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Studies on learning strategies across cultures in higher education inform the internationalisation of teaching and learning. Previous comparisons relied on geographical generalisations (e.g., "Asian", "Western", "Latin-American") or only variable-centred methods, which can overgeneralise the contexts they represent. Eight learning strategy datasets (ILS; Inventory of Learning patterns of Students) from seven countries (n = 4883) were obtained and (re-)analysed using variable-centred and person-centred (Latent Profile Analysis; LPA) methods. Employing Hofstede's individualism-collectivism and power distance indices as predictors, lower individualism and higher power distance scores corresponded to students' overall combined reporting of meaning-directed, reproduction-directed and application-directed learning strategies. Furthermore, sample LPAs found that less individualistic contexts presented profiles with similar shape (i.e., profiles differed by similar amounts across most learning strategies). More individualistic contexts presented profiles with different shapes (i.e., different profiles preferred different strategies). Multiple "Western" contexts presented profiles that describe the "Asian" and "Latin-American" learner stereotypes. These results question the existence of such stereotypes and point to the usefulness of cultural indicators for making cross-cultural learning strategy comparisons. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Teachers' instructional beliefs and interests in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) are related to holistic, pluralistic, and action-oriented instructional practices in ESD teaching. To explore this hypothesis, we examine teachers' ESD teaching profiles based on their instructional beliefs, interests, and instructional practices in ESD. We apply a mixed method design using a survey (quantitative data) and vignettes with open accompanying questions (qualitative data). Our sample consists of 535 Flemish elementary and secondary school teachers for the scales. A subsample of 187 teachers responded to the vignettes. Our analysis indicates two teachers' ESD teaching profiles: the lower ESD practice-oriented teachers who hold several instructional beliefs about holistic and pluralistic instructional practices, are interested in action-orientation in ESD, but do not apply the practices in class; and the higher ESD practice-oriented teachers who also have varying instructional beliefs about holistic and pluralistic instructional practices but are not very interested in action-orientation in ESD. However, they use holistic, pluralistic, or action-oriented practices in ESD teaching.

This study aims to better understand differences in the decision-making process behind study choices for higher education by investigating the presence of exploration profiles and then explore the explanatory base. To achieve this, we first identified different exploration profiles of students transitioning to higher education (n = 5660), and then investigated whether they were predicted by different student variables (i.e., learning strategies, gender, and educational track) and linked with different outcomes of the decision-making process (i.e., the amount of information acquired regarding higher education, decisional status, and commitment). A latent profile analysis identified three exploration profiles based on the decisional tasks of orientation, self-, broad, and in-depth exploration: passive (35%), moderately active (52%), and highly active explorers (13%). Students' learning strategies (regulation and processing strategies) were associated with these profiles. Students with more effective regulation and processing strategies were more likely to be highly active than passive or moderately active explorers. Female students and students from the technical track were more likely to be found in the highly active profile compared to the moderately active and the passive or moderately active profile, respectively. Finally, highly active explorers had the most favorable outcomes, measured by decisional status, commitment, and amount of information. Based on a substantial dataset, our findings contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the explanatory base of important differences in the study choice making process of students opting for higher education. This may ultimately lead to more fitting support for students in less beneficial profiles.

Since there has been no clear overview of educational practices that benefit high-ability students in mixed-ability classrooms in grades one to six, this review aims to provide insight into the effects of educational practices on the cognitive and affective-motivational learning outcomes of high-ability students. In order to identify these educational practices, we conducted a review of the existing literature, comprising a systematic search of the Education Resources Information Center and Web of Science databases for studies from the last 25 years. Only empirical studies that investigated the impact of interventions were included. Applying these criteria resulted in the inclusion of seventeen studies. Four different educational practices were shown to have a positive impact on cognitive learning outcomes: providing dynamic feedback, enhancing self-regulated learning, adjusting the curriculum and providing differentiated instruction. The impact of educational practices on affective-motivational learning outcomes was inconclusive. Based on this review, we conclude that teachers can help high-ability students in mixed-ability classrooms in grades one to six across various educational contexts using the educational practices reported in this study.

This study tests an integrative model, which delineates how students' academic motivation, academic self-efficacy and learning strategies (processing strategies and regulation strategies) at the end of secondary education impact academic adjustment in the first semester of the first year of higher education (FYHE) and subsequent academic achievement at the end of the FYHE, in two types of HE programmes. More precisely, the present study explores the extent to which the explanatory values of aforementioned determinants of academic adjustment and academic achievement differ across academic (providing more theoretical and scientific education) and professional (offering more vocational education that prepares students for a particular occupation, such as nursing) programmes. Hereto, multiple-group SEM analyses were carried out on a longitudinal dataset containing 1987 respondents (Academic programmes: N=1080, 54.4%; Professional programmes: N=907, 45.6%), using Mplus 8.3. Results indicate differences in the predictive power of determinants under scrutiny between professional and academic contexts. Firstly, learning strategies and motivational variables at the end of secondary education have more predictive power in the prediction of FYHE academic adjustment in the academic programmes than in professional programmes. Secondly, our results indicate that academic adjustment in the first semester of the FYHE influences academic achievement to a bigger extent in professional programmes than in academic programmes. Moreover, these differences across HE contexts were found after controlling for prior education. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Completing questionnaires is a complex task in which multiple cognitive processes play an important role. Despite critiques of the reliability of questionnaires, our research strived to gain more insight into the process of completing questionnaires by using eye-tracking. We investigated how both the question and the categories of answers were being processed and how processing the question influenced the processing of the categories of answers. We also considered the effects of participants' personal characteristics, such as effort and ability. Results showed there were individual differences involved when respondents complete a questionnaire. The respondents spent different amounts of time reading and answering the items, and there were important differences in the quality of processing.

Although self-report questionnaires are widely used, researchers debate whether responses to these types of questionnaires are valid representations of the respondent's actual thoughts and beliefs. In order to provide more insight into the quality of questionnaire data, we aimed to gain an understanding of the processes that impact the completion of self-report questionnaires. To this end, we explored the process of completing a questionnaire by monitoring the eye tracking data of 70 students in higher education. Specifically, we examined the relation between eye movement measurements and the level of internal consistency demonstrated in the responses to the questionnaire. The results indicated that respondents who look longer at an item do not necessarily have more consistent answering behaviour than respondents with shorter processing times. Our findings indicate that eye tracking serves as a promising tool to gain more insight into the process of completing self-report questionnaires.

Educational policy strategies give work-based learning (WBL) and dual learning pathways a prominent role in strengthening student engagement. Given this mounting policy attention, the current study aims to fill a knowledge gap with regard to the relation between WBL and student engagement, particularly within the context of dual pathways combining school- and work-based learning. To this end, we situated student engagement in the wider motivational framework of the self-system model of motivational development (SSMMD) to help theorize its antecedents in students' learning contexts and psychological self-system processes. The main purpose of this study was to test the hypotheses based on the SSMMD within a WBL context and to relate student engagement in WBL to engagement in school-based learning. As most measurements of the elements making up the SSMMD were validated within a school-based learning context, we used confirmatory factor analyses to test the measurement transferability to a WBL context. Our findings show the relevance of applying the SSMMD to the context of WBL, hereby confirming the facilitating or inhibiting role of a WBL context in fulfilling the basic psychological needs of needs of autonomy, relatedness and competence, which in turn supports engagement in WBL. Our findings also show the potential to study work- and school-based learning as two interrelated learning contexts, stimulating researchers, policy makers and practitioners to further study and invest in dual learning pathways that purposefully combine learning in school- and work-based contexts.

Belgium ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2009, which implies that an inclusive education (IE) system at all levels should be realized. Consequently, recent legislation in Flanders (Belgium) aims to reduce the current segregated school system, which has caused some resistance from practitioners. This study examines the way in which leadership that promotes IE can reduce this resistance. Leadership is defined in terms of the dimensions put forward by Robinson and Timperley (2007): (a) providing educational direction; (b) ensuring strategic alignment; (c) creating a community that learns how to improve student success; (d) engaging in constructive problem talk; and (e) selecting and developing smart tools that facilitate IE. Based on case study research in 20 schools (10 primary, 10 secondary), a crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis was conducted to identify (combinations of) leadership dimensions associated with the willingness of school team members to include students with special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream schools. The results reveal that schools in which leaders provide educational direction towards a more inclusive school system, and that engage in constructive problem talk and select and develop smart tools in support of IE, are more willing to include students with SEN.

The social adjustment process is a prominent factor in the literature on the transition to higher education (HE). This vast body of research, however, has predominantly focussed on academically oriented first-year higher education (FYHE) contexts, leaving professionally oriented programs (providing vocational education that prepares students for a particular occupation) rather underexamined. Therefore, this study set out to explore what first-year students in professional HE contexts perceive to be the most important social experiences associated with their adjustment process in the first semester of FYHE. Furthermore, this study examines the extent to which the uncovered key experiences associated with social adjustment are reported at different times. Hereto, drawing on the critical incidents technique, qualitative data were collected from 104 purposively selected freshmen, enrolled in a Flemish (Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) university college which offers professional HE programs, such as social work and nursing. At the start of the second semester of FYHE, these respondents completed 'reflective logs' wherein they reflected on three critical social experiences during their first semester in HE. Firstly, a qualitative content analysis revealed that students report on five overarching themes: (1) dealing with the unknown; (2) establishing a first connection; (3) establishing a deeper connection; (4) support from peers and others; and (5) loneliness. Secondly, a quantitative analysis of code occurrence suggests that these five uncovered themes seem to be more significant at different times in the first semester of FYHE. Implications of the findings for the development of guidance and coaching initiatives are discussed.

In this qualitative study, we explored the opportunities and difficulties experienced by cognitively high-ability students during the transition to higher education. Although high-ability individuals undoubtedly have the cognitive capacity to excel academically, research has demonstrated persistent underachievement among this group of students, and that they may face particular challenges within higher education compared to primary and secondary education. To better understand their experiences, 10 current and former highability students were selected by means of scores on standardized intelligence tests to participate in semi-structured interviews. Results revealed many similarities between the participants. The majority of the participants reported insufficient study skills and not knowing what was expected of them as obstacles during their transition to higher education. They also cited a lack of challenge in previous schooling as a source of transitional difficulties. On-time entry into higher education, good study skills, and clear expectations led to a more successful transition. Contextual factors, such as perceived support from the learning environment, seemed to have a facilitating effect on the students' transition experience but did not seem to determine the success of a student's transition on their own.

This study examined the relationship between refutation texts and attention allocation by focusing on the interaction between important reader-and-text characteristics. Specifically, the authors investigated how prior knowledge and text-based interest affect attention allocation on refutation/control statements, topic, and explanatory and concluding sentences in refutation and nonrefutation texts. We employed eye tracking to monitor the reading behavior of 92 students in higher education. The results revealed that during first-pass regressive reading, nonrefutation-text readers, compared with refutation-text readers, read topic sentences longer, indicating the correct scientific information. Concluding sentences, summarizing the correct scientific information, were reread for longer by refutation-text readers. With increasing prior knowledge, refutation texts were read more slowly than nonrefutation texts during first-pass reading. A higher text-based interest increased rereading time in the refutation text and decreased rereading time in the nonrefutation text. This study advances present knowledge in the field by demonstrating that the interaction between text and reader characteristics affects attention allocation in reading and comprehension.

IntroductionSelf-report questionnaires are widely used in high schools and universities to gain insights into students’ learning strategies and enhance the quality of their education. However, it is important to acknowledge the possibility of respondents being inattentive when completing these questionnaires. While reliability analyses are typically performed at the group level, when providing individual feedback, it is crucial that each respondent’s results are reliable. This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of careless response behaviour in a questionnaire concerning student learning.MethodsData analysis encompassed a substantial sample of 12,000+ students in their final two years of secondary education, averaging around 17 years of age. Employing five complementary detection techniques, the study identified instances of careless responding present in the questionnaire data.ResultsOur results underscore a notable prevalence of careless response behaviour among the surveyed students. Application of the five detection techniques revealed a substantial number of instances indicating inattentive responding. Furthermore, the questionnaire’s measurement scales were evaluated for reliability. The study noted the presence of carelessness but observed minimal impact on group-level results.DiscussionThe outcomes of this study hold important implications for using self-report questionnaires in education. The prevalence of careless responding emphasizes the need for scrutinizing individual responses. Despite careless responses, their influence on overall group-level data integrity seems restricted. Nonetheless, the study underscores the importance of cautiously interpreting individual-level outcomes, particularly when using these results for individual feedback.

To date, there has been little agreement on what important facets should be incorporated in quantitative measures of the academic and social first-year experience. Moreover, such scales are typically developed in academic higher education (HE) contexts (i.e., universities providing more theoretical and scientific education), and are disconnected from the experiences of students in professional HE contexts (i.e., university colleges, offering more vocational education that prepares students for practicing a specific occupation, such as social work). The First-year Integration Test (FIT) is a newly developed instrument that aims to map out students’ perceptions of how they are dealing with their academic and social transition in the first semester of HE, and was based on thorough qualitative research in professional HE. In the present study, the psychometric value of FIT is explored. Results show that FIT has good construct validity, and all scales are internally consistent. Also, evidence was found for the convergent, discriminant and criterion-related validity of the instrument. We argue that FIT holds potential as a tool for generating student feedback, as a monitoring tool within an institution’s quality assurance system, and as a valuable research instrument.

IntroductionSince previous research on educational career exploration has mainly been cross-sectional and therefore has been unsuccessful in explaining how this process can change during the final year in secondary education before students make the transition to higher education, this study aimed to examine changes over time in the exploration process. A person-centered research perspective was taken to further deepen the understanding of how different exploration tasks jointly combine into meaningful profiles. In this way, this study tried to gain more insight into why some students go through this process successfully and others do not. Four goals guided this study: identifying exploration profiles of students in Fall and Spring of the final year in secondary school based on four decisional tasks (orientation, self-, broad and in-depth exploration), investigating transitions between exploration profiles across these two timepoints, and examining the role which different antecedents (i.e., academic self-efficacy, academic self-concept, motivation, test anxiety, gender, educational track, socio-economic status) play in explaining both profile membership and transitions between profiles.MethodsUsing self-report questionnaires to measure the exploration tasks and the antecedents in final year students, two cross-sectional samples collected in Fall (n = 9,567) and Spring (n = 7,254), and one longitudinal sample (n = 672) were examined.ResultsLatent profile analyses identified three exploration profiles at both timepoints: passive, moderately active, and highly active explorers. Latent transition analysis showed the moderately active explorers profile to be the most stable profile, while the passive profile was the most variable profile. Academic self-concept, motivation, test anxiety, and gender had an effect on the initial states, while motivation and test anxiety affected the transition probabilities. For both academic self-concept and motivation, students scoring higher were found to be less present in the passive or the moderately active than in the highly active profile. Furthermore, compared to students who remained in the passive profile, higher levels of motivation were associated with a higher probability to transition to the moderately active profile. Next to that, compared to students who remained in the highly active profile, higher levels of motivation were associated with a lower probability to transition to the moderately active profile. Results on anxiety were inconsistent.DiscussionBased on substantial cross-sectional as well as longitudinal data, our findings contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the explanatory base of important differences in the study choice making process of students opting for higher education. This may ultimately lead to more timely and fitting support for students with different exploration profiles.

Holistic and pluralistic instructional beliefs and instructional practices in Education for Sustainable Development are often considered of high importance to foster students' competences. This mixed-method study describes the development and the validation of the Holism-Pluralism in Education for Sustainable Development questionnaire (HPESD-Q) to measure teachers' instructional beliefs and their instructional practices in ESD. The development process includes a survey to choose participants for interviews, review from an expert team, cognitive testing, pilot-testing and the main-run study. Confirmatory factor analysis, reliability and intercorrelations analysis were applied in the validation process. The final version of the HPESD-Q consists of the Instructional Beliefs scales and the Instructional Practices scales. Both have good fit-of-goodness indicators (CLI = 0.992, TLI = 0.9891, RMSEA = 0.030 and CLI = 0.984, TLI = 0.980, RMSEA = 0.043, respectively). The Cronbach's [alpha] for the scales range from 0.90 to 0.97, indicating good internal consistency, while the intercorrelations indicate good discriminant validity. The results indicate the potential of the questionnaire for research and practice in ESD.

The aim of this study is to provide -- first theoretically and, subsequently, through an empirical analysis -- a rationale for including the concept of overexcitability in talent research, beyond the five-factor model personality traits. Moreover, the empirical part of this study makes use of an innovative statistical method to address the problem of a frequentist approach to statistics in complex trait models which are based on personality questionnaire data. This study offers insight into the differential significance of overexcitability in relation to the established personality traits, emphasizing Dabrowski's dynamic approach to personality and the key contribution of overexcitability in the developmental process. Furthermore, implications for the field of giftedness are discussed.

Purpose: This study aims to unravel the dynamic nature of the process of self-regulated learning (SRL) of medical specialists as it actually unfolds over time in the authentic clinical environment. Design/methodology/approach: A longitudinal multiple case-study design was used, combining multiple data-collection techniques. Long-term observations offered evidence on overt SRL strategies. Physicians' observed behaviours were used as cues for in loco stimulated recall interviews, asking about covert SRL strategies and their thoughts regarding a situation at hand. Field notes and audiotaped stimulated recall interviews were transcribed verbatim and integrated in a longitudinal database to map SRL as it actually unfolds moment-by-moment. The transcripts were analysed from an inter- and intra-individual perspective using Nvivo 12. Findings: Results show a variety of strategies that initiate, advance and evaluate the process of SRL. Different SRL strategies not included in contemporary frameworks on SRL are found and classified as a new category which the authors labelled "learning readiness". Exemplary for an SRL strategy in this category is awareness of learning needs. Results show that SRL in the clinical environment is found as an interrelated, dynamic process unfolding in time with feedback loops between different SRL strategies. Performance is found to play a leading role in driving SRL. Originality/value: This study contributes empirically to the conceptual understanding of SRL in the clinical environment. The use of a situated, longitudinal methodology, which goes beyond the common path of retrospective self-report questionnaires, adds to the disentanglement of the process of SRL as it actually unfolds in the work environment.

Research indicates that educational stratification may lead to a lower-track school culture of futility and a less academically-oriented culture among lower-track teachers, leading to both reduced study involvement and lower educational achievement among their students. This study investigated whether an anti-school culture in the lower tracks [in this study, in technical secondary education (TSE; N = 132) in comparison with general secondary education (GSE; N = 356)] has a solid basis that is supported by "personal," ontological differences in intelligence and developmental potential [i.e., overexcitability, according to the theory of positive disintegration (TPD)]. In addition, this study examined the consistency of these results with differences in mathematical and verbal achievement, the use of cognitive processing and metacognitive regulation strategies, and study motivation, as well as differences in the influence of personal competence indicators on the learning approach, all suggesting "contextual," educational influences. A Bayesian analysis was applied to address the problem of a frequentist approach in complex statistical models. This study does not primarily reveal competence differences between both tracks (as indicated by no substantive differences in overexcitability and intelligence between respectively former GSE and TSE students and GSE and TSE boys), but rather substantial differences in verbal and mathematical performance, as well as regulatory/motivational problems among former TSE students, corroborating to some extent the abovementioned consequences of academic differentiation. The results are further elucidated from the perspective of self-determination theory and the TPD.

This study starts from the observation that current empirical research on students' processing strategies in higher education has mainly focused on the use of self-report instruments to measure students' general preferences towards processing strategies. In contrast, there is a rather limited use of more direct and online observation techniques to uncover differences in processing strategies at a task specific level. We based our study on one of the most influential studies in the domain of Students' Approaches to Learning (SAL) (Marton, Dahlgren, Säljö, & Svensson, 1975). In our exploratory experiment we used eye tracking followed by a cued recall to investigate how students use processing strategies in learning from expository text. Nineteen university students participated in the experiment. Results suggested that students in the deep condition did not look longer at the essentials in the text compared with students in the surface condition, but that they processed them in a more deep way. In our sample, students in the surface condition looked longer at facts and details and also reported repeating these facts and details more often. We suggest that the combination of eye tracking followed by a cued recall is a promising tool to investigate students' processing strategies since not all differences in processing strategies are reflected in overt eye movement behaviour. The current methodology allows researchers in the domain of SAL to complement and extend the present knowledge base that has accumulated through years of research with self-report questionnaires and interviews on students' general preferences towards processing strategies.

Much of individual's learning takes place during job performance, implying that professionals engage in self-regulated learning (SRL). This study systematically reviews the current state of the field concerning conceptualisation and operationalisation within research on self-regulation of professional learning - for which we use the acronym "SRpL". Although there is a growing interest for research on SRpL, this study concludes that the field is still in its infancy; not only is empirical research scarce, the field also lacks a common theoretical ground in terms of concept. Different theoretical frameworks are used, which leads to various operationalisations of what is meant by SRpL. An important concern is related to the transferability of frameworks developed for educational settings to the workplace. Analyses beyond mainstream areas, which focus on professionals' SRL during job performance, are becoming increasingly important. This study suggests conceptual handles and proposes methodologies for future research.

Background: Internships are highly relevant learning experiences for engineering students. However, such practice-based learning settings must be carefully designed to allow their learning potential to unfold. Purpose: Exploring the job demands-control-support (JDCS) model, this study aimed to investigate how job demands, job control, and social support affect interns' use of different learning strategies. Method: The study utilized data collected from a sample of engineering students (n = 118) who completed a required internship during their degree. The data were analyzed using a structural equation modeling approach including latent factors. Results: Job demands were found to be a relevant and significant driver of students' shared regulation (e.g., asking for feedback), self-regulation (e.g., self-directed use of codified information), efforts to relate theory to practice (e.g., connecting workplace experience with theoretical knowledge), and the absence of avoidance of learning (e.g., lack of adaptation to work situations), but not of external regulation (e.g., asking for help to solve problems). Job control, however, was not found to be a positive or significant driver of student learning. Social support was found to be a relevant and significant predictor of external and shared regulation but not of the other learning activities. Conclusions: This study provided mixed findings regarding key hypotheses central to the JDCS model, generating rather poor evidence supporting it. In fact, job demands, job control, and social support exhibited much less explanatory power than expected for engineering students' learning during internships.

Supporting first-year students to adjust to their new academic environment is a crucial task in higher education. Investigating students' perceptions of fit between secondary and higher education could give higher education institutions valuable information for student feedback and support, when captured in a reliable and valid way. This study examines the construct validity, reliability, and criterion-related validity of the Students' Perceived Fit Questionnaire (SPFQ) by using a longitudinal dataset (N = 930, first-year students). The results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis supported a three-factor structure measuring students' perceptions of: 1) the extent to which secondary education prepared them for higher education in terms of content knowledge; 2) resemblance in the teaching approach between secondary and higher education, and 3) the need to adapt to their higher education study programme. Concerning the criterion-related validity, it was found that first-year students who experienced similarities in teaching approach are more likely to persist in their studies. Furthermore, our results indicated that first-year students who experienced less need to adapt to their higher education study programme felt more self-efficacious regarding their own learning and, consequently, were more likely to persist in their studies.

The advantage of comparative judgment is that it is particularly suited to assess multidimensional and complex constructs as text quality. This is because assessors are asked to compare texts holistically and to make a quality judgment for each text in a pairwise comparison based upon on the most salient and critical differences. Also, the resulted rank order is based on the judgment of all assessors, representing the shared consensus. In order to be able to select the right number of assessors, the question is to what extent the conceptualization of assessors prevails in the aspects they base their judgment on, or whether comparative judgment minimizes the differences between assessors. In other words, can we detect types of assessors who tend to consider certain aspects of text quality more often than others? A total of 64 assessors compared argumentative texts, after which they provided decision statements on what aspects of text quality had informed their judgment. These decision statements were coded on six overarching themes of text quality: argumentation, organization, language use, language conventions, source use, references, and layout. Using a multilevel-latent class analysis, four different types of assessors could be distinguished: narrowly focused, broadly focused, source-focused, and language-focused. However, the analysis also showed that all assessor types mainly focused on argumentation and organization, and that assessor types only partly explained whether the aspect of text quality was mentioned in a decision statement. We conclude that comparative judgment is a strong method for comparing complex constructs like text quality. First, because the rank order combines different views on text quality, but foremost because the method of comparative judgment minimizes differences between assessors.

This study tests an integrative model, which delineates how students’ academic motivation, academic self-efficacy and learning strategies (processing strategies and regulation strategies) at the end of secondary education impact academic adjustment in the first semester of the first year of higher education (FYHE) and subsequent academic achievement at the end of the FYHE, in two types of HE programmes. More precisely, the present study explores the extent to which the explanatory values of aforementioned determinants of academic adjustment and academic achievement differ across academic (providing more theoretical and scientific education) and professional (offering more vocational education that prepares students for a particular occupation, such as nursing) programmes. Hereto, multiple-group SEM analyses were carried out on a longitudinal dataset containing 1987 respondents (Academic programmes: N=1080, 54.4%; Professional programmes: N=907, 45.6%), using Mplus 8.3. Results indicate differences in the predictive power of determinants under scrutiny between professional and academic contexts. Firstly, learning strategies and motivational variables at the end of secondary education have more predictive power in the prediction of FYHE academic adjustment in the academic programmes than in professional programmes. Secondly, our results indicate that academic adjustment in the first semester of the FYHE influences academic achievement to a bigger extent in professional programmes than in academic programmes. Moreover, these differences across HE contexts were found after controlling for prior education. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Science students' study success rates in the first year of higher education (FYHE) are problematic. Although a considerable amount of previous research has been carried out to investigate the determinants of students' academic achievement in FYHE, there has been little discussion about the incremental value of non-cognitive factors over and above cognitive determinants in the prediction of "early" (after the first semester of FYHE) academic achievement in a science educational context. Furthermore, the complex nature of the relationships between determinants of academic achievement is frequently neglected. An investigation that addresses these gaps is important to provide the insights necessary to identify at-risk science students early in their academic career. Therefore, the main aim of this research was to examine the incremental value of non-cognitive variables ("processing strategies," "regulation strategies," "academic motivation," "self-concept," "self-efficacy") in predicting students' early academic achievement in a science FYHE context, over and above domain-specific prior knowledge (cognitive) and after controlling for gender, age and prior education. Hereto, path-analyses were used on the data of 781 first-year students within a faculty of science of a Belgian university college in the academic year 2016-2017. Results show that cognitive variables and pre-entry characteristics predict early academic achievement. However, after controlling for these characteristics, evidence for the assumption that non-cognitive variables are determinants of early academic achievement in science education contexts could not be found in this study. Implications for theory and research are discussed.

In educational research, there is a growing interest in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine students' levels of processing. As there is a growing interest in the use of fMRI, a systematic review was conducted to examine how deep and surface levels of processing are operationalized within the neuroscientific field. In addition, we investigated how this operationalization impacts on the conceptualization of levels of processing within fMRI research. A systematic search was conducted within the MEDLINE, PubMed, ERIC, and Web of Science databases, and 25 studies were identified for this review. With regard to the operationalization, the review indicates that levels of processing were examined under highly controlled conditions with decontextualized and simplified language stimuli. Analysis of these studies revealed that there is a lack of conceptual clarity as, in half of the cases, no theoretical framework was explicitly mentioned, and no clear definition was given regarding levels of processing.

The transition from secondary to higher education is a challenging process, in which the development of students' motivation plays a pivotal role. The current study examines whether self-efficacy--and how it develops--is able to explain the growth in motivation. The current longitudinal study included five waves, across a period of 25 months (i.e. start of the final year of secondary education until the beginning of the second year of higher education). Results show--contrary to our hypothesis based on the self-determination theory and social cognitive theory--that the growth in autonomous motivation positively predicts the growth in self-efficacy and that this 'reversed' model is superior in terms of fit and explained variance to the hypothesised model.

Recently, comparative judgement has been introduced as an alternative method for scoring essays. Although this method is promising in terms of obtaining reliable scores, empirical evidence concerning its validity is lacking. The current study examines implications resulting from two critical assumptions underpinning the use of comparative judgement, namely: its holistic characteristic and how the final rank order reflects the shared consensus on what makes for a good essay. Judges' justifications that underpin their decisions are qualitatively analysed to obtain insight into the dimensions of academic writing they take into account. The results show that most arguments are directly related to the competence description. However, judges also use their expertise in order to judge the quality of essays. Additionally, judges differ in terms of how they conceptualise writing quality, and regarding the extent to which they tap into their own expertise. Finally, this study explores diverging conceptualisation of misfitting judges.