The purpose of this study was to examine a possible relationship between student perceptions of parental involvement and student goal orientation for an ethnically diverse fifth grade elementary population from high-poverty schools. This study was quantitative in nature and employed the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Scales (PALS) to assess the…

Motivation is a fundamental educational challenge for adolescents in the United States, and particularly for immigrant youth. The motivation to achieve, especially in mathematics, declines during adolescence. Most of what is known about motivation is based on studies of predominately middle-class White students; yet the influx of immigrants over…

Early aggression is a problem in its own right and a risk factor for further developmental problems. Although both effortful control and social information processing (SIP) skills are negatively associated with aggression and are targeted by aggression prevention programs, little is known about the relation between them or about their joint…

Since its publication in 2012, "The Behavior Code: A Practical Guide to Understanding and Teaching the Most Challenging Students" has helped countless classroom teachers, special educators, and others implement an effective, new approach to teaching focused on skill-building, practical interventions, and purposeful, positive interactions…

The SELF Foundation engaged 287 students at Key, Revere, and Welch middle schools in afterschool tutorials and enrichment activities to support their academic, social, and emotional development. Program impact was measured using reading and math performance, attendance, and disciplinary actions of SELF Foundation students compared to…

The goal of this QUAN-qual mixed methods study was to investigate how parents from various ethnicities and socioeconomic status construct their expectations of academic achievement and the impact these expectations have on academic success for the student. Data was gathered by using The Parent Survey of Family and Community Involvement in the…

The current study tested models to determine the extent to which self-worth and social goals mediate the influence of ethnic identity on aggression among aggressive European and African American preadolescents. Ethnic identity emerged as important for both groups, but in different ways. Different patterns of influence of ethnic identity and of…

During the 2013-2014 academic year, the S.E.L.F. Foundation engaged 32 predominately at-risk students at Key Middle School (KMS) in afterschool tutorials and enrichment activities to support their academic, social, and emotional development. Outcome measures consisted of reading and mathematics performance before and after program implementation.…

The purpose of this study was to explore the learning strategies used by ethnically diverse learners and to investigate the relationships among the constructs of classroom goal structure, achievement goal orientation, motivation and self-regulated learning in an ethnically diverse population of fourth and fifth grade learners (n = 396). Goal…

The aim of this study was to examine students' performance calibration in physical education. One hundred fifth and sixth grade students provided estimations regarding their performance in a dribbling test after practicing dribbling for 16 minutes under different self-regulatory conditions (i.e., receiving feedback, setting goals, self-recording).…

Achievement goal theory distinguishes between mastery goals (the goals of developing competence) and performance goals (the goals of demonstrating competence) [Ames [1992] "Journal of Educational Psychology" 84: 261-271]. In this study, we employed this theory aiming to better understand why adolescents' motivation to learn science…

This study addressed the problem of chronic low student achievement in language arts at a Program Improvement 5+ school by implementing two cycles of facilitated lesson study. Using action research to facilitate and monitor change in instructional practices at a school that is currently undergoing a teacher-initiated turnaround reform effort, this…

Using data for school improvement is a key goal of Race to the Top, and now is the time to make data-driven school improvement a priority. However, many educators are drowning in data. Boost your professional learning community's ability to translate data into action with this new book from Pam Robbins and Robert T. Hess. "The Data Toolkit"…

The present study examined the predictiveness of self-regulated learning strategies and goal orientation of elementary students' academic achievement. Eighty one (n = 81) fifth graders were asked to respond to two scales. It was hypothesized that student achievement would be predicted by prior achievement, use of self-regulation strategies, and…

This is an abridged, summary report of selected findings from "Pieces of the Puzzle: Factors in the Improvement of Urban School Districts on the National Assessment of Educational Progress"--a comprehensive study prepared by the Council of the Great City Schools in collaboration with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and with…