This quantitative study examined seventh-grade reading scores to determine the extent to which certain demographic variables (race/ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status) explain and MAP reading scores predict reading scores on the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) in a selected northeast Texas public school. Standardized…

Extracurricular activity participation has been associated with a multitude of positive outcomes, including school completion, and research suggests that students at risk for school failure are particularly likely to benefit from participation. However, before extracurricular activity participation can be promoted to address such issues,…

Disciplinary consequences assigned to all Texas middle school Black and White students ("n" = 172,551 Grade 6 students; 173,671 Grade 7 students; 175,730 Grade 8 students) for the 2008-2009 school year were analyzed to determine the extent to which statistically significant differences were present between the proportion of Black…

We investigated the effect of participating in two domains of extracurricular activities (sports and performance arts/clubs) in Grades 7 and 8 on Grade 9 academic motivation and letter grades, above baseline performance. Participants were 483 students (55% male; 33% Euro-American, 25% African American, and 39% Latino). Propensity score weighting…

Purpose: This study assessed student perceptions of school meals under the new federal meal patterns for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). Student feedback is instrumental in developing strategies to increase and maintain NSLP participation, satisfaction, and ultimately provide students with a healthy meal. Methods: Anonymous…

Project-Based Learning (PBL) serves as an instructional approach to classroom teaching and learning that is designed to engage students in the investigation of real-world problems to create meaningful and relevant educational experiences. The causal-comparative study compared 7th and 8th students who had utilized the PBL with a comparison group in…

New analytical tools have facilitated the exploration of the trajectories of alcohol use; however, there are a limited number of studies that explore early adolescence. A sample of 5,903 youths followed from sixth through eighth grade was used to (1) examine the trajectories of alcohol use and (2) determine the degree to which common correlates…

Northwest Evaluation Association™ (NWEA™) is committed to providing partners with useful tools to help make inferences from the Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP®) interim assessment scores. One important tool is the concordance table between MAP and state summative assessments. Concordance tables have been used for decades to relate scores on…

This retrospective quantitative study examined the relationships among gender, Acanthosis Nigricans (AN), body mass index (BMI), and blood pressure (BP) in children attending school Grades 1-9 in Southwest Texas. Of the 34,897 health screening records obtained for the secondary analysis, 32,788 were included for the study. A logistic regression…

The integration of knowledge during reading was tested in 1,109 secondary school students. Reading times for the second sentence in a pair (Jane's headache went away) were compared in conditions where the first sentence was either causally or temporally related to the first sentence (Jane took an aspirin vs. Jane looked for an aspirin).…

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of a school wide positive behavior initiative designed to improve student behavior. Researchers analyzed the last 3 years (2005-2008) of student discipline referral data for grades 7 and 8. Implementation resulted in a significant reduction in the number of discipline referrals. Data revealed a…

Language immersion students' lexical, syntactic, and pragmatic competencies are well documented, yet their phonological skill has remained relatively unexplored. This study investigates the Spanish vowel productions of a cross-sectional sample of 35 one-way Spanish immersion students. Learner productions were analyzed acoustically and compared to…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of grade span configurations on academic achievement in middle and K-8 public schools in the state of Texas. More specifically, academic achievement was examined and compared between two different school settings (i.e., middle schools and K-8 schools) for sixth-, seventh-, and…

The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of the Home Improvement for Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) program on school performance during the 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th grades. The study employed a quasi-experimental, post-hoc design using existing data on children who participated in the HIPPY program as 3-, 4-, or 5-year-olds, including:…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of a 2-year professional development model in math and science on the self-efficacy of the teacher and its effects on teacher practice and student outcomes. Further, this study sought to incorporate the instructional use of Inquiry-Based Learning methods of Problem-Based Learning, Japanese…