Engagement has been viewed as an important construct to understand students' learning performances in classroom settings. Taking an interactive perspective, the study investigates ninth graders' cognitive, emotional, and behavioral engagement in teacher-centered (TC) and student-centered (SC) technology-enhanced classrooms. 54 students from two…

This study evaluates the impact of minimally trained tutors on the pass/fail ratio of middle school students in core subjects such as English, reading, math, or science. Because a traditional experimental design comparing students who receive a treatment with those who do not was not financially feasible, the study employed an alternative that has…

Rigorous research provides information that will allow other schools and districts to select interventions that have a scientifically based track record of effectiveness. All Striving Reader grants include the mandate to evaluate literacy intervention(s) targeted to adolescents who are reading significantly below grade level. Although all studies…

This study was designed to assess the impact of "Mathematics Pathways and Pitfalls" ("MPP") on the mathematics that second-, fourth-, and sixth-grade students learn. The specific research questions that were addressed are: (a) What is the impact of "MPP" on students' knowledge of the mathematics topics addressed,…

The NASA's Mars Student Imaging Project (MSIP) is led by the Arizona State University (ASU) Mars Education Program, a major partner of NASA's Mars Exploration Program. MSIP is based on the National Science Education Standards and includes curriculum on terrestrial planet characteristics, experimental design, and proposal writing. Three spacecraft…

This paper examines the educational impacts of the Berkshire Wireless Learning Initiative (BWLI), a pilot program that provided 1:1 technology access to all students and teachers across five public and private middle schools in western Massachusetts. Using a pre/post comparative study design, the current study explores a wide range of program…

Background: Much research has sought to investigate emotions and forms of emotion management among teachers worldwide, including the connection between educational change and teacher emotion; the association between the culture of teaching and teachers' emotional experience within parent-teacher interactions; the link between teacher emotion and…

This book explores the challenges of implementing and assessing educational interventions in varied classroom contexts. Included are reflections on the challenges of designing studies for improving the instructional core of schools, guidelines for establishing evidence of interventions' impacts across a wide range of settings, and an assessment of…

This paper presents the research and methodology and analyses used for the "Gaining Ground in the Middle Grades" research. This appendix contains the following sections: (1) Overview; (2) Constructing the Survey Data File; (3) Constructing Composite Independent Variables (Subdomains); (4) Constructing Longitudinal Outcome Variables; (5)…

This manuscript describes how two school administrators, now educational leadership professors, successfully reframed leadership to create change. Bolman and Deal's (1984; 2003) reframing of pedagogy provided the theory for understanding this complex change process and the school administrator's role. As a conceptual framework, reframing theory…

This investigation examined the effects and consequences of using testing accommodations, including reading aloud test content, with a group of eighth-grade students (N = 79) on a standardized reading test. Research questions pertaining to the effects of accommodations on reading test scores and consequences of testing on teacher and student…

We used two multiple baseline designs to investigate effects of a self-monitoring strategy on following-direction skills of six middle school students with moderate to severe disabilities in general education. Students were instructed to acknowledge a given direction, complete the task, and monitor their performance. Results suggest that all…

Research indicates that peer interaction can have a substantial impact on the lives of adolescents with disabilities. However, social interaction among adolescents with intellectual disabilities and their general education peers typically occurs infrequently in secondary schools. This paper provides a critical analysis of twenty-six empirical…

The National Longitudinal Evaluation of Comprehensive School Reform (NLECSR) is a quantitative and qualitative study of behavior, decisions, processes, and outcomes. It employs a quasi-experimental design with matched treatment and comparison schools. NLECSR seeks to determine the effects of CSR models on student achievement in about 650…