The School District of Osceola County, Florida, invests heavily in the Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program, and as such, an evaluation of effects was conducted with a sample of 10 middle schools (12,325 students) and 7 high schools (18,886 students). Propensity matching was used to determine practical effects. Providing…

This study investigated the impact the Achieve3000 program had on reading growth and reading proficiency of 1,531 sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade students from four Title 1 middle schools in Florida who were enrolled in remedial reading classes. Archival data from the Florida Standards Assessment English language arts provided pre-and-post data…

High school graduation rates in the United States are at an all-time high, yet many of these graduates are deemed not ready for postsecondary coursework when they enter college. This study examines the short-, medium-, and long-term effects of remedial courses in middle school using a regression discontinuity design. While the short-term test…

This Research Brief investigated differences among schools in the initial student achievement and annual rates of ELA growth in middle grades using a variety of student and school demographic characteristics. It found a statistically significant difference in the initial ELA achievement but not in the annual rates of ELA growth between students in…

The authors address the reliability of scores obtained on the summative performance assessments during the pilot year of our research. Contrary to classical test theory, we discussed the advantages of using generalizability theory for estimating reliability of scores for summative performance assessments. Generalizability theory was used as the…

This study examines data from a field experiment investigating the effects of a personalized recommendation algorithm that proposes to students which videos to watch next, after they complete mini-assessments for algebra that available on the Math Nation intelligent virtual learning environment (IVLE). The end users of Math Nation are students…

This first analysis of aggregated data from the Kahoot! game-based player response system demonstrates that it can provide assessments of overall US student polar knowledge and identifies differences in polar knowledge across several states. A kahoot online quiz on polar topics recorded over 25,000 United States teacher-hosted classroom players…

The pressure to have students perform well on standardized tests can serve as a stressor to some teachers in their efforts to autonomously teach their students, particularly those of low socioeconomic status (SES). However, the relationship between teachers' sense of autonomy, teachers' attitudes and behaviors, SES, and student's academic success…

Academic discourse communities and learning circles are characterized by collaboration, sharing commonalities in terms of social interactions and language. The discourse of these communities is composed of jargon, common terminologies, and similarities in how they construe and communicate meaning. This study examines the extent to which discourse…

This study was designed to examine relationships between student perceptions of school effectiveness and student achievement in mathematics and reading. Data were collected from over 350 middle school students in a large southeastern school district in the United States. The results revealed statistically significant correlations among the…

This mixed-methods study was situated within one Florida county and investigated the impact of a newly initiated end-of-course Civics examination upon middle school teachers' instruction and student learning. High-stakes testing is often a polarizing issue regarding the perceived benefits and challenges for both students and teachers.…

From the moment children are born, they begin a lifetime journey of learning about themselves and their surroundings. With the establishment of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, it mandates that all children receive a high-quality education in a positive school climate. Regardless of the school the child attends or the neighborhood in which…

To evaluate the willingness of teachers to incorporate aquaponics in the classroom, we engaged teachers in a 6-week project. Participants in the experimental group maintained small-scale aquaponic systems. All teachers completed pretests and posttests, and exit surveys. Both groups (experimental and control) scored significantly higher on the…

A typical mathematics assignment consists primarily of practice problems requiring the strategy introduced in the immediately preceding lesson (e.g., a dozen problems that are solved by using the Pythagorean theorem). This means that students know which strategy is needed to solve each problem before they read the problem. In an alternative…

A typical mathematics assignment consists primarily of practice problems requiring the strategy introduced in the immediately preceding lesson (e.g., a dozen problems that are solved by using the Pythagorean Theorem). This means that students know which strategy is needed to solve each problem before they read the problem. In an alternative…