In a recent randomized field trial, Ellickson et al. found the Project ALERT drug prevention curriculum curbed alcohol misuse and tobacco and marijuana use among eighth-grade adolescents. This article reports effects among ninth-grade at-risk adolescents. Comparisons between at-risk girls in ALERT Plus schools (basic curriculum extended to ninth…

Engagement has been viewed as an important construct to understand students' learning performances in classroom settings. Taking an interactive perspective, the study investigates ninth graders' cognitive, emotional, and behavioral engagement in teacher-centered (TC) and student-centered (SC) technology-enhanced classrooms. 54 students from two…

This study presents policy and theory as they apply to diversity, equality and equity in Swedish social and educational policy. All education in Sweden should, according to the curriculum (Lpo 94, 1994, p. 5) be of equivalent value, irrespective of where in the country it is provided and education should be adapted to each pupil's circumstances…

As a part of the teacher licensure program at the graduate level at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC), the M.Ed. Licensure candidate is required to complete an action research project during a 3-semester-hour course that coincides with the 9-semester-hour student teaching experience. This course, Education 5900 Culminating…

The first U.S. charter school opened in 1992, and the scale of the charter movement has since grown to 4,000 schools and more than a million students in 40 states plus the District of Columbia. With this growth has also come a contentious debate about the effects of the schools on their own students and on students in nearby traditional public…

As of October 2007, 54 interdistrict magnet schools enrolling 18,928 students were operating in Connecticut. The bulk of these schools are located in the Hartford and New Haven areas--21 in the Hartford area and 17 in the New Haven area. Interdistrict magnets also serve significant numbers of students in the Waterbury region. In keeping with the…

This research focused on verifying the impacts of Inclusion on both students with disabilities (SWDs) and their Regular Ed classmates. High school students (n = 364) within inclusive classes completed surveys reflecting their perceptions of the effectiveness of the learning environment and the attitudinal impacts of Inclusion. Results documented…

ACT data suggest that the readiness of the nation's high school students for college-level reading is far too low. But ACT data also show that, while it is important for students to be able to comprehend both explicit and implicit material in texts, as well as to understand how various textual elements (such as main ideas, relationships, or…

Reliability methodology needs to evolve as validity has done into an argument supported by theory and empirical evidence. Nowhere is the inadequacy of current methods more visible than in classroom assessment. Reliability arguments would also permit additional methodologies for evidencing reliability in classrooms. It would liberalize methodology…

Two hundred and thirty-one students in six Grade 9 classes in two government secondary schools located near Chiang Mai, Thailand, attempted to solve the same 18 quadratic equations before and after participating in 11 lessons on quadratic equations. Data from the students' written responses to the equations, together with data in the form of…

The primary purpose of this study was to develop and gather initial psychometric information regarding the Self-Regulation Strategy Inventory--Self-Report (SRSI-SR), a self-report measure of students' use of specific self-regulation strategies. Information regarding the scales' factor structure, convergent and discriminant validity, differential…

Research on conceptual change is still a powerful framework for empirical investigations on students' learning of science. During recent years, an increasing body of research has explored students' concepts prior and subsequent to instruction, leading to an extensive documentation of students' concepts including the difficulties and opportunities…

The purpose of this study was to conduct psychometric testing on the Chinese version of the decisional balance scale (CDBS) with Taiwanese seventh, eighth, and ninth graders who were recruited from the Taipei metropolitan area. A random cluster sampling method was used with 554 adolescents between the ages of 13 and 17 years. Factor analysis…

A study was conducted on high school students, comparing those with some music credits to those with none. No statistically significant difference was found in their mean math grade point averages (GPA) or their mean cumulative GPAs. Students were then separated into two groups based on the number of music credits. Students who had earned at least…

Objective: To ascertain the association between pubertal stage and deliberate self-harm. Method: Cross-sectional survey of 12- to 15-year-olds in 300 secondary schools in the U.S. state of Washington in February-April 2002 and the Australian state of Victoria in June-August 2002. A total of 3,332 students in grades 7 and 9 provided complete data…