This report captures the variety of music education research between 2012-2014 and covers a range of topics and events such as the International Society for Music Education (ISME) 2012, Australian Society for Music Education (ASME) 2013 and Australian and New Zealand Association for Research in Music Education (ANZARME) 2014.

This dissertation is comprised of two manuscripts that resulted from a single study using verbal protocols to examine the reading processes prompted by the graphics as second graders read informational text. Verbal protocols have provided researchers with an understanding of the processes readers use as they read. Little is known, however, about…

In an era of increased accountability mandates, school leaders face daunting challenges to improve instruction. Despite the vast research on instructional leadership, little is known about how principals improve teaching and learning in the subject of writing. Leadership content knowledge is the overlap of knowledge of subject matter and…

Current science education reform efforts highlight the importance of engaging students in scientifically oriented questions as a central dimension of inquiry-based elementary science. However, elementary teachers, particularly beginning teachers, must often overcome a variety of challenges to engage their students in reform-minded,…

A cognitive phenotype is a product of both assets and deficits that specifies what individuals with spina bifida meningomyelocele (SBM) can and cannot do and why they can or cannot do it. In this article, we review the cognitive phenotype of SBM and describe the processing assets and deficits that cut within and across content domains, sensory…

Agriculture can play a key role in fostering scientific literacy because it brings important plant and ecosystem concepts into the classroom. Plus, agriculture, like science, is not static and includes much trial and error, investigation, and innovation. With help from community experts at the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research…

In this article, the author describes a series of lessons that focuses on observation and documentation of organisms and that is appropriate for the second through fourth grades. By giving students the necessary initial support, they will have the ability to observe details and the skills and confidence to make realistic scientific drawings and…

Despite the connection between independent learning and gifted students, little is known of the views these students hold about the process of being self-directed learners. This interview study examined views of ten gifted elementary school students in South Australia about Self-Directed Learning. The interview responses showed that these gifted…

Background: While research indicates elevated behavioural and emotional problems in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and decreased well-being in their parents, studies do not typically separate out the contribution of ASD from that of associated intellectual disabilities (ID). We investigated child behavioural and emotional problems,…

Purpose: This research investigated the expository language skills of young school-age children with the ultimate aim of obtaining normative data for clinical practice. Specifically, this study examined (a) the level of expository language performance of 6- and 7-year-old children with typical development and (b) age-related differences between…

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the accuracy of teachers' judgments of students' early literacy skills and to determine if students' achievement levels influenced teachers' judgments. Typical and lower-achieving kindergarten and first-grade students' scores on the Nonsense Word Fluency and Phoneme Segmentation Fluency measures of…

The goal of this research was to examine the role of supportive adults to emotional well-being in a population of Grade 4 students attending public schools in Vancouver, Canada. Reflecting the ecology of middle childhood, we examined the extent to which perceived family, school, and neighborhood support relate to young people's self-reported…

The "Testable Question Relay" was created as part of a fourth-grade unit on conducting science experiments. In the relay, student teams raced to "outfit a scientist" by correctly categorizing questions as testable or untestable and earning scientific tools. This activity assists upper-elementary students in recognizing the components of good…

Insects are fascinating creatures--especially when you and your students get up close and personal with them! To that end, the authors facilitated an inquiry-based investigation with an emphasis on identification of the different types of insects found in the school yard, their characteristics, their habitat, and what they eat, while engaging the…

This small-scale pilot research project investigates the prevalence of Speech Language and Communication Difficulties in a sample of children attending a Youth Offending Service in the UK. Using the CELF-4, approximately 90% of the sample displayed some form of language difficulty and, overall, this population displayed mild to moderate…