The goals of the study were to examine the predictive power of general cognitive ability, working memory, and self-efficacy in first grade for academic functioning of children at risk for learning disabilities in second grade. The study involved 82 children (age 6-7 years) from five local public elementary schools in middle-class neighborhoods in Jerusalem, including 41 children at risk for specific learning disabilities and 41 typically developing peers. In the first stage of the study, (performed at the end of first grade), general cognitive ability and working memory were assessed using subtests from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (the subtests consisted of:  Vocabulary and Block Design for general cognitive ability; Arithmetic and Digit Span for working memory). Academic self-efficacy was rated using a structural interview. At follow-up, academic functioning was assessed at the end of second grade. A serial-multiple mediation analysis revealed significant mediating roles for levels of performance in the Arithmetic subtest and for academic self-efficacy in predicting the academic functioning in second grade. The significance of the Arithmetic subtest, based on contemporary research on the structure of the intelligence was proposed. Educational implications call for sensitizing teachers to the unique role of academic self-efficacy in shaping trajectories of academic functioning development among children with RLD and in using effective strategies of promoting self-efficacy.

This study aimed at determining and validating the Schutte Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test (SSEIT) in a Zambian context. It examined the feasibility of its use in this cultural context. Additionally, the study aimed at examining the reliability of the instrument when used in the same context. The participants were drawn from two cohorts (2016/2017 and 2017/2018 academic years) of first year students from the Department of Mathematic sand Science Education at the Copperbelt University in Zambia. One hundred and seven (25 females and 82 males) students from the 2016/2017 cohort and 138 (47 females and 91males) students from the 2017/2018 cohort participated in the study. The process of validating the instrument involved factor analysis. Using Principal Components Analysis (PCA), the Monte Carlo PCA for Parallel Analysis and Varimax methods for both cohorts, a four factor structure model of the SSEIT was reported. The instrument was reliable with a Cronbach coefficient of 0.79 in the 2016/2017 Cohort and 0.74 in the 2017/2018 Cohort. The study concluded that the SSEIT is a reliable and valid tool to measure the emotional intelligence of first year students from the Department of Mathematic sand Science Education at the Copperbelt University in Zambia.

The diagnostic utility of the Woodcock- Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Abilities and Clinical Clusters was assessed in a sample of 52 children (26 Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disordered (ADHD) and 26 matched controls). Multivariate analysis of variance followed by post-hoc testing and d-ratios yielded some statistically significant and clinically meaningful differences between groups on the Cognitive Fluency Cluster and the Tests of Auditory Attention, and Rapid Picture Naming. Discriminant function analyses indicated that the WJ III COG Tests collectively classified 80.77% of the sample correctly (76.92% of controls and 84.62% of children with ADHD correctly identified). The Auditory Attention and Rapid Picture Naming tests were found to make the most significant contribution overall to the discriminant function. Using a cut-score of 85, the WJ-III COG Clinical clusters and subtests examined in this study offered fair to weak diagnostic utility based on indices of sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive power, as well as results of Receiver Operating Characteristic curve analyses. Implications for research and practice are outlined.

This study was conducted to explore the five-factor structure of the Need for Closure scale on Indian samples using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Data were initially collected from 450 samples which were reduced to 235 cases later based on the lie score criteria of the Need for Closure Scale. To rule out the problems caused by all questionnaire items like low reliability and low communalities, parceling of the items (creating three parcels from each facet) was done before the multivariate analysis (EFA and CFA). In the results, EFA showed that the five-factor structure of the NFC scale explains 52% of the variance. The goodness of fit statistics in the CFA model met the criteria (χ2 = 190.153, GFI = 0.908, TLI = 0.855, CFI = 0.890, RMSEA = 0.077) for the reasonable fit of the single factor structure of the NFC construct. In conclusion, this study presented the good psychometric properties of the NFC scale. It can be used to assess the individual's need for closure in the wider contexts of Indian studies.

The aim of the present study is to conduct a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (RSES) as part of the study of affective variables using a sample of English as a foreign language (EFL) university students in Morocco. Two hundred and six (N = 206) participants of undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate levels completed the self-esteem (SE) questionnaire. Using classical methods of factor extraction before employing more robust techniques comprising minimum average partial (MAP) and parallel analysis (PA) to perform preliminary factor analysis (FA) using principal axis factoring (PAF), results conclusively and parsimoniously yielded a one-factor solution with acceptable construct reliability (Composite Reliability). CFA results, including goodness-of-fit indexes, confirmed that the one-factor model was better fitting compared to its competing independent two-factor counterpart, but marginally less so compared to the correlated version of the latter. Two out of the three constructed models showed good fit indexes, thus demonstrating the conformity of two measurement models with their respective hypothesized structural models. Furthermore, using the heterotrait-monotrait (HTMT) ratio, both two-factor models showed acceptable discriminant validity. The obtained results further corroborate both the one-factor and two-factor solutions reported in previous works for which we present new evidence from a Moroccan EFL context.

Previous research focused on individuals’ background, contexts and cognitive performance in education, work, and life. Given the increasing number of people living alone temporarily, the question arises whether the frequent use of skills, including social skills, relates to individuals’ later positively self-evaluated skills and social lives. Based on an integrated framework, the current analysis aimed to disentangle these relationships with longitudinal data from Germany over three years. The target sample consisted of n = 3263 working adults. A Bayesian structural equation model included adults’ frequent use of skills, self-evaluated skills, household size, close friends, and seven covariates (e.g., numeracy and literacy test scores, weekly working hours. The results suggested positive relationships between adults’ frequent use of numeracy, literacy, and social skills and later self-evaluations (except literacy used on self-evaluated numeracy). Those who less frequently used social skills three years earlier were also less likely to have a larger household size than those who reporting frequently using their social skills. Adults who frequently used literacy skills three years earlier reported higher numbers of close friends than those who less frequently used literacy. The findings highlight the importance of adults’ social skills and frequently used skills for self-evaluated numeracy and literacy.