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The purpose of this study was to investigate to what extent student-perceived parental involvement predicted academic motivation in vocational education and training (VET) students. The sample comprised 2108 young adults participating in a VET institute. Thirty-three items were developed to measure student-perceived parental involvement in VET, as no appropriate questionnaire was available for this educational setting. This questionnaire was analysed with factor analyses which resulted in a new, short, and valid questionnaire with 10 items to measure parental involvement on five indicators. Consistent with prior research, parental involvement significantly predicted motivation in VET students. Three out of five parental involvement indicators were found related to motivation. Specifically, two indicators were positively related to motivation: (1) parent-child educational discussions, and (2) parental aspirations and expectations. The indicator 'reinforcement of learning at home' was negatively related to motivation. These findings provide additional evidence for the significance of parental involvement based upon its link with students' motivation in a VET context.

The goal of this study was to investigate whether single executive function (EF) tests were predictive for learning performance in mainly young and middle-aged adults. The tests measured shifting and updating. Processing speed was also measured. In an observational study, cognitive performance and learning performance were measured objectively in 851 adult students and analyzed using multiple linear regression. EFs and processing speed were measured via cognitive tests. Learning performance was evaluated after 14 months. The results show that updating performance is predictive for learning performance, with a small effect size, while shifting performance was not. This means that a single updating test has predictive value for learning performance acquired over a longer period of time. However, as the effect size is rather small, the test on its own does not serve as a proper selection tool for determining whether a student will be successful or not.

Learning is crucial for everyone. The association between biological (eg, sleep, nutrition) and psychological factors (eg, test anxiety, goal orientation) and learning performance has been well established for children, adolescents and college students in traditional education. Evidence for these associations for adult distance students is lacking however. The Adult Learning Open University Determinants (ALOUD) study is the first to identify the determinants of learning performance within adult distance education. Over the course of 1 year, all new students (n?=?4945) of the Open University of the Netherlands were approached. At baseline, 2040 students fully participated in this observational longitudinal study by filling out an online questionnaire and performing cognitive tests. At the 7 and 14 months follow-up, participants filled out a second and third questionnaire respectively, and data were given by the exam registration office to measure learning performance at these times. The ALOUD study might result in tailor-made educational innovations for adults participating in distance education and, finally, a more successful distance education student population.

The object recognition task (ORT) is a popular one-trial learning test for animals. In the current study, we investigated several methodological issues concerning the task. Data was pooled from 28 ORT studies, containing 731 male Wistar rats. We investigated the relationship between 3 common absolute- and relative discrimination measures, as well as their relation to exploratory activity. In this context, the effects of pre-experimental habituation, object familiarity, trial duration, retention interval and the amnesic drugs MK-801 and scopolamine were investigated. Our analyses showed that the ORT is very sensitive, capable of detecting subtle differences in memory (discrimination) and exploratory performance. As a consequence, it is susceptible to potential biases due to (injection) stress and side effects of drugs. Our data indicated that a minimum amount of exploration is required in the sample and test trial for stable significant discrimination performance. However, there was no relationship between the level of exploration in the sample trial and discrimination performance. In addition, the level of exploration in the test trial was positively related to the absolute discrimination measure, whereas this was not the case for relative discrimination measures, which correct for exploratory differences, making them more resistant to exploration biases. Animals appeared to remember object information over multiple test sessions. Therefore, when animals have encountered both objects in prior test sessions, the object preference observed in the test trial of 1h retention intervals is probably due to a relative difference in familiarity between the objects in the test trial, rather than true novelty per se. Taken together, our findings suggest to take into consideration pre-experimental exposure (familiarization) to objects, habituation to treatment procedures, and the use of relative discrimination measures when using the ORT., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)