Previous research has suggested that African American children are more equipped to close the achievement gap when enrolled in mainstream schools than in culturally familiar schools. However, this study seeks to determine if there are benefits to attending a culturally familiar school. This study explored test score performance difference of 393…

Spending limited educational budgets on technology for classrooms is a strategy many school districts have used to increase student achievement (Levenson, Baehr, Smith, & Sullivan, 2014). In recent years, the technology movement allowed for arbitrary purchasing of devices with little to no pedagogical planning for how technology device usage…

The purpose of this study was to determine the impact a sustained rotational blended learning model on the academic achievement on Title I K-8 elementary school students at a Catholic school in the areas of reading comprehension and mathematics as measured with standardized assessments, the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. In response to the first…

This embedded mixed methods study investigates the development of rural elementary students' conceptual understanding of force and motion as a result of the implementation of robotics instruction immersed within a 5E Learning Cycle Model lessons. Three treatment groups and one controlled comparison group (n = 96) participated in pretests and…

This study asked the question: Do spiritual factors impact academic achievement? The subjects in this study were all students in grades 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 11, in Seventh-day Adventist schools in the United States and Bermuda, from 2006 to 2008. The compilation of the results of 75 questions as correlated to academic achievement, controlled…

The analysis of heart rate variability (HRV) is one tool shown to be of value in examining heart-brain interactions. HRV is remarkably responsive to emotion, and the importance of emotional state in cognitive function is increasingly being recognized and socio-emotional learning strategies being utilized in the classroom. Consequently, the…

Multiple predictors of academic outcomes in children have been identified and studied including gender, level of parental support, family structure, and age. Though the concepts of self-concept, self-esteem, and teacher perception of the student-teacher relationship have been studied in depth, their study as predictors of academic outcomes,…

The purpose of this mixed method study was to examine instructional practices in the Integrated Co-teaching classes and the roles of the Co-teachers in each class to determine if the instructional practices support meaningful learning. The participants in this study were two special education teachers and two general education teachers from two…

Children who struggle in mathematics may also lack cognitive awareness in mathematical problem solving. The cognitively-driven program IMPROVE, a multidimensional method for teaching mathematics, has been shown to be helpful for students with mathematical learning difficulties (MLD). Guided by cognitive theory, the purpose of this…

This mixed method study investigated the schema strategy uses of fourth-grade boys with reading challenges; specifically, their ability to understand text based on two components within schema theory: tuning and restructuring. Based on the reading comprehension scores from the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (Form 2010), four comparison groups were…

This study examined the impact that school leaders have on teacher job satisfaction and student achievement. The threefold purpose of this study was to (1) compare transformational and instructional leadership theories, (2) examine the unique impact that school leaders have on student achievement and teacher job satisfaction after controlling for…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a controversial test administration alteration, the read-aloud alteration, in which text (passages and questions) is read aloud to the student on a reading comprehension test. For students whose disabilities impair their skill in decoding text and reading fluently, accessing text to…

Recent research in the area of Curriculum-Based Measures (CBM) in writing has shown that traditionally used metrics, such as total words written and total words correct, may not be the best tools for measuring writing performance, for both secondary and elementary aged children (e.g., Gansle, Noell, VanDerHeyden, Naquin, & Slider, 2002; Tindal…

In 2007, Georgia developed a comprehensive framework to define what students need to know. One component of this framework emphasizes the use of both formative and summative assessments as part of an integral and specific component of the teachers. performance evaluation. Georgia administers the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (CRCT) to every…

Enrollment in Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) schools is declining as is the number of schools and teachers. While there could be many reasons for this, one perception of SDA schools, held by parents, teachers, pastors, and school board members, is that students enrolled in schools with one, two, or three teachers do not achieve at the same rate as…