What do children actually carry away from participating in planned activities in natural areas such as those in outdoor camps and schools? Prior research has seldom been rigorous in establishing participants' connection to, knowledge of, and orientation toward nature before intervention, followed by a clear specification of what range of…

As federal mandates continue to emphasize the use of standardized tests, academic research is needed to determine if reading intervention programs are helping to close the achievement gap between struggling readers and their grade level peers. Although previous research indicated that reading intervention can be an effective tool for increasing…

One obstacle to understanding abstract concepts such as the "control of variables" strategy (CVS) is the tendency for learners to focus on surface rather than deep features in instructional materials. However, in tasks such as learning CVS, these same surface features may also support understanding, provided learners realize the…

This research explores solutions and challenges pertaining to a child's development of self-efficacy. After working with fifth grade students in a public education setting, Inoticed an increased reliance on teachers for both creative and procedural directions. This paper explores research of educators who examine the internal and external factors…

The purpose of this non-experimental quantitative study was to investigate the relationship between Pennsylvania's Classroom Diagnostic Tools (CDT) interim assessments and the state-mandated Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) and to create linear regression equations that could be used as models to predict student performance on the…

The 2-MEV model is a widely used tool to monitor children's environmental perception by scoring individual values. Although the scale's validity has been confirmed repeatedly and independently as well as the scale is in usage within more than two dozen language units all over the world, longitudinal properties still need clarification. The purpose…

Facilitator-led smoking media literacy (SML) programs have improved media literacy and reduced intention to smoke. However, these programs face limitations including high costs and barriers to standardization. We examined the efficacy of a Web-based media literacy program in improving smoking media literacy skills among adolescents. Sixty-six 9th…

The purpose of this study was to measure the effects of Choice-Based Art Education on supporting the needs of all learners in an inclusive classroom, while building confidence, creativity, and critical thinking skills. Over a seven-week period, data was collected through photographs, pre- and post- surveys, interviews, pre- and post-creativity…

Research shows that multiple external representations can significantly enhance students' learning. Most of this research has focused on learning with text and 1 additional graphical representation. However, real instructional materials often employ multiple "graphical" representations (MGRs) in addition to text. An important open…

In 2 experiments the authors investigated whether assigning a perspective to middle school students prior to reading a long informational text would improve their reading comprehension. Pretest-posttest control group designs were employed in both experiments, in Experiment 1 (n = 146 fifth- and sixth-grade students) and in Experiment 2 (n = 83…

As learning technologies proliferate, it is important for research to address how to best align instruction to educational goals. For example, recent evidence indicates that working collaboratively may have unique benefits for facilitating the acquisition of conceptual understanding, as opposed to procedural fluency (Mullins, Rummel & Spada,…

This article reports on a large scale randomized controlled trial to study the efficacy of a web-based intelligent tutoring system for the structure strategy designed to improve content area reading comprehension. The research was conducted with 128 fifth-grade classrooms within 12 school districts in rural and suburban settings. Classrooms within…

This study examined the impact of a commercially available math fluency intervention program on the basic multiplication fluency of three classrooms of fifth grade students. Baseline assessment and progress monitoring of thirty-three regular- and eleven special education students occurred over nine weeks. Within-group analyses revealed significant…

A secondary data analysis was conducted using a large dataset from a study related to online professional development for eighth grade teachers of mathematics. Using this data, the paper provides a snapshot of the current state of teachers' knowledge related to proportional reasoning and functions. The paper also considers how teachers' knowledge…

Technology is an increasing part in the lives of junior high students, but little is known about how this technology affects their reading. Reading comprehension from e-books is compared to reading comprehension from conventional print books with junior high students. The problem is that students may be reading from a medium that is less than the…