This study is an exploration of the cyberbullying issue. The primary focus is on the examination of the nature and extent of adolescents' cyberbullying experiences. Particularly, the following research questions guide this exploration: (1) To what extent do adolescents experience cyberbullying? (2) What are the characteristics of cyberbullying?…

Although the average, or arithmetic mean, has a rich conceptual meaning, it is often defined simply as the outcome of a procedure. The purpose of this study was to compare the nature and extent of the procedural and conceptual understandings developed by two groups of students who received different forms of instruction, one based on the…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of independent reading on reading ability. The study, conducted in an East Tennessee middle school, consisted of 21 randomly selected students who read a book of their choice at least 20 minutes every day at school and 22 students that did not. The study lasted for 12 weeks. The students were…

The purpose of this ethnographic study was to analyze seventh grade students' and teachers' perceptions of literacy learning in language arts and reading classes. This paper includes a report of a section of this study that focused on discussions about literature. The impact of this diverse school culture on teachers' literacy instruction and…

Many researchers have studied predictors of adolescent substance use. One important predictor of substance use is the quality of the parent-child relationship. Most studies address the parent-child relationship unidimensionally. This study hypothesized that it is not use of a particular substance that can be predicted from a poor parent-child…

One hundred forty-three seventh-grade students were assessed in the areas of word attack and comprehension. This study focused on the 71 students with the lowest total word-attack scores. Results indicated that all comprehension subskills had strong relationships to overall comprehension, but that many word-attack subskills had only low,…

A study in an urban public school indicated that the number and degree of discipline problems teachers faced in their classrooms were unrelated to the teachers' agreement with parents or students on disciplinary approaches, and were also unrelated to whether the teachers, their students, or the students' parents endorsed any of the three major…

This paper notes that, when teachers assign the writing of research reports without showing children how to write such reports, they may actually encourage children to plagiarize. It then outlines a method used to teach seventh graders how to write short "controlled reports." Working as a group, the students learn how to pose research questions,…

Seventh and eighth grade students identified as holding an incomplete fraction conception of decimals were tested on related fraction knowledge. Most of these students (78%) had a problem in coordinating the size of the parts and the number of parts in comparing fractions. These students underwent several instructional sessions. Half of them…

This paper describes subjectivist psychology, discussing its use for guiding teaching and learning. Subjectivist psychology focuses on joint cognitive and affective experiences of learning. It describes the natural affective-cognitive enculturation processes that children experience in learning the skills, understandings, and values of their…

To increase the representation of African Americans in science fields, potential candidates must have positive personal science experiences. Even with recent reforms, most students in the United States have a limited exposure to science experiences, especially African American students. One approach to addressing this problem has been to offer…

Noting that perceived violence in society has been found to be positively and significantly related to television viewing and especially related to the viewing of highly violent television, a study examined the relationship between MTV (Music Television) viewing and perceived violence in society. Subjects, 116 seventh grade students and 107…

In a study to identify types of mass media consumers, a Q-type factor analysis was run on respondent exposure to 90 categories of content within seven mass media (television, radio, recordings, motion pictures, newspapers, magazines, and books). The respondents were 116 seventh graders in Waterloo, Iowa, who were asked to keep daily diaries of…

Satire appears to be one of the least attractive forms of humorous literature because many readers feel it encompasses negative and ill-mannered comic devices. By virtue of the fact that satire is not considered polite literature, it rarely makes its way into the planned literary curricula until students enter high school English courses. In this…

Recent research has distinguished between the components of competency and affect in students' academic self-concept. The competency component operates on the basis of a comparison with peers. This comparison may lead to a big-fish-little-pond (BFLP) effect. To investigate the sustainability of the BFLP effect, a sample of 7th graders from 6…