Coach education and training on character development can improve young people's sport experiences. However, less well understood is the prevalence of coaches trained on character-building strategies and whether those that participate in and value training on these topics have higher self-efficacy and success as a coach (e.g., defined by their…

This mixed-methods study explored the relationship between teacher academic optimism and personalized professional learning in a rural Appalachian elementary school in southeastern Ohio. Twenty K-5 educators participated, with pre/post-surveys utilizing the Teacher Academic Optimism Scale-Elementary (TAOS-E) yielding quantitative data. Six…

Purpose: Narrative skill represents a higher-level linguistic skill that shows incremental development in the preschool years. During these years, there are considerable individual differences in this skill, with some children being highly skilled narrators (i.e., precocious) relative to peers of their age. In this study, we explored the…

We framed the activities found in professional development as a form of enactive experience hypothesized by social cognitive theory to influence efficacy beliefs. This enabled us to employ multiple regression to test the relationship between teachers' perceptions of professional development quality and their sense of efficacy for teaching. Data…

The purpose of this replication study was to examine the impact of the Teacher Study Group (TSG) professional development in vocabulary on first-grade teachers' knowledge of vocabulary instruction and observed teaching practice, and on students' vocabulary knowledge. Sixty-two schools from 16 districts in four states were randomly assigned to…

State-level policies in Ohio during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States involved physical school closures and work-from-home requirements when possible. Presumably, these policies and resulting impacts on homes with children would alter parent time investments in their children with respect to home-learning activities.…

Metacognitive instructors incorporate awareness and timely self-regulation in their teaching practice to support their current students' learning. This exploratory study, using mixed methods, gathered empirical data to extend the work on student metacognition by documenting teacher experiences with metacognitive instruction, the impact of…

This paper describes how improving a teacher's content knowledge changes his teaching practices and its subsequent effects on student learning during a middle school volleyball instructional unit. The study was designed to challenge teacher educators' thinking about the importance of in-depth content knowledge for effective teaching by…

Research Findings: As policymakers expand access to preschool, the sociodemographic composition of preschool classrooms will become increasingly important. These efforts may create programs that increase the concentration of children from low-income families or, alternatively, foster the creation of socioeconomically diverse preschool classrooms.…

Reading comprehension--the ability to understand the meaning of text--is a foundational ability that enables children to learn in school and throughout life. Children who struggle with reading comprehension in the third or fourth grade are at high risk for dropping out of school, with detrimental effects on their future employment, income, and…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of a content knowledge (CK) workshop on the enacted pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of teachers and in turn the effects on student learning. Method: A quasiexperimental design was used to examine 4 questions: (a) How does student learning differ as a function of PCK? (b) How does…

Objective: This study examines the psychometric properties of the revised Perceived Social Competence Scale (PSCS), a brief, user-friendly tool used to assess social competence among youth. Method: Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) examined the factor structure and invariance of an enhanced scale (PSCS-II), among a sample of 420 youth.…

This qualitative study explored the lived experiences of eleven early childhood educators who participated in a professional development program. The study was guided by the central research question, "What are the perceptions of early childhood educators on the professional development program as it relates to teacher efficacy, engagement,…

The work of mentoring matters. Whether one is looking at the broad-scale enactment of induction programming or the individualized attention focused on new teachers' learning and development, mentors play a pivotal role in new teacher retention and development. As a result, mentors are in a good position to interpret and enact induction policy at…

Too often, teachers are using educational technology resources for administrative purposes instead of using these resources in a constructivist manner to enhance student learning. The study site was well behind the national average in overall educational technology use categories. The purpose of this explanatory correlational research was to…