The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to explore the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effectiveness of a Tier 2 classroom-based motivational interviewing (MI) intervention--the Aspire Group Intervention (AGI)--designed for ninth-grade students identified as being at high risk for school dropout. The nine-lesson AGI curriculum was…

Background: Prior studies have emphasized the importance of parents' educational involvement (a type of cognitive involvement) to academic engagement, although little is known about emotional involvement. Aims: This study investigated whether and how different facets of involvement (cognitive vs. emotional, paternal vs. maternal) are…

Research literature identifies that students with more positive student-teacher relationships attain more desirable student outcomes than their counterparts with less positive relationships (Roorda, Koomen, Split, & Oort, 2011). How student-teacher relationships impact students are studied developmentally. The effect of positive relationships…

Despite high scores and abilities, girls lose interest in science and math throughout middle school. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs in the computer science research field will grow 19% by 2026; however, only 18% of the bachelor's degrees in computer science are earned by women in the United States (ComputerScience.org, 2021).…

Mississippi has made significant gains in education over the past ten years. Yet, teacher attrition rates are still low impacting student achievement. This study was conducted to investigate if there is a significant difference in the sense of self-efficacy for teachers from suburban and rural, elementary and middle schools of Mississippi. Teacher…

Motivating students in mathematics requires innovative and engaging approaches. This Spotlight explores strategies to foster a love of math and cultivate students' problem-solving abilities. From creating motivating classroom environments to connecting math to potential careers, these articles offer valuable perspectives. Discover how to build on…

Constraints-led approach (CLA) is widely used in physical education (PE). This four-phased study aimed to develop a self-report measurement of students' perceived constraints support in PE. The relationships among students' perceived constraints support, competence and novelty need satisfaction, motivation, effort, and engagement in PE were also…

The literature on school climate, albeit vast, is limited by a scarcity of longitudinal research. This two-wave longitudinal study aims to bridge this gap by (a) assessing, over two school years, the changes in students' perceptions of several dimensions of school climate and (b) exploring the reciprocal longitudinal effects of student perceptions…

During the COVID-19 pandemic, online learning has experienced increasing utilization and poses new challenges for schoolteachers to engage students. Project-based Learning (PBL) is widely acknowledged as an effective pedagogy for motivating and involving students. However, few studies have examined scaffolds that facilitate student engagement in…

Due to the ongoing global health crisis, the Philippine Basic Education opted to implement modular distance learning (MDL) as an alternative mode of learning for the current school year. This modality depends highly on the use of self-learning modules (SLMs) with the goal of bringing about learning and continuing students' education amidst the…

Peers are central in shaping adolescents' development across various domains. This research examined patterns of peer system resources and liabilities, and their association with academic adjustment. A person-centred approach, Latent Profile Analysis, was used to classify students into groups based on characteristics of the peer system: friendship…

Research supports the finding that middle school students prefer hands-on activities to reading and writing to learn new information. However, disciplinary literacy, the reading and writing in science class, is an integral part of inquiry-based science instruction and a necessary complement to hands-on instruction to build student understanding.…

Digital game-based learning (DGBL) has unique factors that can engage students in the learning process. It has been shown that incorporating DGBL into mathematics can help bridge the learning gap, differentiate instruction, and engage students (Yang et al., 2018; Hulse et al., 2019; Chen et al., 2012; Naik, 2017). This study examined how students'…

Often, when middle-school students make mistakes, they tend to erase their work and record the correct answer without trying to understand what led to the mistake. In response, this article describes three opportunities educators can leverage for engaging students in the processes of reasoning and sense making about mathematics.

Facilitating productive mathematical argumentation is challenging; it is critical to develop a specific guiding vision of practices to help teachers learn to teach argumentation. However, what counts as acceptable classroom-based mathematical argumentation remains an open question. In this study, building on Habermas' theory of communicative…