Active learning approaches to biology teaching, including simulation-based activities, are known to enhance student learning, especially of higher-order skills; nonetheless, there are still many open questions about what features of an activity promote optimal learning. Here we designed three versions of a simulation-based tutorial called…

The purpose of this paper is to showcase new research that seeks to provide guidance on the heterogeneity of treatment effects by utilizing the variance of demographic differences in state assessments. This study is focused on a simple randomized block design where students are nested within schools, and within each school students are randomized…

Much of the currently available evidence on the causal effects of public prekindergarten programs on school readiness outcomes comes from studies that use a regression-discontinuity design (RDD) with the age cutoff to enter a program in a given year as the basis for assignment to treatment and control conditions. Because the RDD has high internal…

This report describes the approach that REL Northeast and Islands (REL-NEI) used to guide its eight research alliances toward collaboratively identifying a shared research agenda. A key feature of their approach was a two-workshop series, during which alliance members created a set of research questions on a shared topic of education policy and/or…

Recent federal legislation, such as the "No Child Left Behind Act" of 2001 and the "Education Sciences Reform Act (ESRA)" of 2002, has insisted that educational evaluations use rigorous research designs with quantitative outcome measures. In particular, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) at the U.S. Department of…

We explore in this paper if automated scaffolding delivered via a pedagogical agent within a simulation can help students acquire data collection inquiry skills. Our initial analyses revealed that such scaffolding was effective for helping students who initially did not know two specific skills, designing controlled experiments and testing stated…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze the extent to which differences in student performance were present between Black males in Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Texas on selected AP examinations from the 2001 through the 2012 exam years. Specific AP exams included in this study were the English Language and…

Data-mined models often achieve good predictive power, but sometimes at the cost of interpretability. We investigate here if selecting features to increase a model's construct validity and interpretability also can improve the model's ability to predict the desired constructs. We do this by taking existing models and reducing the feature set to…

Primary research articles discuss aspects of scientific inquiry that are important in understanding the nature of science. Yet, most introductory science courses use textbooks that ignore the scientific process; opportunities for explicit discussion of the nature of science are lost. In Hampshire College's science program, students read current…

The problem investigated in this research study relates to the referral rate for special education evaluations between students of teachers who were exposed to the professional development and resources associated with the federally funded Reading First program and students of teachers who were not exposed to the program. The purpose of this study…

SEDL is providing analytic and technical support to three large-scale randomized controlled trials assessing the efficacy of promising literacy curriculum in afterschool settings on student academic achievement. In the field of educational research, competition among research organizations and researchers can often impede collaborative efforts in…

Mixed methods research has increased in popularity over the past 20 years. Literature reveals that exploratory qualitative analysis followed by confirmatory survey research is common and concurrent studies outnumber longitudinal design. Longitudinal studies using quantitative and qualitative methods in sequence for exploratory purposes are rare,…

Background/Context: In order to develop effective strategies for retaining able and committed teachers, it is important to understand how new teachers experience their work with their colleagues. A previous qualitative study conducted by the authors and others presented a conceptual framework for understanding new teachers' experiences of the…

Profound changes taking place in communities and in universities are bringing researchers and community members new opportunities for joint research endeavors and new problems that must be resolved. In such partnerships, questions about shared decision making--about the ethics of collaboration--arise at every stage: Who decides which problems are…

Rigorous research provides information that will allow other schools and districts to select interventions that have a scientifically based track record of effectiveness. All Striving Reader grants include the mandate to evaluate literacy intervention(s) targeted to adolescents who are reading significantly below grade level. Although all studies…