The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore the perceived ease of use and usefulness of an assistive robot educator tool. The theoretical foundation for this study was the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Service Robot Acceptance Model (sRAM), which explore perceptions around the utility of technological systems. The…

The aim of the study informing this paper was to investigate pre-service teachers' (PSTs') approaches to task design, posing the research question: How do pre-service teachers respond when they are asked to design an exploratory task using GeoGebra for 8th grade students? The research study and this paper focus on the PSTs' design stories rather…

The integration of education and robotics has emerged as a crucial development in the technological landscape. This study focuses on the use of a robot teaching assistant to enhance the learning efficiency of 8th-grade students in hands-on STEM activities centered around the theme of "Smart City." It explores the impact of educational…

Like most other states, Missouri uses assessments intended to measure whether students are on a pathway to "college and career readiness." The state longitudinal data system now has the capacity to directly test that claim. We make use of 8th-grade assessment (MAP) scores in Math, Science, and Communication Arts for roughly 260,000…

Self-determination theory (SDT) proposes to explain the relations between motivational states and human development. In education, a central tenet of the theory is that experiencing autonomous motivation in school activities (i.e., genuine pleasure and enjoyment) fosters optimal learning processes, whereas experiencing controlled motivation (i.e.,…

This essay explores a student teacher's experience teaching an identity-themed poetry unit to a Year 9 class at an all-boys comprehensive school through the lens of one student's writing. Investigating an intimate poem, produced at the end of a difficult lesson, reveals the importance of allowing students the space to bring their individual…

The causal-comparative research study examined if academic achievement differs between African American 8th-grade students in schools where they constitute the majority versus the minority in Clarendon County, South Carolina. The research questions investigated 8th-grade African American students' academic performance in English Language Arts and…

In this article, we examine the fraught task of doing drama-based work on the climate crisis with youth in schools at a time of increasing climate fatalism. We focus on what a virtual, speculative fiction writing and performance workshop achieved with students in Coventry, Kaohsiung and Bogotá by inviting them to rewrite the futures of local…

The PreACT® suite of assessments (PreACT® 8/9, PreACT®, and PreACT® Secure™) can be used to monitor students' progress toward college and career readiness. Scores are classified into one of three readiness levels based on chances of meeting the ACT College Readiness Benchmark. This data byte presents the updated score ranges for each readiness…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) program only reports state-level subgroup results if it samples at least 62 students identifying with the subgroup. Since some subgroups constitute small proportions of many states' general student populations, these minority subgroups are seldom sufficiently sampled to meet this sample size…

Nutrition education at school can contribute to developing healthy nutritional behaviours in schoolchildren. This paper critically reflects on how participatory action research (PAR) empowered university researchers and a school community to co-develop a school-based nutrition education programme (SBNEP) that promotes healthy nutritional…

Debates about grade retention weigh the academic benefits of remediation against its social and psychological costs. Louisiana adopted a retention policy aimed at capturing these benefits while mitigating the harm. It used test score thresholds to distinguish between retention in grade 8, promotion to grade 9, and a grade "8.5" where…

This qualitative dissertation aimed to understand if an after-school kinesiology service-learning program changed the relationship between a large Research I institution and a local public school. Eight 7th- and 8th-grade students, three classroom teachers, and one administrator participated. Data collection methods included semistructured…

This qualitative multiple case study explores the collaborations between three STEM middle school teachers and three STEM undergraduate mentors of color in an urban school district. Drawing on sociocultural theories and literature on culturally relevant education, we used a comparative thematic approach to explore how mentors contributed to…

Racially and ethnically diverse populations from minoritized backgrounds are often exposed to research methodologies that amplify structural racism and negate their sociocultural reality. Although cross-cultural validation of measures is considered a requisite step to multigroup comparisons, researchers apply measures validated and standardized in…