School learning environments play important roles in students' lives. But when do these relationships form? Previous research on middle school students has identified a strong association between student socio-demographics, school characteristics, and achievement. Yet, few studies have investigated the origins of these associations. This study…

Differential Item Functioning (DIF) is commonly employed to examine measurement bias of test scores. Current approaches to DIF compare item functioning separately for select demographic identities such as gender, racial stratification, and economic status. Examining potential item bias fails to recognize and capture the intersecting configurations…

In post-structurally informed research, the answer to the widely documented 'achievement gap' among ethnic minorities has been a critique of educational institutions' monocultural discourse and its exclusionary effects, thus highlighting a contingent, "discursive" conception of diversity. However, in this empirical article, 10- to…

Gender gaps in mathematics achievement persist in many contexts and when visible, these gaps are paradoxical. Low-stakes measures of mathematics achievement such as grades and study behaviors favor girls, while gaps tend to reverse on assessments/ competitions. We explore whether different impacts of raising performance stakes could be one…

Gender gaps in mathematics achievement persist in many contexts and when visible, these gaps are paradoxical. Low-stakes measures of mathematics achievement such as grades and study behaviors favor girls, while gaps tend to reverse on assessments/competitions. We explore whether different impacts of raising performance stakes could be one…

The purpose of this evaluation was to examine the impact of i-Ready Personalized Instruction on reading achievement, as measured by SBA scores. We compared students in schools using i-Ready Personalized Instruction school-wide (Treatment students) to students who only received i-Ready Diagnostic assessments and who were in schools only partially…

The purpose of this evaluation was to examine the impact of i-Ready Personalized Instruction on math achievement, as measured by SBA scores. We compared "striving learner" students who were assigned to use i-Ready Personalized Instruction (Treatment students) and "striving learner" students assigned to only receive i-Ready…

The purpose of this evaluation was to examine the impact of i-Ready Personalized Instruction on math achievement, as measured by SBA scores. We compared students in schools using i-Ready Personalized Instruction school-wide (Treatment students) and students who only received i-Ready Diagnostic assessments and who were in schools only partially…

The purpose of this collective case study was to examine elementary music teachers' mental health and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research questions were: 1) What factors influenced music teachers' mental health and well-being during COVID-19; 2) How did music teachers support their own mental health and well-being during…

Demographic information often proves useful for finding subpopulations in educational data. Unfortunately, it is often not collected in the log files of online learning systems, which serve as one of the primary sources of data for the Educational Data Mining community. Recent work has sought to address this issue by investigating school-level…

The aim of the study is to analyze the 5th grade students' attitudes and self-efficacy for the physical education course that they have come across for the first time which is taught by physical education and sports teachers. Law No. 6287 was issued by the Turkish Grand National Assembly National Education Culture Youth and Sports Commission on…

For 30 years, researchers have investigated oral reading fluency as a measure of growth in reading proficiency. Yet, little research has been done with these measures in the context of progress monitoring in Tier 2 systems. First, we document teachers' progress-monitoring decisions on type of passage (on-grade or off-grade) and how often to…

This study describes student perceptions of potential elaborative or generative learning strategies called student knowledge links. This construct was assessed using the Student Knowledge Linking Instrument-Perceptions (SKLIP), a new learning inventory to measure late-elementary student perceptions of the creation of student knowledge links. After…

Teacher value-added models (VAMs) must isolate teachers' contributions to student achievement to be valid. Well-known VAMs use different specifications, however, leaving policymakers with little clear guidance for constructing a valid model. We examine the sensitivity of teacher value-added estimates under different models based on whether they…

Poetry is a genre that supports all aspects of literacy, and it is the first to which most children are exposed through motherly lullabies. Yet, while many studies have been conducted on prose comprehension, there is little empirical research on poetry comprehension, and none published on the specific strategies elementary students with learning…