Although researchers call for inquiry learning in science, science assessments rarely capture the impact of inquiry instruction. This paper reports on the development and validation of assessments designed to measure middle-school students' progress in gaining integrated understanding of energy while studying an inquiry-oriented curriculum. The…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of Achieve3000, a differentiated online literacy curriculum, on students' scores on the California State Test (CST). In the 2011-12 school year, 1,957 students in Chula Vista began using Achieve3000's solutions in 3rd through 8th grade. Using a form of propensity score matching called Inverse…

When a language arts curriculum provided students with the opportunity to translate meaning across sign systems (that is, from poetry to dance), numerous benefits were noted. Transmediation, the translation of meaning from one sign system to another, led students to analyze compositional structures and to enhance their use of academic language…

The study examined the impact of "POWERSOURCE"[C], an intervention consisting of formative assessments, instructional resources, and professional development designed to help teachers provide individual instruction to their students in Algebra I. This study took place in seven districts in Arizona and California during the 2007-08 school…

English language learner (ELL) mathematics students at a California middle school did not meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) toward state standards in 2010. The purpose of this project study was to examine 6th and 7th grade mathematics teachers' perceptions regarding differentiated instruction for ELL students' specific academic needs and to…

This paper describes results from field testing of middle-school math formative assessments alongside professional development and instructional resources. We employed a randomised, controlled design to address the question: Does using our formative assessment strategies improve student performance on assessments of key mathematical ideas relative…

This experimental study examined how the reading and writing development of sixth-grade L2 students was affected by syntactic enhancement. Visual-syntactic text formatting (VSTF) technology, which visualizes syntactic structures, was used to convert a textbook to the one with syntactic enhancement. The sample (n = 282), which was drawn from a…

Recent correlational studies provide support for a transactional relationship between reading and behavior problems. A transactional relationship implies that reading problems cause behavior problems, and vice versa. This study took this basic finding and examined its implications for intervention. Specifically, this study employed single-case…

The study reported here investigated the impacts of participation in 4-H on young people's interest and participation in science. Survey data were collected from relatively large and ethnically diverse samples of elementary and high school-aged students in California. Results indicated that although elementary-grade 4-H members are not more…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if classroom configuration--departmentalized and self-contained--is related to the academic achievement of Grade 6 students in a large urban school district as measured by California Standards Test (CST) scores in mathematics and English Language Arts (ELA) when controlling for prior academic…

This mixed design study investigated the predictive and instructional uses of two different types of interim mathematics assessments given in two different districts. One district administered the same summative type of assessment three times a year, while the other district administered a different interim assessment after six-week intervals of…

The aim of this thesis is to investigate and present the status of student synthesis with color coded formula writing for grade level six through twelve, and to make recommendations for educators to teach writing structure through a color coded formula system in order to increase classroom engagement and lower students' affect. The thesis first…

The study sought to determine effects of leadership activity on emotional intelligence in preadolescents. Ninety-two Central California Valley sixth grade students in two schools and four classes were assessed on emotional intelligence. Treatment and comparison groups were identified. A Two-Way Repeated Measures ANOVA examined change over time…

This study was presented at the American Educational Research Association 2012 conference in Vancouver, Canada. The study explored how action research of arts-based teaching (ABT) impacted at-risk students in three urban public schools in southern California, USA. ABT was defined as using arts, music, drama, and dance in teaching other subjects. A…

The assessment cycle of "evidence-centered design" (ECD) provides a framework for treating an educational video game or simulation as an assessment. One of the main steps in the assessment cycle of ECD is the identification of the key features of student performance. While this process is relatively simple for multiple choice tests, when…