In this study, we analyzed and compared reasoning and proving opportunities in geometry lessons from American standard-based textbooks and Korean textbooks to understand how these textbooks provide student opportunities to engage in reasoning and proving activities. Overall, around 40% of exercise problems in Core Plus Mathematics Project (CPMP)…

Middle school scholars periodically lament the lack of holistic implementation of the middle school concept (Alverson et al., 2021; Dickinson & Butler, 2001; Lounsbury, 2013; Schaefer et al., 2016). The results of a case study conducted in Alberta, Canada (Rheaume, 2018) are compared to a recent examination of the current status of middle…

This study analyzed the methods used to teach the multiplication of fractions in Turkish and American textbooks. Two Turkish textbooks and two American textbooks, "Everyday Mathematics" (EM) and "Connected Mathematics 3" (CM), were analyzed. The analyses focused on the content and the nature of the mathematical problems…

This study analyzed geometry problems in four middle-grade mathematics textbook series from Taiwan, Singapore, Finland, and the United States, while exploring the expectations for students' learning experiences with these problems. An analytical framework developed for mathematics textbook problem analysis had three dimensions: representation…

Bullying, a pattern of physical or emotional abuse that students intentionally inflict on their peers, exists throughout secondary education, but is most prevalent during the middle grades. To inform the practice of middle level educators, this study canvassed school anti-bullying laws in each state and compared them with relevant research…

International comparisons have highlighted that the U.S. mathematics curriculum, both in terms of curriculum influences (e.g., textbooks, standards) and actual instruction, is broad and shallow. Standards-based reform is explicitly designed to improve coherence and reduce redundancy across grades. This article evaluates the redundancy of…

In an experimental study (N = 209), the authors compared the effects of exposure to typical middle-school written science content when presented in the context of the scientific discovery narrative and when presented in a more traditional nonnarrative format on 7th and 8th grade students in the United States. The development of texts was…

The assumption that inquiry-based instruction is more effective in influencing student science achievement than traditional didactic teaching has been the driving force of science education reform in recent decades and in many countries. However, the empirical relationship between these two kinds of science teaching and student science performance…

Problem Statement: Societies want to ensure that their children receive an education that includes an emphasis on good character. Therefore, character education classes in schools are an effective means of achieving this goal. Character education curricula in societies that are experiencing global changes strive for their students to gain…

Using the latest international educational database, TIMSS, this study investigates and compares the occurrences of 11 student problem behaviors as reported by middle school principals in ten countries. For each country, the study reveals the relationships of these problem behaviors with teachers' attitudes and parental involvement, and discusses…

This brief describes the prevalence of highest-performing teachers in ten purposely selected districts across seven states. The overall patterns indicate that low-income students have unequal access, on average, to the district's highest-performing teachers at the middle school level but not at the elementary level. However, there is evidence of…

This appendix describes the methods and provides further detail to support the evaluation brief, "Do Low-Income Students Have Equal Access to the Highest-Performing Teachers?" (Contains 8 figures, 6 tables and 5 footnotes.) [For the main report, "Do Low-Income Students Have Equal Access to the Highest-Performing Teachers? NCEE…

This study investigated the development of the concept of variables in middle grades mathematics textbooks during four eras of mathematics education in the United States. Findings revealed that each of the middle grades mathematics curricula examined used variables, but in varied proportions and levels of complexity. Formal definitions for…

This study investigated the effect on children's science understanding of Internet-based instruction in which children from around the world in grades 4 to 8 observed the Moon for several weeks and then shared their lunar data internationally to find global patterns in the Moon's behavior. Students in two American and one Australian class took the…

Background: As an effort to account for disparities in mathematics performance between American and East Asian middle school students, the present research aims to compare the relationship between learning styles (competitive and cooperative) and mathematics performance among middle school students between the USA and the three top-performing East…