Two hundred ninety-four children from low-income families (58% White, 17% Latinx, 25% Black; 54% girls; M[subscript age] = 4.49 years old at study entry) were recruited from Head Start classrooms to participate in a randomized-controlled trial of the project Research-based, Developmentally Informed (REDI) preschool intervention and then followed…

Facing teacher shortages, urban teacher frustration, and a lack of BIPOC representation in the teacher workforce, two urban institutions, a school district, and a university partnered to design, develop and implement a year-long clinical teacher residency program. Throughout the pilot and one subsequent year, data was collected through observation…

Parents are children's first teachers, and it is critical that they understand what children need to be successful in school. This study examined the school readiness beliefs of 43 Latinx immigrant parents from the Dominican Republic and El Salvador. Parents participated in semi-structured interviews regarding which skills their children should…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate Penn State Extension 4-H volunteer leaders' leadership development needs and preferred delivery methods for leadership development. The participants were 147 volunteer leaders who attended Penn State Extension Annual 4-H Leader Forum and filled out the survey. We found that the overall mean…

Research Findings: Head Start teachers completed brief rating scales measuring the social-emotional competence and approaches to learning of preschool children (total N = 164; 14% Hispanic American, 30% African American, 56% Caucasian; 56% girls). Head Start lead and assistant teacher ratings on both scales demonstrated strong internal consistency…

America's labor market presents a paradox. Although the unemployment rate is just 3.9%, there are more jobs open than people who can fill them. Nationwide, there are roughly 68 workers for every 100 open jobs. Many factors contribute to this workforce shortage, but one of the most significant is a growing skills gap -- millions of workers across…

Principals shape the academic setting of schools. Yet, there is limited evidence on whether principal professional development improves schooling outcomes. Beginning in 2008-2009, Pennsylvania's Inspired Leadership (PIL) induction program required that newly hired principals complete targeted in-service professional development tied to newly…

The current health crisis brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic not only had a global impact, it also exacerbated the inequalities experienced by students of diverse backgrounds in the United States. Implementing inclusive and anti-racist pedagogical practices has gained a heightened and overdue sense of urgency, especially during the period of…

Despite widespread interest in the construct of executive functioning (EF), we currently lack definitive evidence regarding the best measurement model for representing the construct in substantive analyses. The most common practice is to represent EF ability as a reflective latent variable, with child performance on individual EF tasks as observed…

The term nature deficit disorder describes the "human costs of alienation from nature" (Louv, 2019). While not meant to be a medical diagnosis, Louv argues that the condition has, "profound implications, not only for the health of future generations but for the health of the earth itself" (Louv, 2008). Children most at risk are…

Over the last few years, much attention has been focused on the nationwide teacher shortage. As teachers begin to retire in record numbers, and the number of students entering teacher education majors continues to decline, concern around the teacher shortage heightens (US Dept. of Ed., 2016). The numbers are even more dire when looking at Teachers…

"Effects of a Targeted Art Program on Social Emotional Learning in Students with Emotional Behavioral Disorders" will address the topics of Social Emotional Learning and Emotional Behavioral Disorder, as well as various structures for targeted arts programming. Using a qualitative research approach, the effects of one specific targeted…

When schools in Pennsylvania and across the nation were suddenly shuttered in March due to COVID-19, teachers were faced with an enormous challenge: how to effectively teach and engage their students remotely when the vast majority had never done so before. In order to meet this challenge, teachers turned to an array of digital tools-such as Zoom,…

The road from teenage resourcefulness to a real-deal corporate operation was paved by the Bucks Business Association, a student led group at Bucks County Community College (BCCC) that hones student leadership, money management and organizational skills. Community colleges throughout the country are sharpening the startup-minded acumen of their…

The study presented in this manuscript features data-informed UR programmatic revisions aimed at improving the student researcher and faculty mentor experience at Albion College. Previous research findings in which we studied the Student Research Partners (SRP) program at Albion College revealed that SRP was not serving as a research pipeline to…