Reading motivation is an important contributor to reading achievement. Students with higher levels of motivation tend to outperform those with lower levels. Reading motivation is a dynamic, situational, context-dependent trait that can vary in children over time and across tasks. Teachers have a valuable opportunity to support students' reading…

These appendices accompany the report "Final Report of the i3 Impact Study of Making Sense of SCIENCE, 2016-17 through 2017-18." Science education has experienced a significant transition over the last decade, catalyzed by a re-envisioning of what students should know and be able to do in science. That re-envisioning culminated in the…

A mixed-methods study investigated the relationship between teachers within urban Title I elementary schools (e.g., high versus low performing) and their mathematics problem-solving beliefs in six constructs ("perseverance," "procedural," "conceptual," "importance," "effort," and…

STEM integration has become a popular concept not only in the context of education practices but also as a way of learning. The integration of the STEM domains is evident in students' learning experiences when engaging in STEM activities. However, there is a lack of instruments for evaluating students' levels of self-efficacy in these activities.…

School climate is a vital aspect of school life that influences students' emotional well- being, social relations and academic achievement. Therefore, educators need to monitor school climate to nurture good interpersonal relations and students' positive experiences in school. To achieve this objective, educators and psychosocial support services…

The problem of disproportionality in special education is complex and requires an investigation of multiple factors related to racial, ethnic, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds, school context, and family characteristics. Researchers have debated whether language minority (LM) students are under or overrepresented in special education, but…

There have been recent calls to support student agency in the field of literacy. Agency, which we define in the context of schooling, is a multidimensional construct where individuals exert influence and create opportunities in the learning context through intentions, decisions, and actions. We propose highlighting agency as an interconnected…

Objective: Research has demonstrated the effectiveness of interventions to reduce organizational skills deficits and homework problems, including the clinic-based Organizational Skills Training (OST-C) program (Abikoff et al., 2013). In this study, OST-C was adapted for schools as a small-group (Tier 2) intervention delivered by school partners…

Background: Despite growing concern about the impact of cyberbullying on youth, few studies to date have investigated this phenomenon among elementary school samples. Consequently, little is known about cyber victimization exposure among younger children. Objective: The purpose of the present study was to examine the prevalence and nature of cyber…

We examined civic engagement in middle childhood and the degree to which parents' civic beliefs (i.e., social trust and civic efficacy), civic participation, and socialization practices were associated with indicators of children's civic engagement (i.e., social responsibility and civic values). Survey data were collected from 359 racially,…

Various inquiry approaches have been promoted in science classrooms as a way for students to engage in, and have a deeper understanding of scientific discourse. However, there is a paucity of empirical evidence to suggest how children's actions and engagement in these approaches, or "practical epistemologies" (Sandoval, Science Education…

Surveying is a common methodology in science education research, including cross-national and cross-cultural comparisons. The literature surrounding students' attitudes toward science, in particular, illustrates the prevalence of efforts to translate instruments with the eventual goal of comparing groups. This paper utilizes survey data from a…

Almost half of Tennessee's students are not on grade level in reading and math by the time they complete third grade, and very few of those students achieve proficiency in later grades. To combat this trend and support the skill development and academic achievement of all students, Tennessee has adopted a framework for addressing individual…

The current study reports on a large-scale quantitative analysis of classroom talk practices and links to different measures of reading achievement within upper elementary classrooms. Data involving 745 fourth- and fifth-grade teachers and 18,844 students from the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) study were used. Talk was quantified via…

High-quality measurement tools are critical to school improvement efforts. Education researchers frequently employ surveys in order to assess a host of variables associated with school improvement. This article asserts that Rasch modeling techniques enhance the quality of a measurement tool because they comprise elements of both qualitative and…