Using meta-analytic techniques, we examined systematically the evidence linking peer social acceptance to academic achievement. Based on 72 studies that yielded 157 effect sizes, we analyzed relations between social acceptance and academic outcomes (e.g., academic grades, test scores), including the extent to which relations were moderated by sex, grade level (primary vs. secondary), culture (country of origin), and measurement strategies (peer nomination vs. rating strategies; classroom-based vs. standardized indicators of achievement); and mediated by motivation (self-concept, affective outcomes) and active engagement. A medium effect size suggests that peer social acceptance is related significantly and positively to academic achievement. Moderator effects were medium to large, suggesting that relations were significantly stronger for younger students, students from Asian countries, and for classroom-based assessments of achievement. Small effect sizes suggest that academic-specific self-beliefs (e.g., efficacy), negative affect, and active engagement partly mediate relations between social acceptance and academic performance.

Relational reasoning, which has been defined as the ability to discern meaningful patterns within any informational stream, is a foundational cognitive ability associated with education, including in scientific domains. This study entailed the analysis of instructional conversations in which an attending clinical neurologist and his team of residents made diagnostic and therapeutic decisions about actual patients in a hospital setting. The primary goal was to investigate the role of 4 manifestations of relational reasoning (i.e., analogy, anomaly, antinomy, and antithesis) in medical education and diagnostic and therapeutic decision making. Results indicated that the degree to which members of the medical team used the 4 forms of relational reasoning depended on their role and expertise, as well as the time point in the problem-solving process. Specific reasoning patterns that emerged in the discourse and a prototypical model of the reasoning process are described and implications for research and practice are considered.

Relational reasoning, the ability to discern meaningful patterns within a stream of information, is considered a critical capacity for students. However, little is known about how this ability is demonstrated by children of different ages in the context of discourse with a more knowledgeable other. Thus, this study sought to investigate the ways in which 4 forms of relational reasoning (i.e., analogy, anomaly, antinomy, and antitheses) manifested in semistructured conversations between a researcher and child about the form and function of more or less familiar objects. Participants were a nationally representative cross-sectional sample of 61 New Zealand primary and secondary students, divided into 3 grade groups: early (Kindergarten through second), middle (fourth through eighth), and late (tenth through eleventh). Results indicated that children as young as 5 years old were capable of using all 4 forms of relational reasoning in discourse. Furthermore, analysis revealed a curvilinear trajectory in the observed versus expected frequencies of relational reasoning among the groups. Finally, in terms of the individual forms of relational reasoning, analogies and anomalies occupied a smaller proportion of relational talk when children were older, whereas antinomies and antitheses occupied a greater proportion. Implications for research and practice are forwarded.

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This study investigated the relational reasoning capabilities of older adolescents and young adults when the focal assessment was a verbal and more schooled measure than 1 that was figural and more novel in its configuration. To achieve this end, the verbal test of relational reasoning (vTORR) was constructed to parallel the test of relational reasoning (TORR), which has been shown to be a psychometrically sound measure of the ability to discern analogical, anomalous, antinomous, and antithetical patterns within figural problem sets. Two-hundred undergraduate students completed the vTORR, TORR, and a vocabulary cloze test. The psychometric properties of the vTORR were first examined to ensure that data were reliable and valid. Then, the convergence between the vTORR and TORR was tested, along with the degree to which performance on the vTORR could be explained by linguistic ability, as measured by the vocabulary cloze test. Outcomes of correlational and confirmatory factor analyses indicated that there was a significant moderate association between the ability to reason relationally in word (i.e., vTORR) and in figure (i.e., TORR) and that linguistic ability contributed only a limited amount to performance on the vTORR. Of 3 theoretical models tested, a 4-factor model was found to best fit the vTORR data, indicating that the 4 specific forms of relational reasoning reflected in this measure were directly related to overall performance.