Research identifies that a percentage of students are less successful than others in transitioning from Year 8 to Year 9. A positive support programme was developed to target some of these students and help them ease from the nurturing climate within the primary system into the multi-faceted secondary environment. (Contains 1 table.)

The Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 1999 Video Study examined eighth-grade mathematics teaching in the United States and six higher-achieving countries. A range of teaching systems were found across higher-achieving countries that balanced attention to challenging content, procedural skill, and conceptual understanding in…

This article reports on strategies used by immersion teachers to modify their speech in order to maintain the use of the target language while sustaining interactive communication and the concomitant teaching of the content and the second language. This classroom-based research, undertaken at Methodist Ladies College (MLC) in Melbourne, sources…

The author discusses the aims, outline, and evaluation of an existing self-paced ungraded mathematics program for grades eight, nine, and ten. (MN)

Research on gender differences in classroom interaction patterns is reviewed. The analysis of 24 Year 8 science lessons in Brisbane, Australia, indicates that the interaction patterns of girls are not significantly different from those of boys. Suggestions for future classroom interaction research based on more complex perspectives are proposed.…

Used qualitative research methodology to interpret 126 adolescents' responses to questions about their views on peace. Eighth grade students in Australia, Canada, and the United States identified underlying causes and behavioral indications of potential for war and provided prescriptions for peace. Subjects viewed skills in interpersonal…

Judgments about the quality of students' experience of school generally focus on their academic performance and indeed this is an important indicator but closer attention needs to be paid to equally important, more broadly based outcomes that include social/emotional adjustment as they also are shown to impact on students' lives at, and beyond…

This paper explores the role of open-ended realistic division problem in the development of algebraic reasoning. A written test was administered to 672 students. From the results of this test students were selected for semi-structured interviews. The students were interviewed in pairs and were asked to explain to each other how they would solve…

Reports a study examining the relationship between affect and achievement for grade eight students in Australia (n=390). It was found that affect is related more strongly to previous than subsequent achievement and that much of the common variance can be attributed to students' perceptions of their competence in science. (PR)

Compared self-ratings with teacher-ratings of adolescents' Type A Behavior Pattern for 80 eighth-grade and 70 eleventh-grade students. Data indicated that there were significant differences in ratings from these two sources, with little predictive power from teachers' ratings to adolescents' ratings. Findings have implications for reliable and…

In 2003, U.S. students' mathematics performance was assessed by the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) for students in grades 4 and 8 and by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) for students at age 15. Results in the press and later summaries, such as that found in The Condition of Education (NCES,…

Discusses accounts of classroom practices which draw on socially critical literacy approaches. Outlines how the author was able to work in partnership with an academic mentor in the implementation of a unit of work on Advertising. Notes that what made this unit distinctively English was that a "culture of critique" was established which…

Examines the way in which students cooperate in Taiwanese and Australian science classrooms. Concludes that students from Taiwan and Australia have a range of understandings and interpretations about what it means to cooperate in science classrooms. There are complex connections between cooperative behavior, student academic ability, sex, and…

For more than 50 years, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) has been conducting comparative studies of educational achievement in a number of curriculum areas, including mathematics and science. TIMSS 2011 represents the fifth cycle of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS),…

The fourth in a series concerning some implications of a learner's cognitive style for the development of reading competence, this paper reports on a study of the oral reading miscues of field dependent and field independent above-average eighth grade readers on content area materials. Results reported indicate that field dependent below-average…