Many studies have found that males, on average, perform better than females in mathematics, although the size of this gender gap is small and varies considerably across countries. Stereotype threat has been proposed as a principal cause of this gender gap. From this perspective, females' performance is affected by fear of confirming a negative…

Declines in the scores of Australian 15-year-old students from the Programme for International Student Assessment are a matter of policy interest. Some of the declines may have resulted from shifts in the age-grade distributions of students in the Programme for International Student Assessment samples. We use multiple regression methods to model…

This study evaluates the Youth Development Program (YDP), a component of the federal Workforce Investment Act (WIA). We examine whether the YDP reduced dropout rates among youth in secondary schools in seven school districts in the impoverished Mississippi River Delta in southeast Arkansas. Initially, the program seems to have an impact. Students…

Literacy is a nationwide concern. Although the national spotlight and numerous studies have focused on early literacy, the needs of adolescent readers have just come to the forefront. The Alabama State Department of Education responded to this nationwide concern for K-12 literacy by planning and implementing the Alabama Reading Initiative (ARI).…