
Sarah P. McgeownUniversity of Edinburgh | UoE · Moray House School of Education
Sarah P. Mcgeown
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44
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Publications (44)
The relationship between reading and well‐being is gaining increasing interest among those working in research, policy and practice, as we seek to better understand if, and how, reading books supports wellbeing. To date, the majority of research has focused on children and young people, neglecting to consider the well‐being benefits that reading bo...
Neurodivergent children educated in mainstream classrooms too often face poor outcomes compared to neurotypical peers. These may be caused, or exacerbated, by the negative attitudes and actions of classmates. One way to address these poor outcomes could be to educate all children about neurodiversity and neurodivergence, and how these differences m...
In recent years, there has been growing awareness of the importance of representation in fiction books, to ensure all children and young people can see themselves reflected in what they read. Much of this work has focused, importantly, on increasing ethnic representation, yet there has been much less exploration of the representation of other minor...
Representation in narrative fiction can be a powerful tool to shape perceptions and challenge stereotypes. For neurodivergent young people, opportunities to see their experiences reflected in the books they read could have powerful effects on their sense of belonging, self-acceptance, and self-understanding. For neurotypical readers, learning about...
School librarians can support and enhance pupils’ reading and personal development. However, there is very little research which has sought high school librarians’ perspectives of the diverse ways in which they do this. In this study, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 18 practitioners responsible for school library services from 18 g...
Adolescence is often positioned as a particularly vulnerable period for reading motivation and engagement, both for academic reading and reading for pleasure. However, closer scrutiny of the literature reveals a much more nuanced pattern of changing interest, attitude, and motivation for reading during adolescence. Despite this, there is a distinct...
While there is a considerable body of research demonstrating benefits of book reading, the quality and depth of engagement children experience while reading is essential to ensure positive reading experiences and outcomes. In this article we describe four dimensions of reading engagement: behavioral, cognitive, affective, and social, illustrating h...
Research has consistently demonstrated declines in reading motivation and engagement from childhood to adolescence, with current levels of reading enjoyment and engagement among adolescents at an all-time low. This has led to increased interest in approaches for supporting adolescents’ reading motivation. To date, efforts to support adolescent read...
There is growing interest and practice in collaborative research approaches, that is, researchers, teachers, and/or other professionals working together to develop educational interventions. In this paper we discuss the merits and challenges associated with this and draw upon our experience of co-designing two educational (specifically literacy) in...
Books have the power to take us on great adventures, immerse us in fantasy worlds, change our points of view, scare us, and make us laugh or cry. The characters bring the stories to life and join us on the journeys through the pages of our favorite reads. But have you ever thought about what might be happening in our brains when we let Harry Potter...
Cognitive processes play an imperative role in children’s mathematics learning. Difficulties in cognitive functioning are a core feature of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children, who also tend to show lower levels of mathematics attainment than their typically developing peers. This review (registration number: CRD42020169708)...
Gender stereotypes associate mathematics and sciences with boys, whereas reading and writing are typically associated with girls. This study investigated sex differences in primary school children’s motivation (confidence and value) across four academic subjects (maths, science, reading and writing) and examined how their identification with stereo...
This study sought to explore the concept of mental toughness (comprising the attributes challenge, commitment, control, and confidence) from the perceptions of adolescents, to better understand their views on these attributes and the extent to which each were regarded as important within an educational setting. In total, 54 adolescents (31 female)...
The present study examined the validity of a newly developed instrument, the Mental Toughness Scale for Adolescents, which examines the attributes of challenge, commitment, confidence (abilities and interpersonal), and control (life and emotion). The six-factor model was supported using exploratory factor analysis (n = 373) and confirmatory factor...
The first formal instruction of reading typically takes place in the school environment setting. Therefore, there is good reason to predict that children's classroom behaviours at the time of formal learning will influence their early reading acquisition. The present study compared the extent to which symptoms of hyperactivity/inattention, conduct...
In recent years research has increasingly acknowledged the role of non-cognitive factors in educational success. A wide range of non-cognitive factors have been examined, such as resilience, buoyancy, perseverance, self-efficacy, confidence, motivation, and personality.
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in non-cognitive aspects of academic performance. Accordingly, a number of models, concepts and ideas have been discussed, disseminated and delivered. Whist all have their value, perhaps the area that has received most attention is that of resilience and character.
In the study of individual differences in education outcomes, researchers often focus on cognitive (e.g., language) or non-cognitive (e.g., motivation) variables to predict these outcomes. In this chapter, we focus on non-cognitive predictors and discuss the model of mental toughness, a set of attributes characterised by the following traits: chall...
This study examined the extent to which a range of child characteristics (sex, age, socioeconomic status, reading skill and intrinsic and extrinsic reading motivation) predicted engagement (i.e., time spent) in different reading activities (fiction books, factual books, school textbooks, comics, magazines and digital texts). In total, 791 children...
Background: While there is a considerable body of research exploring the relationship between older primary school children’s reading attitudes, confidence and attainment, there is a noticeable lack of research with younger children. Furthermore, there is relatively little research exploring the extent to which children’s reading attitudes, confide...
Abstract
This study investigated gender and age-related differences in academic motivation and classroom behaviour in adolescents. Eight hundred and fifty five students (415 girls and 440 boys) aged 11-16 (M age = 13.96, SD = 1.47) filled in a questionnaire that examined student academic motivation and teachers completed a questionnaire reporting s...
This review focuses on the concept of mental toughness and the extent to which it may provide a useful framework to study the role of non-cognitive attributes within an educational setting. In doing so, it reviews past research examining mental toughness across different domains (e.g. sport, occupation, education), the extent to which mental toughn...
Mental toughness has frequently been associated with successful performance in sport; however, recent research suggests that it may also be related to academic performance in Higher Education. In a series of three exploratory studies, we examined the relationship between mental toughness and different aspects of educational performance in adolescen...
Reading models are largely based on the interpretation of average data from normal or impaired readers, mainly drawn from English-speaking individuals. In the present study we evaluated the possible contribution of orthographic consistency in generating individual differences in reading behavior. We compared the reading performance of young adults...
Two experiments investigated the cognitive skills that underlie children’s susceptibility to semantic and phonological false memories in the Deese/Roediger–McDermott procedure ( and ). In Experiment 1, performance on the Verbal Similarities subtest of the British Ability Scales (BAS) II (Elliott, Smith, & McCulloch, 1997) predicted correct and fals...
This study examined the factors predicting intrinsic and extrinsic academic motivation among secondary school students. In total, 455 students completed questionnaires measuring intrinsic and extrinsic academic motivation, Big Five personality traits and self-efficacy. In addition, demographic information (sex, age and socioeconomic status) was obt...
This study examined the skills predicting early reading development when children were taught by a synthetic phonics approach. Eighty five children taught to read by systematic synthetic phonics were assessed on reading and cognitive assessments prior to reading instruction (average age 4 years, 7 months), 6 months later (5 years, 1 month), and 73...
Sex differences or gender differences have been investigated in educational research for quite some considerable time; however the distinction between the two is often unclear. Sex refers to the differences between males and females at the biological level, whilst gender refers to the characteristics that are usually associated with being male or f...
The present study investigated gender differences in adolescents’ academic motivation and classroom behaviour and gender differences in the extent to which motivation was associated with, and predicted, classroom behaviour. Seven hundred and fifty students (384 boys and 366 girls) aged 11-16 (M age = 14.0, 1.59 SD) completed a questionnaire examini...
The present study examined individual differences in children's reading and spelling strategies and the child specific characteristics and cognitive skills predicting strategy use. One hundred and seventy two children (average age 7 years and 7 months, .64 SD) completed assessments of receptive vocabulary, reading frequency, decoding skill, orthogr...
This study examined, in 180 children aged from 6 to 9 years, to what extent irregular word reading and spelling were predicted by vocabulary knowledge, reading frequency, orthographic processing and nonword reading skill. Consistent with models of reading highlighting the quasi-regular nature of irregular words, it was found that nonword reading wa...
Research suggests that children's motivation to read is influenced by their level of reading skill and reading self-concept. However, it is possible that characteristics unrelated to reading, such as underlying personality characteristics, may also influence children's motivation to read. The current study examined the extent to which children's in...
The extent to which children's reading choices could be predicted by their motivation and gender identity was examined. Two hundred and twenty-three children (average age 9 years 11 months) completed questionnaires measuring book reading choices, reading motivation, gender identity (identification with masculine and feminine traits) and a standardi...
Background: Research examining the relationship between reading skill and reading motivation has typically been carried out among children with a wide range of reading abilities. There is less research focusing on children who excel in reading or who are attaining very low reading scores.
Purpose: To examine whether there were differences between c...
This study examined the cognitive skills associated with early reading development when children were taught by different types of instruction. Seventy-nine children (mean age at pre-test 4;10 (.22 S.D.) and post-test 5;03 (.21 S.D.)) were taught to read either by an eclectic approach which included sight-word learning, guessing from context and an...
Sex differences or gender differences have long been investigated within the school environment; however the distinction between the two is often unclear. Whilst sex refers to differences between males and females at the biological level, gender refers to the characteristics commonly associated with being male or female. This study examines the imp...
A comparison was made of 10-year-old boys and girls who had learnt to read by analytic or synthetic phonics methods as part
of their early literacy programmes. The boys taught by the synthetic phonics method had better word reading than the girls
in their classes, and their spelling and reading comprehension was as good. In contrast, with analytic...
This study examined sex differences in reading skill and reading motivation, investigating whether these differences could be better accounted for by sex, or by gender identity. One hundred and eighty-two primary school children (98 males) aged 8–11 completed a reading comprehension assessment, reading motivation questionnaire and a gender role que...