Efforts to improve civic education face a conundrum. On the one hand, students report that they are more likely to learn about democracy and citizenship through reading textbooks than through any other activity and according to the National Education Association, reading is the gateway to learning in all content areas. However, reviews of textbook…

Monitoring the Future (MTF), which is now in its 36th year, is a research program conducted at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research under a series of investigator-initiated research grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The study is comprised of several ongoing series of annual surveys of nationally representative…

The objectives of this project were to construct two sets of balanced repeated replication (BRR) weights for two National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) sets of weights: one based on the third follow-up survey done in 1994 (NELS88:94); and the second based on the fourth follow-up survey done in 2000 (NELS88:2000). These weights are…

This study examined the relationship between extracurricular activities and academic achievement for girls with different ethnic backgrounds in eighth and tenth grade. Participants include 4382 American girls (78% Caucasian, 9% Latina, 7% African American and 6% Asian Pacific Islander). It was expected that in-school academic organized activities…

A dynamic cascade model of development of serious adolescent violence was proposed and tested through prospective inquiry with 754 children (50% male; 43% African American) from 27 schools at 4 geographic sites followed annually from kindergarten through Grade 11 (ages 5-18). Self, parent, teacher, peer, observer, and administrative reports…

The purpose of this report is to provide descriptive data regarding the test scores of Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) students in grades 4, 8 and 10 in reading, math and science, as reported to the School Choice Demonstration Project 2007-2008. The tables, graphs, and histograms presented in this report provide a snapshot of these…

Research on conceptual change is still a powerful framework for empirical investigations on students' learning of science. During recent years, an increasing body of research has explored students' concepts prior and subsequent to instruction, leading to an extensive documentation of students' concepts including the difficulties and opportunities…

This report describes district-level results from the 2007-2008 AISD Student Climate Survey.

The Monitoring the Future study has provided the nation with a window into the important, but largely hidden, problem behaviors of illicit drug use, alcohol use, and tobacco use. It has provided a clearer view of the changing topography of these problems among adolescents and adults, a better understanding of the dynamics of factors that drive…

The study explored the relationship of self-concept and locus of control to science engagement and science achievement. Furthermore, the relationship of self variables with science engagement and science achievement was studied across ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status (SES). The data were accessed from the 3 waves of the National…

"University of Chicago School Mathematics Project (UCSMP) Algebra," designed to increase students' skills in algebra, is appropriate for students in grades 7-10, depending on the students' incoming knowledge. This one-year course highlights applications, uses statistics and geometry to develop the algebra of linear equations and…

Kentucky's goal of reaching academic "proficiency" by 2014 illuminated problematic findings in 2002 reading test scores: 44.30% of middle and 71.25% of high school students scored below "proficient." The research question was, "Do teaching practices in schools with high reading achievement scores differ from teaching practices in schools with low…

The current studies were designed to examine whether female adolescents have more negative reactions than male adolescents to achieving more than their same-sex friends. In Study 1, 51 females and 48 males from grades 8 and 10 were administered questions assessing their reactions to performing better than their closest same-sex friends in four…

I Can Learn Algebra (ICL) is a standards-based math curriculum for use in grades 7 through 10 that was developed by New Orleans-based JRL Enterprises. ICL provides self-paced, interactive, computerized lessons and frequent assessments to track student progress. This Brief WWC Study Report reviews a study of the effects of ICL students' achievement…

Since 1975, the Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey has annually studied the extent of drug use among high school 12th-graders. The survey was expanded in 1991 to include 8th- and 10th graders. It is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and is conducted by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. The goal of…