We tested whether a brief self-affirmation writing intervention protected against identity-threats (i.e., stereotyping and discrimination) for adolescents' school-related adjustment. The longitudinal study followed 639 adolescents in Germany (65% of immigrant descent, 50% female, M[subscript age] = 12.35 years, SD[subscript age] = 0.69) from 7th…

Various technology-based interventions exist to support writing for students with learning disabilities (LD). However, it is not enough to simply provide access to technology. How it is implemented by teachers may affect student outcomes. In this study, three special education teachers used a technology-based graphic organizer (TBGO) with embedded…

In this study, we investigated the effects of choice of writing prompt on the number of story elements included in written narratives. The investigation took place in a residential facility for students with emotional and behavioral disorders. Participants included six female students in a mixed-grade-level course (students had just completed…

Purpose is an important aspect of character development and thriving in adolescence; yet, there is little research explaining how it develops or how contexts such as school can support its development. In this study, 1,304 eighth graders completed a survey that measured purpose as the integration of 2 dimensions-- beyond-the-self life goal…

Helping struggling readers to learn history content in middle school can be difficult due to heavy reading demands. In this study, researchers taught poor readers with and without disabilities in eighth grade to generate main idea statements; create, compare, and contrast paragraphs; and identify cause and effect relations, along with relevant…

Helping struggling readers to learn history content in middle school can be difficult due to heavy reading demands. In this study, researchers taught poor readers with and without disabilities in 8th grade to generate main idea statements, create compare and contrast paragraphs, and identify cause and effect relationships, along with relevant…

This study investigated the hypothesis that prompting students to self-assess their interest and understanding of science concepts and activities would increase their motivation in science classes. Students were randomly assigned to an experimental condition that wrote self-assessments of their competence and interest in science lessons or a…

In the Netherlands, students with intellectual disabilities (ID) attend practical education (PE). Teachers generally use demonstration as a form of direct instruction (DI) and students have difficulty working independently. Strategy instruction (SI) is a question-answer-based method that stimulates students' autonomy by getting them to verbalize…

Understanding academic vocabulary is essential to student success in school. Use of academic vocabulary words in writing is considered one of the strongest measures of how well a reader understands a given word. In theory, willingness to use academic vocabulary in writing indicates the complexity of acquiring representations of the word's…

Twelve seventh- and eighth-grade students with emotional disturbance participated in a multiple probe, multiple baseline design two-phase intervention study to improve persuasive writing skills. The first phase after baseline taught students to plan and write persuasive essays including counterarguments. In the second phase, students were taught…

Experimental research has demonstrated both the deleterious effects of negative stereotypes about ability on academic performance and the relative ease with which stereotypes can be countered in educational settings. The extent to which stereotypes contribute to the achievement gap between American students from dominant social and economic groups…

This study describes the process of creating an Invitational Learning environment to improve the writing competence of middle school students in two special education classes. Teacher-student interactions were coded according to Purkey and Novak's (1996) Intentionality/Invitation Quadrant with levels corresponding to intentionally disinviting,…

The present study examined how beliefs about intelligence, as mediated by ability-validation goals, predicted whether students lost or maintained levels of intrinsic motivation over the course of a single academic year. 978 third- through eighth-grade students were surveyed in the fall about their theories concerning the malleability of…

Students with emotional disturbances present with behavioral and academic deficits that often limit their participation in general education settings. As an antecedent intervention, academic choice provides multiple choices surrounding academic work promoting academic and behavioral gains. The authors examined the effects of assignment choice with…

One provocative explanation for the continued persistence of minority achievement gaps involves the performance-dampening anxiety thought to be experienced by minority students in highly evaluative settings (i.e., "stereotype threat"). Recent field-experimental studies suggest that modest, low-cost "buffering" interventions…