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We used structural equation analysis to test the validity of a goal mediational model for conceptualizing the influence of individual and situational variables on students' cognitive engagement in science activities. Fifth- and sixth-grade students (N = 275) from 10 classrooms completed a set of questionnaires designed to assess their goal orientations and their use of high-level or effort-minimizing learning strategies while completing six different science activities. Results indicate that students who placed greater emphasis on task-mastery goals reported more active cognitive engagement. In contrast, students oriented toward gaining social recognition, pleasing the teacher, or avoiding work reported a lower level of cognitive engagement. The relative strength of these goals was related to differences in students' intrinsic motivation and attitudes toward science. Our analyses also suggested that these variables exerted a greater influence in small-group than in whole-class activities.

Structural equation modeling is a comprehensive, flexible approach to research design and data analysis. Although in recent years there has been phenomenal growth in the literature on technical aspects of structural equation modeling, relatively little attention has been devoted to conceiving research hypotheses as structural equation models. The aim of this article is to provide a conceptual overview of clinical research hypotheses that invite evaluation as structural equation models. Particular attention is devoted to hypotheses that are not adequately evaluated using traditional statistical models.

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Although many scholars have argued that individual differences in proneness to envy can have wide-ranging implications for social interactions, the empirical testing of these claims is largely undeveloped. We created a single-factor Dispositional Envy Scale (DES) to measure individual differences in tendencies to envy, and examined some of the implications of such differences. Study 1 indicated that the DES is a reliable, stable measure, containing items suiting theoretical criteria for the makeup of dispositional envy. Study 2 supported the construct validity of the DES by showing that it is correlated with other individual difference measures in theoretically compatible ways. Studies 3 and 4 supplied diverse ways of establishing the criterion-related validity of the DES by showing that it moderated envious responses to another person’s superiority and that it predicted envy beyond other correlated individual measures of neuroticism, self-esteem, cynical hostility, and socially desirable responding.