Describes the changes that have been made and are planned in the home economics curriculum in New York State. Changes discussed include living skills for males and females; four freestanding modules spread over grades six, seven, and eight; closer cooperation between home economics teachers and guidance personnel; and overlap with health…

A culturally and economically diverse group of 361 urban seventh graders rated their perceptions for liking and difficulty of core academic subjects and their attributions for mathematics test performance. Results suggest that boys and girls are not significantly different in their perceptions and in their attributions for lack of success. (SLD)

This study examined black 4th and 8th graders' mathematics achievement and attitudes. The effects of gender, economic status, self-concept, and learning style were studied. Students were from economically-stressed families and possessed negative mathematics attitudes. Economic status predicted 4th graders' achievement. Learning style and gender…

Describes summer school sessions developed by Houston schools to improve performance of academically at-risk eighth graders on the Texas Educational Assessment of Minimum Skills (TEAMS). Highlights include content area lessons in language arts and mathematics; study and test-taking skills; multimedia instructional materials; and student and…

Asserts that students' opportunities to learn subjects can be organized into sequences that span grades and schools. Examines national patterns in opportunities for learning mathematics and science from grade 8 to grade 10. Finds that the level of mathematics in grade 8 is closely related to that taken in high school, but this is not true of…

In 1987, Toronto Board of Education mandated the development of standards, called "benchmarks," for students' achievement in mathematics and language at the end of grades 3, 6, 8, and 10. The development and testing of benchmarks stressing higher-order thinking, problem solving, and the use of experiential approaches and manipulative…

Qualitative and quantitative studies of a class of 208 urban eighth graders demonstrate that loose-knit peer groups encourage interracial integration, whereas cliques do not. Loose-knit voluntary peer groups created by the social dynamic of cafeteria table hopping provide an opportunity for meaningful cross-race interaction. (SLD)

Proposes using student projects to show students how mathematics can be applied to their lives by using statistics. Students identify a topic of interest to them and their community, collect data, discuss the analyzed data in a written report, and present the reports at the local senior-citizen center. (MDH)

Investigation of the roles of pubertal timing and pubertal status on school achievement for 115 boys and 137 girls followed through grades 6, 7, and 8 indicates that late-maturing boys have the lowest school achievement, whereas late-maturing girls have the highest. Followups at grade 12 indicate few long-term effects. (SLD)

Data for 1,140 African-American male students from 802 public schools from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 indicate that sports participation is positively associated with aspirations of African-American male eighth graders to complete high school and enter college. Other positive effects of athletic participation are found for…

Discussion of collaborative hypermedia instruction focuses on a study that compared the achievement of eighth-grade students working individually or in pairs on a hypermedia-based unit on computer ethics. Group composition (i.e., homogeneous versus heterogeneous pairs) and the impact of social context are investigated. (Contains 41 references.)…

Maintains that, although exciting computer programs are available for U.S. history, not all of them support the curriculum of the California History-Social Science Framework. Focuses on computer software programs that target problem solving, decision making, and tool-based programs that support the California curriculum. (CFR)

Explored relationships between 137 grade-8 cognitive items used in the 1990 National Assessment of Educational Progress and selected themes from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics'"Standards." About half the items related to four "Standards" themes, with most of those being related to problem solving and reasoning.…

The implementation of the Rasch model during the longitudinal evaluation of a federally funded early-childhood preschool-intervention program is described. Results with 828 eighth graders show a functional relationship between years of early intervention and magnitude of effect on the life-skills competency variable. (SLD)

Discusses what is known about cognitive skills writing. Reports results of an experiment in which 288 youth in grades 7, 8, and 9 were given writing assignments relating to planning, translating, reviewing, and revising their papers. Discusses gender differences in cognitive writing processes and reviews literature on interventions for cognitive…