Teenage pregnancy among school-going youth is a concern worldwide, but in socially-economically challenged environments it is a result of, and contributory factor to, a complex web of social injustice. In South Africa, most of the school-based prevention interventions to date have been adult-designed and imparted, with the voice of the target…

This occasional paper presents national demographic subgroup data for the 1975-2017 Monitoring the Future (MTF) national survey results on 8th, 10th, and 12th graders' use of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco. MTF is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health under a series of investigator-initiated, competitive…

Instructional time is a fundamental educational input, yet we have little causal evidence about the effect of longer school days on student achievement. This paper uses a sharp regression discontinuity design to estimate the effects of lengthening the school day for low-performing schools in Florida by exploiting an administrative cutoff for…

This study analyses the relationships among educational performance, field dependence-independence cognitive style and factors traditionally associated with performance and style, to build a comprehensive model of factors associated with the levels of education performance of students in Bogotá. A total of 3003 students, of grades 8 and 10, from…

Purpose: This study examined the agreement between estimated peak oxygen consumption (VO[subscript 2peak]) obtained from the Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run (PACER) fitness test and equated PACER laps derived from One-Mile Run time (MR). Methods: A sample of 680 participants (324 boys and 356 girls) in Grades 7 through 12…

This study examined the contributions of vocabulary and spelling to the reading comprehension of students in grades 6-10 who were and were not classified as English language learners. Results indicate that vocabulary accounted for greater between-grade differences and unique variance (?R[superscript 2] = 0.11-0.31) in comprehension as compared to…

Our nation is in the midst of one of the largest education reforms in decades centered on the adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and aligned assessments. In an era of rising accountability measures and declining literacy proficiency, it is vital to ensure that educational resources, such as benchmark assessments, are appropriately…

This report outlines the development, methodology, and results of the split-half administration of the 2015 School Crime Supplement (SCS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The National Center for…

Aims: The Drug Education in Victorian Schools (DEVS) programme taught about licit and illicit drugs over two years (2010-2011), with follow up in the third year (2012). It focussed on minimising harm and employed participatory, critical-thinking and skill-focussed pedagogy. This study evaluated the programme's residual effectiveness at follow up…

Research has begun to show that certain schoolwide characteristics--such as student-centered learning environments, leadership, and safety--can be important for improving student outcomes. In keeping with these insights, school improvement efforts around the country are becoming less narrowly focused on the performance of individual students and…

Competitions are discussed as a measure to foster students' interest, especially for highly gifted and talented students. In the current study, participants of a cognitive school competition in science were compared to non-participants of the same age group (14-15) who either did not participate in any competition or who participated in a…

Does the mathematical reasoning ability develop with increase in age? How is mathematical reasoning ability differing according to gender? The current study is trying to find answers to these two questions. The study using cross-sectional design, was conducted with 409 (8th, 9th and 10th grade) students attending middle school and high school in…

Early detection of severe violence is a significant challenge for many schools. Three studies were conducted on samples of 6th, 8th, and 10th graders (12-16 years old). The first study, based on paired reports of teachers and students (n = 130), showed that a high percentage of both victims and perpetrators of severe violence are not identified by…

Education Policy Innovation Collaborative (EPIC) partnered with the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) to conduct a multi-year study of Michigan's implementation of competency-based education in K-12 schools. This mixed-methods study seeks to investigate the implementation and effectiveness of CBE using data from surveys administered to 21j…

Substance use is a frequently cited health risk behavior in the youth gang literature, yet little is known about how substance use patterns vary among gang-involved youth or the social ecological factors that contribute to potential variation. Developing relevant and effective service approaches will require an understanding of this variation and…