Previous research has documented that students' reading comprehension performance in learning English as a foreign language (EFL) differs greatly between mobile-assisted and paper-based reading. The present study extends previous work by investigating whether reading cognitive load differs between mobile-assisted and paper-based EFL reading…

Early reading achievement is essential for all children's development and future success. However, U.S. schools continue to under prepare Black children in early literacy, as evidenced by disparate outcomes observed for this population of learners. The under preparation of Black students is problematic, given the strong negative correlation…

School districts in northeastern Tennessee have had persistently low proficiency rates in grade 3 English language arts, which were exacerbated by disruptions in schooling due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In response, the Niswonger Foundation, a technical assistance provider that supports these districts, developed Project On-Track, a high-dosage,…

Educational decentralisation has been implemented globally. However, few studies have compared the effects of different decentralisation strategies on students' academic achievement in diverse cultural contexts. Using data from 49 countries participating in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015, this study attempts to fill…

It is important to understand the nature of the effect that the COVID-19 pandemic had upon student learning, especially those at risk such as deaf students. The limited communication that many deaf students have at home may mean less support is available for learning remotely. Reading may be one of the areas where progress was diminished. We…

Self-efficacious children are expected to be more task-focused in challenging achievement situations and consequently have better chances of overcoming learning difficulties than children who have lower self-efficacy. The present study investigates this presumption with Finnish-speaking first graders struggling with reading acquisition (N = 285).…

While research supports later start times for secondary schools, there is little evidence regarding start times for elementary schools. We address this gap with a statewide examination of elementary schools and a quasi-experimental analysis of an urban district that recently changed its elementary start times. We find that earlier start times…

This research tested a mediation model, examining whether individual differences in mothers' school readiness beliefs influenced home literacy practices and children's later academic achievement among African American (n = 114) and primarily Mexican origin Latina mothers (n = 164) and their children. Mothers of children ages 3-4 years reported…

Background: Early academic achievement is critical to school readiness and later academic success. Consequently, multi-domain models are needed to identify risk factors and pathways by which they influence early academic achievement. Objective: The aim was to advance the development of a multi-domain model of risk factors associated with early…

We study a decade of achievement gaps for fifth-, eighth-, and 10th-grade students in Norway using administrative population data. Norway is a wealthy and egalitarian country with a homogeneous educational system, yet achievement gaps between students at the 90th and 10th percentiles of parental income and between students whose parents have at…

The age of information and communication technology (ICT) has witnessed the prevalence of computer-based reading. Previous studies yielded mixed results concerning the relationship between ICT perceived competence, ICT use and digital reading performance, and the underlying mechanism was rarely explored. This study aimed to explore the…

Self-directed learning (SDL) ability, its usefulness in higher education and life-long learning have been highlighted in previous literature. However, there has been much less understanding of the effects of SDL ability in the school settings, specifically the effects on learners' SDL behaviors and processes. To address this limitation, this study…

Reducing inequity is the moral imperative confronting today's educational leaders. Central to reducing inequity is leaders' ability to solve the school-based problems that contribute to it, while building the positive and trusting professional relationships required for teachers to commit to the hard work of improvement. A theory of collaborative…

Social scientists have found income inequality is associated with an array of health and social problems, however the implications of income inequality for educational outcomes have not been investigated as thoroughly as other domains. In this study, I investigated how income inequality was associated with 4th grade academic achievement using…

Much of the existing educational research has focused on affluent Western societies. Despite comprising a broad swathe of the world population, less work has focused on lower middle-income economies such as the Philippines. Perhaps part of this reason is the lack of high-quality data in such contexts. PISA provides a potential solution to this…