Research suggests that executive function, motivation, transcription, and composition processes are implicated in the writing quality and productivity of children with and without learning difficulties. However, numerous components embedded within these constructs create both conceptual and empirical challenges to the study of written expression.…

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of extrinsic motivational factors on upper elementary students who are reading at least two grade levels below their current grade. Research was conducted using a mixed methods approach to examine the perceptions of 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students who have difficulty in reading. A purposeful…

Some approaches to teaching mathematics have led to decreased student motivation. Gamification is an application of game elements within nongame settings. While gamification may increase motivation in other contexts, its effective use in digital mathematics instruction to motivate elementary students is undetermined. Based on the constructs of…

Demographic information often proves useful for finding subpopulations in educational data. Unfortunately, it is often not collected in the log files of online learning systems, which serve as one of the primary sources of data for the Educational Data Mining community. Recent work has sought to address this issue by investigating school-level…

This article focuses on how 47 Latinos/as (Grades 2-5) described their day in a state-rated exemplary public school. They attended Tarea, a pseudonym for a test-focused South Texas school. Interviews took place during an after-school cultural arts program I taught at Tarea for enrichment purposes. The most common interview themes were lack of…

Over 900 Texas teachers were surveyed on their perceptions of the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS), which at the time of the survey was Texas's high-stakes achievement test. The sample included elementary, middle, and high schools within each of four test performance levels: exemplary, recommended, acceptable, and low performing.…