Most introductory courses are held in large lecture halls, with students typically sitting in either the front, middle, or back of the classroom. In a mixed-methods study of student attendance, performance, and seat choice, we found that students who chose to sit behind their peers performed nearly a full grade level worse than their peers who sat…

Cohort scheduling intentionally places students in the same sections of several classes (e.g., biology, algebra, and writing) with a consistent peer group and is typically done for small groups (<30 students) to enable better interaction among students. The goal of this study was to compare cohort scheduling to traditional scheduling methods…

This research study focused on the effects of departmentalization in the elementary school setting. Previous research on the topic of departmentalization in elementary school settings presented inconclusive results. The purpose of this study was to collect and analyze data from self-contained and departmentalized classrooms in fourth and fifth…

The shift from the traditional self-contained classroom to the departmentalized classroom structure in upper-elementary classrooms is increasing as the pressure to maximize student outcomes is higher than ever for public schools. Teachers prefer departmentalization but findings as to its benefits for students are mixed. This study considers the…

In the UK, Latin is often seen as an elitist subject taught largely at fee-paying schools. Over the past generation, however, great strides have been made in opening up the subject to students from all backgrounds. A major hindrance to widening access to Latin at university level is that the language can often prove challenging for students. Data…

Existing research examines whether studying with teachers of the same race/ethnicity affects student achievement, but little is known about whether those effects vary by timing and frequency. We use 7 years of administrative data from third through eighth graders in Indiana to estimate the heterogenous links between same race/ethnicity teachers…

The question of where students sit in a classroom has been widely studied under different approaches since the beginning of the 20th century. In this study, the data related to the seating location of the students in the computer-aided design practice lecture at the university were recorded and arranged, to analyse their seating preferences, their…

This study explores the multilayered meanings of classroom seating order -- a crucial spatial element of school life -- and its influences on children's experiences. Drawing on fieldwork in a secondary school in northwest China, I ethnographically examine how school educators impose a hierarchy of seats in moral terms. My study shows that…

Elementary students spend an average of five and a quarter hours per day seated on a hard surface which provides little sensory input and possibly contributes to discomfort. Sensory integration was found to improve executive functioning skills in elementary students by helping their comfort level at being seated. This quasi-experimental study…

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of students' seating location in a large, lecture-style university course on student engagement, attention, classroom learning experience, and course performance. Participants (N = 407) were students in two cohorts of an undergraduate financial accounting course at a large university in the…

Multilevel modeling techniques were used with a sample of 643 students enrolled in 37 secondary school classrooms to predict future student achievement (controlling for baseline achievement) from observed teacher interactions with students in the classroom, coded using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System--Secondary. After accounting for prior…

Multilevel modeling techniques were used with a sample of 643 students enrolled in 37 secondary school classrooms to predict future student achievement (controlling for baseline achievement) from observed teacher interactions with students in the classroom, coded using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System--Secondary. After accounting for prior…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if classroom configuration--departmentalized and self-contained--is related to the academic achievement of Grade 6 students in a large urban school district as measured by California Standards Test (CST) scores in mathematics and English Language Arts (ELA) when controlling for prior academic…

The aims of the present study are to investigate whether and how teachers change in their observed classroom quality (emotional and instructional support, classroom organization, and students' engagement; measured with the Classroom Assessment Scoring System observation measure for secondary school [CLASS-S]; Pianta, La Paro, & Hamre, 2006)…

Seating arrangements are important classroom setting events because they have the potential to help prevent problem behaviours that decrease student attention and diminish available instructional time. The purpose of this synthesis of empirical literature is to determine which arrangements of desks best facilitate positive academic and behavioural…