: a confirmatory factor analysis in a Chinese setting.

This study aims to measure the psychometric properties of the Das-Naglieri Cognitive Assessment System (D-N CAS) and to determine its clinical utility in a Chinese context. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to examine the construct validity of the Chinese version of the D-N CAS among a group of 567, normally developed children. Test-retest reliability was examined in a random subsample of 30 children at a five-week interval.