Rural schools face unique challenges that affect student academic success or failure. Youths served in rural settings experience barriers to learning that negatively influence their achievement and developmental outcomes. To improve outcomes for rural youths, it is important for schools to understand overall school experiences so that school-wide…

Prior research shows that rural students' education expectations and aspirations, as well as their postsecondary enrollment and persistence rates, tend to be lower than those of nonrural students. However, much of that prior research may not apply to today's students because it uses old data or focuses on individual states or purposive samples.…

The present study examined teachers' perceived confidence in using strategies to positively connect students to school. A total of 419 teachers in Ohio elementary and middle schools were surveyed (60% response rate). Results indicated that teachers felt slightly confident to confident in their abilities to positively connect students to school.…

Computers are now a ubiquitous part of US elementary school education. With policy reports suggesting that inequities in information and communication technology (ICT) access across US schools are a thing of the past, investigating how such resources and their use may nonetheless continue to vary becomes all that much more important. Through a…

This dissertation describes research designed to investigate the influence of select teacher and school characteristics on the perceived professional development needs of in-service physical educators in the state of Ohio. Data were collected using a self-report survey instrument comprised of the Professional Development Needs…

A comparison of Ohio's financially troubled districts (FTD) with its financially nontroubled districts (FNTD) revealed that FTD are characterized by special cost students, limited fiscal capacity, and low tax effort. FTD also tend to be either large city or rural districts, and are not characterized by overstaffing, severe declining enrollment, or…

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of the "Developing Understanding of Self and Others" (Duso) Guidance Program on the self-concepts of Appalachian primary school children who were matched on intelligence, and randomly assigned to classes. The subjects in the sample numbered 126 at the third grade level, 112 at the…