A healthy breakfast each and every day is important for students' motivation and achievement.

Breakfast is often cited as the most important meal of the day and vital for students' academic functioning at school. Although much research has linked students' breakfast consumption to better achievement, there has been debate about why and how breakfast has academic benefits. The present study of 648 Australian high school students investigated (a) the role of breakfast consumption and breakfast quality in students' self-reported motivation and their achievement in a science test, (b) the role of motivation in mediating the link between breakfast consumption and quality and students' achievement, and (c) the extent to which breakfast consumption effects are moderated by the quality of breakfast (e.g., more vegetables, fruit, dairy/protein, wholegrains, cereals, water; less sugary drinks, processed meat, fast take-away, unhealthy snack foods). Findings indicated that beyond the effects of personal, home, and classroom factors, breakfast consumption predicted higher adaptive motivation (p < .05), breakfast quality predicted lower maladaptive motivation (p < .05), and in turn, students' adaptive (positively, p < .01) and maladaptive (negatively, p < .01) motivation predicted their achievement. Moreover, adaptive motivation significantly mediated the relationship between breakfast consumption and achievement (p < .05). The effect of breakfast consumption was moderated by the quality of breakfast such that consuming a high-quality breakfast in the morning was associated with the highest levels of adaptive motivation (p < .01) and achievement (p < .05) later in the day. Findings have implications for educational practice and policy seeking to promote a healthy start to the school day to optimize students' motivation and achievement.

Assessing Instructional Cognitive Load in the Context of Students' Psychological Challenge and Threat Orientations: A Multi-Level Latent Profile Analysis of Students and Classrooms.

To better understand instructional cognitive load, it is important to operationalize and assess it in novel ways that can reveal how different students perceive and experience this load as either challenging or threatening. The present study administered a recently developed instruction assessment tool-the Load Reduction Instruction Scale-Short (LRIS-S)-to N = 2,071 students in 188 high school science classrooms. Multilevel latent profile analysis (LPA) was used to identify student and classroom profiles based on students' reports of instructional cognitive load (load reduction instruction, LRI; using the LRIS-S) and their accompanying psychological challenge orientations (self-efficacy and growth goals), and psychological threat orientations (anxiety and failure avoidance goals). In phase 1 of analyses (investigating students; Level 1), we identified 5 instructional-psychological student profiles that represented different presentations of instructional load, challenge orientation, and threat orientation, ranging from the most maladaptive profile (the Instructionally-Overburdened & Psychologically-Resigned profile) to the most adaptive profile (Instructionally-Optimized & Psychologically-Self-Assured profile). The derived profiles revealed that similar levels of perceived instructional load can be accompanied by different levels of perceived challenge and threat. For example, we identified two profiles that were both instructionally-supported but who varied in their accompanying psychological orientations. Findings also identified profiles where students were dually motivated by both challenge and threat. In turn, these profiles (and their component scores) were validated through their significant associations with persistence, disengagement, and achievement. In phase 2 of analyses (investigating students and classrooms; Levels 1 and 2), we identified 3 instructional-psychological classroom profiles that varied in instructional cognitive load, challenge orientations, and threat orientations: Striving classrooms, Thriving classrooms, and Struggling classrooms. These three classroom profiles (and their component scores) were also validated through their significant associations with classroom-average persistence, disengagement, and achievement-with Struggling classrooms reflecting the most maladaptive outcomes and Thriving classrooms reflecting the most adaptive outcomes. Taken together, findings show that considering instructional cognitive load (and new approaches to empirically assessing it) in the context of students' accompanying psychological orientations can reveal unique insights about students' learning experiences and about important differences between classrooms in terms of the instructional load that is present.

Boarding and Day School Students: A Large-Scale Multilevel Investigation of Academic Outcomes Among Students and Classrooms.

Boarding school is a major educational option for many students (e.g., students living in remote areas, or whose parents are working interstate or overseas, etc.). This study explored the motivation, engagement, and achievement of boarding and day students who are educated in the same classrooms and receive the same syllabus and instruction from the same teachers (thus a powerful research design to enable unique comparisons). Among 2,803 students (boarding n = 481; day n = 2,322) from 6 Australian high schools and controlling for background attributes and personality, we found predominant parity between boarding and day students in their motivation, engagement, and achievement. We also found that classroom-average motivation, engagement, and achievement was not significantly affected by the number of boarders (relative to day students) in the classroom. In addition, the effects of boarding were generally not moderated by students' background or personality attributes. We conclude that boarders have academic opportunities and outcomes that are comparable to their day student counterparts. Implications for students, teachers, and parents are discussed.

Technology evaluation: WX-G250, Wilex/Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research.

Wilex AG, in collaboration with the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, is developing WX-G250, a kappa light chain chimeric antibody derived from the variable region of the mouse monoclonal antibody G250, for the potential treatment of biliary cancer and renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The antibody is currently undergoing phase II clinical trials for RCC and preclinical development for biliary cancer.