We investigated how 5th-8th graders' self- and peer-identified withdrawal motivations predicted peer-reported peer relationships and aggression. Participants (N = 221; 47% male) provided self-reports and peer-nomination data (we analyzed 339 students' nominations). We hypothesized shyness, unsociability, and avoidance would predict low peer liking…

From elementary school through to college, bullying is believed to be an ongoing problem in all schools. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study is to explore how elementary school teachers describe gender-specific bullying behaviors of upper elementary students (grades 4 to 6) within a large school district. This study included 67…

The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to examine if there is a significant difference in oral reading fluency and retell of third through sixth grade EL students taught using mobile devices versus no mobile devices when adjusted for pretest scores. The study examined the effect of mobile device use for ELs receiving reading intervention…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how special education teachers describe selecting and applying differentiated instructional strategies for students with mild, moderate, to severe disabilities in self-contained classrooms within a school district in Arizona. Jean Piaget's social constructivism theory and Carol Ann…

Educators, researchers, and policy makers concerned about college under-enrollment among underserved groups of students have traditionally focused reform efforts at the high school level. Over the last several decades, however, there has been a growing interest in improving college readiness beginning at the elementary level. Recently, the…

The development of academic English proficiency and the time it takes to reclassify to fluent English proficient status are key issues in English learner (EL) policy. This article develops a shared random effects model (SREM) to estimate English proficiency development and time to reclassification simultaneously, treating student-specific random…

We examined how the development of familism values from 5th to 10th grade relates to 12th-grade prosocial tendencies (after controlling for 10th-grade prosocial tendencies) using a stratified random sample of 749 Mexican American adolescents (M = 10.42 years of age at 5th grade; 48.9% girls) from 35 culturally and economically diverse…

The purpose of this paper is to showcase new research that seeks to provide guidance on the heterogeneity of treatment effects by utilizing the variance of demographic differences in state assessments. This study is focused on a simple randomized block design where students are nested within schools, and within each school students are randomized…

We examined instructional processes in classrooms where students with and without disabilities received mathematics instruction to understand the relationship among key instructional process variables and achievement as measured by interim and end-of-year summative assessments. Teachers (N = 78) completed instructional logs daily and administered…

Tasks to Advance the Learning of Mathematics (TALMs) were developed to stimulate grades 5-8 students' curiosity about complex mathematical relationships, inspire them to reason abstractly and quantitatively, encourage them to consider and create alternative solution approaches, develop their skills to persuade others about the viability of one…

Randomized experiments are often considered the strongest designs to study the impact of educational interventions. Perhaps the most prevalent class of designs used in large scale education experiments is the cluster randomized design in which entire schools are assigned to treatments. In cluster randomized trials (CRTs) that assign schools to…

When teachers, parents, and community members work together, children benefit (Henderson and Mapp 2002). This is especially true when the collaboration is coordinated and focused as it was for the Greenteam, a science ecology club and an event created by a network of educators, elementary students, and science professionals. The club and a…

Background: Cluster-randomized experiments that assign intact groups such as schools or school districts to treatment conditions are increasingly common in educational research. Such experiments are inherently multilevel designs whose sensitivity (statistical power and precision of estimates) depends on the variance decomposition across levels.…

The "GeoLiteracy for English language learners" (ELLs) program is a curriculum that enhances reading and writing skills while teaching geography content for US students in kindergarten through eighth grades. The program includes 85 lesson plans that address all US national geography standards, a quarter of which address environmental…

A vertical scale, in principle, provides a common metric across tests with differing difficulties (e.g., spanning multiple grades) so that statements of "absolute" growth can be made. This paper compares 16 states' 2007-2008 effect size growth trends on vertically scaled reading and math assessments across grades 3 to 8. Two patterns…