Social promotion is defined as the practice of allowing students who failed to meet performance standards and academic requirements the opportunity to pass on to the next grade with their peers. Although the A+ Educational Reform Act abolished the use of the practice, social promotion continues to occur in numerous school districts across one…

This study explores the effects of a vocational education-based program on academic motivation and engagement of primary school aged children. The Get Into Vocational Education (GIVE) program integrated "construction" and the mathematics, English and science lessons of a Year 4 primary classroom. This paper focuses on investigating the…

Set in a yearlong, school-based tutoring program, designed as a community of practice, we use qualitative methodology to examine how 14 preservice teachers learned to become responsive teachers. We focus on one question: In what ways does participating in a yearlong, supervised tutoring program mediate preservice teachers' learning about…

In this study, the authors examined prospective elementary school teachers? culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy beliefs. The Culturally Responsive Teaching Self-Efficacy Scale was administered to a sample of 104 preservice teachers enrolled in a teacher education program located at a large Midwestern university. These results suggested…

The purpose of this participant-observation study is to describe rural, southern, 3rd-5th grade children's engagement in running and writing in an after-school learning community called "Running to Achieve." This study provides insights into links between physical activity and writing by using one to engage students in the other. Three…

This exploratory study examined the relationships between Africentric values, racial/ethnic identity, neighborhood satisfaction, and academic self-efficacy beliefs among 88 African American elementary school children. Results indicated that Africentric values and neighborhood satisfaction were both predictive of academic self-efficacy beliefs.…

This study was designed to identify, through mediation analysis, potential causal mechanisms by which procedures of self-regulated learning increase the efficaciousness of teaching young students strategies for writing stories. In a randomized controlled trial with 3 measurement points (pretest, posttest, maintenance), 117 fourth graders either…

In this article, we present episodes from two qualitative research studies. The studies focus on students of different ages and populations and their work on different mathematical tasks. We examine the commonalities in environment, tools, and teacher-student interactions that are key influences on the positive dispositions engendered in the…

The purpose of this study was to examine teachers' current and retrospective perceptions of empowerment within the context of the No Child Left Behind Legislation. Much of the empowerment research to date was conducted prior to the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act which was signed into law in January, 2002. The legislation mandates that K-12 public…

The teacher-researcher employed multiple methods in this action research to analyze the effects of service-learning on the self-efficacy for self-regulated learning of her third-grade music students as they participated in an intergenerational project--sharing music and writing with residents in a local nursing home. Quantitative data were…

Various factors influence the developmental course of the behaviorally inhibited child. These factors include reciprocating, contextual factors, such as the child's own traits, the environment, the maternal characteristics, and the environment. Behaviorally inhibited children show physiological and behavioral signs of fear and anxiety when…

In this qualitative and interpretive study, we investigated factors that influenced elementary preservice teachers' self-efficacy in a constructivist, inquiry-based physics class. Bandura's (1977) theory of social learning was used as a basis to examine preservice teacher's self-efficacy. Participants included 70 female EC-4 preservice teachers…

Professional development is now recognized as a key driver in enhancing teacher expertise and improving student achievement. A multifaceted, collaborative professional-development intervention designed to equip teachers with a range of strategies, tools, and methodologies and raise literacy standards was implemented over two years (grades 1-2) in…

Teacher sense of academic optimism is individual teachers' beliefs that they can teach effectively, their students can learn, and parents will support them so the teacher can press hard for learning. This new construct is grounded in the social cognitive and self-efficacy theories, social capital theory, work on school culture and climate and…

This study explored the self-regulated learning (SRL) profile of upper elementary (fifth and sixth grade) school children who were differentiated in their task value beliefs (low and high) in language and mathematics. Students' SRL profile involved their teachers' ratings of achievement outcomes and SRL behaviors. The subscale of task value…