A randomized controlled trial group design study funded by IES NCR Grant R305A090527 was conducted in which 16,307 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students in 52 school grade-level clusters were randomly assigned to receive ST Math (program revision Gen3), a supplemental mathematics software instructional intervention, or to a business-as-usual…

Resilience, as defined by the literature, deals with the relationship between individuals and their environment. This capstone project followed elementary students over a three-year period to investigate and determine the impact a co-teaching intervention model has on resilience, grade-point average (GPA), state testing scores in English language…

America spends $115,000 per-pupil on education, one of the highest in the world. Even with high funding being provided for the educational budget, standardized state assessment scores are not reflecting the aim for higher quality of education that NCLB is trying to accomplish. Teachers use an assortment of assessments to gauge student's mastery…

The 2014-15 school year was the first in which the Smarter Balanced assessments (referred to here as the SBAC) were administered statewide. While educators and policymakers agree that multiple measures over multiple years are the best way to gauge student, school, and district performance, the first-year SBAC results provide an important baseline…

Existing research on self-management skills shows that measures of self-management predict student success. However, these conclusions are based on small samples or narrowly defined self-management measures. Using a rich longitudinal dataset of 221,840 fourth through seventh grade students, this paper describes self-management gaps across student…

In this work we examined the content of approximately 950 mathematics questions used in measuring achievement among 4th, 5th and 6th graders in the US in an attempt to determine how the current standardized examinations, which were developed to reflect new national curricular mandates, compared to the old measures used for the same purpose. Using…

Focused on an equity of educational access issue, this qualitative study identified grade 4-6 teacher perceptions of English language learning in Southern California. The historic failure of English language learners (ELLs) on standardized tests in Southern California was presented as an important problem to solve. The literature review for this…

California has the largest share of the English Language Learner (ELL) student population in the U.S., and it continues to grow. English Language Learners are the fastest growing group in the public school population and they are underachieving. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the longitudinal changes in the performance of English…

Objectives: The primary objective of the study was to investigate the relationship between ubiquitous laptop use and academic achievement. It was hypothesized that students with ubiquitous laptops would score on average higher on standardized tests than those without such computers. Methods: Data were obtained from two sources. First, demographic…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of explicit direct instruction and cooperative learning on reading comprehension in fourth grade students. A quasi-experimental design was used. There were six cognitive and three affective measures used to collect quantitative data. Cognitive measures included California State Test scores,…

The MIND Research Institute contracted with the Evaluation Research Program at WestEd to conduct an independent assessment of mathematics outcomes in elementary school grades across California that were provided with the ST Math program. Spatial-Temporal (ST) Math is a game-based instructional software designed to boost K-5 and secondary-level…

Language Arts is one of the most important subjects for students to learn. Encompassing reading, writing, and comprehension, skills learned through Language Arts instruction influence student ability to reach levels of academic achievement in all subjects. Additionally, Language Arts skills reach far past the classroom and into the workplace. In…

In May of 2011, the "Los Angeles Times" published, for the second time, results of statistical studies examining the variation in teacher and school performance in the Los Angeles Unified School District, based on the California Standards Tests for math and English Language Arts (ELA). The studies use data from the seven academic years…

Over the years the amount of homework and what kind of homework students are completing on a nightly basis has changed dramatically. From the early 1900s when homework was abolished because it was considered a violation of child labor laws to today when after No Child Left Behind was enacted in 2002, the focus has moved to evaluating academic…

In 2005, a group of concerned parents who had arrived in the United States as refugees from war-torn Somalia received approval from their local school district to establish the Iftin Charter School (ICS). The K-8 school continues to engender hope and intellectual strength in its students and parents. ICS finds itself uniquely equipped to meet the…