In the weeks leading up to a presidential election, it is hard to dismiss the importance of civic education, with campaign speeches, debates and advertisements blaring everywhere. Yet the National Assessment of Education Progress reports that only one-fourth of high school graduates are proficient in topics such as the American political system,…

The UChicago Consortium on School Research has been surveying students, teachers, and principals in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) since 1991 using what is now known as the 5Essentials surveys. The developers categorized and grouped survey measures into what they refer to as "The Five Essentials for School Improvement." The value of…

As public budgets have grown tighter over the past decade, states and school districts have sought ways to control the growth of spending. One increasingly common strategy employed to rein in costs is to offer experienced teachers with high salaries financial incentives to retire early. Although early retirement incentive (ERI) programs have been…

This study includes the results of a 2-day education project titled "Molecular Biology Laboratory Summer School, MoBiLYO." The project was held at a University Research Center by scientists from Department of Pharmacology and graduate students. The project was composed of introductory lectures, model construction, DNA isolation,…

Aiming to provide better education facilities and improve the educational attainment of poor rural students, China's government has been merging remote rural primary schools into centralized village, town, or county schools since the late 1990s. To accompany the policy, boarding facilities have been constructed that allow (mandate) primary…

Background: It is well established that the activity of producing a text is a complex one involving three main cognitive processes: Planning, translating, and revising. Although these processes are crucial in skilled writing, beginning and developing writers seem to struggle with them, mainly with planning and revising. Aims: To trace the…

This study investigates the factors influencing the success of students in primary schools in Turkey. TIMSS 2011 data for Turkey, measuring the success of eighth-grade students in the field of mathematics, were used in an econometric analysis, performed using classical linear regression models. Two hundred thirty-nine schools participated in the…

The study, "The Impact of Indiana's System of Interim Assessments on Mathematics and Reading," examined the effects of using Diagnostic Assessment Tools (DAT) on mathematics and reading outcomes for students in 59 Indiana schools during the 2009-10 academic year. DAT consists of interim assessment tools--Wireless Generation's mCLASS for…

Problem Statement: History is a science that helps people guide their futures; it is an indispensable part of education. It is important for students to know the past well in order to understand the present better and direct their future. History does not have magical laws to generalize in predicting future. However, we have to know that history…

The cycle of duplication and division, known as the "cell cycle," is the essential mechanism by which all living organisms reproduce. This activity allows students to develop an understanding of the main events that occur during the typical eukaryotic cell cycle mostly in the process of mitotic phase that divides the duplicated genetic material…

This paper presents results of a survey among school children aged 10 to 14 years, who participated in science or mathematics workshops. It particularly relates to their interest and motivation determined immediately after the workshop had finished. A total of 70 workshops were held in elementary schools of Rijeka, Croatia, involving the…

This paper estimates the impact of the use of structured methods on the quality of education for students in primary public school in Brazil. Structured methods encompass a range of pedagogical and managerial instruments applied in the educational system. In recent years, several municipalities in the state of Sao Paulo have contracted out private…

The purpose of this research was to investigate the primary education second level students' motivations towards science learning in terms of various factors. Within the research, the variation of the total motivational scores in science learning according to the gender, class, socio-economic levels, success in science-technology course and…

In this paper we investigate the relationship between social capital and cheating behaviour in standardized tests. Given the low-stakes nature of these tests, we interpret the widespread presence of cheating as a signal of low trust towards central education authorities and as lack of respect for the rule of law. We find that cheating is…

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to describe the motivation to read of elementary African American and Hispanic boys and explore the possible differences in reading motivation using the constructs of self-perceptions as a reader and value of reading. Educational research has repeatedly shown that students from disadvantaged minority…