This study will examine principals' attitudes concerning the impact of the new performance pay plans on principals' relationships with their teachers and how these plans impact their schools. This study will explore principals' perceptions of performance pay, thus providing information to school policy stakeholders, policymakers, teachers, and…

The purpose of this study was to examine middle school students' out-of-school experiences related to science, priorities related to their future job, perception toward themselves as a scientist. One intact school was assigned randomly from each country. The study involved 479 students (363 Turkish students; 116 American students), aged between 11…

There has been a growing need felt by practitioners, researchers, and evaluators to obtain a common measure of science engagement that can be used in different out-of-school time (OST) science learning settings. We report on the development and validation of a novel 10-item self-report instrument designed to measure, communicate, and ultimately…

English learners' (ELs) day-to-day experiences in school change when reclassified as fully English proficient. Prior research, however, is mixed on how reclassification influences outcomes. Many studies also do not or cannot explore key long-term outcomes or identify impacts over time. In this study I leverage longitudinal student data in a…

In this article we present exploratory research carried out in order to understand how students (from 12 to 14 years old) relate to technical objects. It uses technical objects that are part of everyday life and mediated reality. A questionnaire was administered to 57 students in French classes. The questionnaire was composed of three parts: 1)…

The purpose of this study was to determine if the motivational profiles of male junior high weight training students differ across levels of teacher-to-student relatedness. One hundred and sixty six students participated in one of two units of instruction. Contextual motivation was measured using the Sport Motivation Scale II-Physical Education…

In this exploratory study we examined the alignment of Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) middle school engineering design standards with lesson ideas from middle school teachers, science education faculty, and engineering faculty (4-6 members per group). Respondents were prompted to provide plain language interpretations of two middle…

Learning how to write is a challenging process, typically developed in schools. Teachers' practices in teaching writing, however, have been under researched. The aim of this study was to survey a sample of teachers from Portugal (n = 96) and Brazil (n = 99) about their practices for and perceptions about writing instruction. Teachers reported on…

We conducted a theory-based analysis of the underlying structure of the Tripod student perception survey instrument using the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) database (N = 1,049 middle school math class sections; N = 25,423 students). Multilevel item factor analyses suggested that an alternative bifactor structure best fit the Tripod items,…

Most analyses of oral reading fluency (ORF) are based on L1 reading, and the norms that have been developed in English are based on first language reading data. This is problematic for developing countries where many children are learning in English as a second language. The aim of the present study is to model the relationship between English…

This study examined sources of inconsistency between teachers' and researchers' interpretations of survey items. We analyzed cognitive interview data from 12 middle school mathematics teachers to understand their interpretations of survey items focused on one aspect of their practice: the content of their advice-seeking interactions. Through this…

There is growing consensus that the process of planning mathematics lessons is as complex as teaching them, yet there is limited research on this. This paper reports on one aspect of a project examining issues in primary teachers' mathematics planning. The results, taken from a questionnaire completed by 62 primary teachers, indicate that when…

This quantitative study used a validated student survey instrument to collect 182 Midwestern eighth-grade students' perceptions of effective teachers. Balch's (2011) survey was used. The original intent of this survey was to have students rate the effectiveness of one teacher. In this study, students were asked to rate teacher effectiveness and…

This study investigated a school district's middle school 1:1 initiative and its potential to raise the quality of instruction, to increase levels of teacher engagement, and to provide equity of access to enriched learning experiences for students within the district's two middle schools. Through utilizing a mixed method design, data were…

Monitoring the Future (MTF) is designed to give such attention to substance use among the nation's youth and adults. It is an investigator-initiated study that originated with, and is conducted by, a team of research professors at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. Since its onset in 1975, MTF has been funded continuously…