Conscientiousness as a Predictor of the Gender Gap in Academic Achievement.

In recent decades, female students have been more successful in higher education than their male counterparts in the United States and other industrialized countries. A promising explanation for this gender gap are differences in personality, particularly higher levels of conscientiousness among women. Using Structural Equation Modeling on data from 4719 Dutch university students, this study examined to what extent conscientiousness can account for the gender gap in achievement.

How Do I Get on With my Teacher? Affective Student-Teacher Relationships and the Religious Match Between Students and Teachers in Islamic Primary Schools.

Background: Despite the growing body of research concerning affective relationships between teachers and ethnic minority students, very little is known about student-teacher relationship (STR) quality for religious minority students. Many Islamic schools have a mixed workforce consisting of both Muslim and non-Muslim teachers. This means that the quality of religiously congruent and religiously incongruent STRs can be directly compared.

Classroom Predictors of National Belonging: The Role of Interethnic Contact and Teachers' and Classmates' Diversity Norms.

Schools can be important for the development of national belonging in students with immigrant backgrounds. Following Contact Theory and prior research on diversity norms, this cross-sectional survey study examined if intergroup contact and perceived diversity norms of teachers and classmates predicted national belonging in ethnic minority (i.e.

High-ability students in pull-out programs and regular classes: A longitudinal study on perceived social relationships in two settings.

Although there is wide support for the academic benefits of pull-out programs aimed at high-ability students, it remains unclear how attending these programs is associated with social outcomes. This one-year, three-wave longitudinal study examined the perceived social relationships with teachers and peers of 245 high-ability students in both their pull-out programs and regular classes and included 429 regular students as a reference group. Results of latent growth curve analyses revealed that high-ability students perceived their relationships with regular peers and teachers as equally positive as regular students.

Test- or judgement-based school track recommendations: Equal opportunities for students with different socio-economic backgrounds?

Background: There are concerns that school track recommendations that are mostly based on teachers' judgements of students' performance ('judgement-based recommendations') are more biased by students' SES than school track recommendations that are mostly based on standardized test results ('test-based recommendations'). A recent policy reform of the Dutch educational system has provided us the unique opportunity to compare the effects of students' SES on these two types of track recommendations.

Aims: The aim of this study was to examine the differences between test-based and judgement-based recommendations regarding the direct and indirect effect of students' SES at student level and school level.

Differentiated need support by teachers: Student-specific provision of autonomy and structure and relations with student motivation.

Background: According to self-determination theory, teachers can support their students' engagement in learning by providing autonomy support and structure. Within classes, however, there appears to be great diversity in the extent to which students experience autonomy and structure.

Aims: This study aimed to investigate the degree to which teachers' perceptions of student-specific autonomy support and structure differ between students in their class and whether differentiated need support predicts students' motivation.

Self-Esteem and National Identification in Times of Islamophobia: A Study Among Islamic School Children in The Netherlands.

Despite strong debates about the role of Islamic education in Western societies, very little is known about the ways these schools can affect how Muslim children feel about these societies and themselves. This research examined how the self-esteem and national identification of Islamic schools students in a non-Muslim country (N = 707; M = 10.02; SD = 1.

Achievement goal profiles and developments in effort and achievement in upper elementary school.

Background: The multiple goal perspective posits that certain combinations of achievement goals are more favourable than others in terms of educational outcomes.

Aims: This study aimed to examine longitudinally whether students' achievement goal profiles and transitions between profiles are associated with developments in self-reported and teacher-rated effort and academic achievement in upper elementary school.

Sample: Participants were 722 fifth-grade students and their teachers in fifth and sixth grade (N = 68).

Teacher attitudes toward dyslexia: effects on teacher expectations and the academic achievement of students with dyslexia.

The present study examined teacher attitudes toward dyslexia and the effects of these attitudes on teacher expectations and the academic achievement of students with dyslexia compared to students without learning disabilities. The attitudes of 30 regular education teachers toward dyslexia were determined using both an implicit measure and an explicit, self-report measure. Achievement scores for 307 students were also obtained.