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Most research investigating the relation between perceived teacher support and self-regulated learning (SRL) is cross-sectional, and little is known about the direction of the effects. This longitudinal study investigated the direction of the effects between students' perceptions of autonomy support and social support from teacher on two behavioural aspects of SRL: delay of gratification and metacognitive strategy use. A second aim was to investigate the extent to which the effects of perceived teacher support on student achievement were mediated by SRL. Students (N = 701, age 12) completed questionnaires five times during their first 2 years in secondary education. Cross-lagged autoregressive models revealed small reciprocal effects in both directions between delay of gratification and perceived autonomy support. Metacognitive strategy use predicted perceived autonomy support and perceived social support from teachers predicted both aspects of SRL. The study revealed a small mediating effects from SRL between perceived teacher support and achievement.

Classroom discussion is frequently proposes as an essential part of democratic citizenship education. Literature, however, pays little attention to what kind of discussion is most effective and how teachers can facilitate a discussion. This study aims to contribute to the development of a framework for analysing the characteristics of classroom discussions and the different roles teachers can adopt in guiding a discussion on controversial issues. In addition, we investigated how the way teachers guide the discussion is related to the structure and content features of the discussion. The framework was used to analyse five classroom discussions in secondary education. Our framework appeared to be useful for revealing differences in the structure and content features of the classroom discussions and in the way teachers guide the discussion. The results also indicated that a high degree of teacher regulation was related to high content quality and more participation from students. A high degree of student regulation was linked to more genuine discussion among students. The study underlines the importance of taking account of the teacher's role in research into the effectiveness of classroom discussions for democratic citizenship education and the study makes useful suggestions for teachers when preparing for a classroom discussion.

In most primary science classes, students are taught science inquiry skills by way of learning by doing. Research shows that explicit instruction may be more effective. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of explicit instruction on the acquisition of inquiry skills. Participants included 705 Dutch fifth and sixth graders. Students in an explicit instruction condition received an eight-week intervention of explicit instruction on inquiry skills. In the lessons of the implicit condition, all aspects of explicit instruction were absent. Students in the baseline condition followed their regular science curriculum. In a quasi-experimental pre-test-post-test design, two paper-and-pencil tests and three performance assessments were used to examine the acquisition and transfer of inquiry skills. Additionally, questionnaires were used to measure metacognitive skills. The results of a multilevel analysis controlling for pre-tests, general cognitive ability, age, gender and grade level indicated that explicit instruction facilitates the acquisition of science inquiry skills. Specifically on the performance assessment with an unfamiliar topic, students in the explicit condition outperformed students of both the implicit and baseline condition. Therefore, this study provides a strong argument for including an explicit teaching method for developing inquiry skills in primary science education.

UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Assessing students' ability in performing scientific inquiry: Instruments for measuring complex science skills in primary education

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The results of this study indicate that a dialogic approach to citizenship education as an integral part of history classes helps students to form a more profound opinion about moral issues in the subject matter. In addition, group work seems to be a more effective method to implement dialogue in the classroom than whole-class teaching.