Starting in the 2019-2020 school year, NewSchools Venture Fund awarded a research grant to ACT to better understand factors related to social and emotional learning (SEL). SEL lessons were implemented in schools serving students who were 96% Latinx, 85% economically disadvantaged, and 38% English learners during the 2019-2020 school year. The…

Though today's students are considered digital natives, they lack the digital literacy skills needed to be competent and productive members of a digital society. The problem is a lack of evidence about the effectiveness of using content knowledge instruction and application experiences to develop students' digital literacy skills. The purpose of…

It is imperative that schools and communities give students opportunities to participate in active citizenship and prepare them with the important skills and dispositions needed to become informed citizens. Action civics is a promising practice that puts students at the heart of civics learning by providing them with the opportunity to learn about…

This study investigated the relationship between listening comprehension and reading comprehension to determine if environmental factors might be contributing to a possible change in the equalization age for these two comprehension modalities from what was theorized by Thomas Sticht. The study employed a counterbalanced design to measure the…

Little is known empirically about intraclass correlations (ICCs) for multisite cluster randomized trial (MSCRT) designs, particularly in science education. In this study, ICCs suitable for science achievement studies using a three-level (students in schools in districts) MSCRT design that block on district are estimated and examined. Estimates of…

Features of eighth-grade history textbooks were examined through replication of a 20-year-old study that investigated "considerateness" of textbooks. Considerate texts provide clear, coherent information and include features that promote students' comprehension, such as explicit use of organizational structures, a range of question types…

A cluster-randomized trial (CRT) relies on random assignment of intact clusters to treatment conditions, such as classrooms or schools (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002). One specific type of CRT, a multi-site CRT (MSCRT), is commonly employed in educational research and evaluation studies (Spybrook & Raudenbush, 2009; Spybrook, 2014; Bloom,…

This paper summarizes the historical and legislative backgrounds leading to statewide testing of health-related physical fitness in Texas children grades 3-12 as mandated by Texas Senate Bill 530. The rationale and goals for an associated research project (the Texas Youth Fitness Study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) to evaluate…

"Saxon Math", published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is a core curriculum for students in grades K-12. This report includes studies that investigate the potential impact of "Saxon Math" for students in grades 6-8. A distinguishing feature of the curriculum is its use of an incremental approach for instruction and assessment.…

The work described in this report is the second phase of a project to provide easy-to-use tools for authoring and rendering secondaryschool algebra-levelmath expressions insynthesized speech that is useful for studentswithblindnessor lowvision.This report describes the development and results of the second feedback study performed for our project,…

This study examined whether the type of prompt or the method of passage reading had an effect on the retell performance of 6th-8th graders randomly assigned to one of four retell testing conditions. Both the type of prompt and the use of follow-up prompting were significantly related to the percentage of predetermined idea units retold. Effect…

One purpose of educational research is to provide information about the likely impact of interventions or treatments on policy-relevant populations of students. Randomized experiments are useful for estimating the causal effects of interventions on the students in schools that participate in the experiments. Unfortunately, the samples of schools…

Technology has gained a firm stronghold in society as well as modern classroom. Students are assumed to have a natural aptitude for computers. Over the past decades, educational websites have appeared to be "interactive" and "to make learning fun". This study employed quantitative method of research using 8th grade instructors…

This study examines factors related to the sustainability of SimCalc Mathworlds (SCMW), a technology-infused mathematics curriculum. We surveyed middle school teachers one year after their participation in a randomized trial where they were introduced to SCMW curriculum, to identify factors related to their continued use of the materials in ways…

Controversy surrounds the issue of single-gender education, with advocates debating that the initiative decreases discrimination, improves educational experiences for males and females, and provides parents more choice. Opponents argue that single-gender education is a form of segregation and negates the gains that women have achieved in the area…