This report outlines the development, methodology, and results of the split-half administration of the 2015 School Crime Supplement (SCS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The National Center for…

This article focuses on vocabulary in the context of English-medium instruction at an international high school in Germany. Longitudinal testing was carried out using the Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT) (Nation, 1983; Schmitt, Schmitt, & Clapham, 2001), with 468 participants tested on entry to their first year of secondary school (Grade 6, aged…

Research has begun to show that certain schoolwide characteristics--such as student-centered learning environments, leadership, and safety--can be important for improving student outcomes. In keeping with these insights, school improvement efforts around the country are becoming less narrowly focused on the performance of individual students and…

Science standards of different countries introduced disciplinary core ideas and crosscutting concepts--such as energy--to help students develop a more interconnected science understanding. As previous research has mostly addressed energy learning in specific disciplinary contexts, this study targets students' cross-disciplinary understanding of…

Early detection of severe violence is a significant challenge for many schools. Three studies were conducted on samples of 6th, 8th, and 10th graders (12-16 years old). The first study, based on paired reports of teachers and students (n = 130), showed that a high percentage of both victims and perpetrators of severe violence are not identified by…

Education Policy Innovation Collaborative (EPIC) partnered with the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) to conduct a multi-year study of Michigan's implementation of competency-based education in K-12 schools. This mixed-methods study seeks to investigate the implementation and effectiveness of CBE using data from surveys administered to 21j…

To learn mathematical practices, students need opportunities to engage in them. But simply providing such opportunities may not be sufficient to support all students. Simultaneously, explicitly teaching mathematical practices could be problematic if instruction becomes prescriptive. This study investigated how teachers might make mathematical…

The Rhythmic Arts Project (TRAP) curriculum integrates visual, tactile, auditory and speech experiences through rhythmic drumming actions to address life skills. We evaluated life skills before and after participation in TRAP in a school-based setting in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Participants were 23 children in grades 6-12 in…

In spring 2015 Mississippi began testing the college readiness of all grade 11 public high school students and found that approximately 18 percent were ready for college math, a percentage that had changed little by 2017/18. This study examined: (1) the sequences of math courses that Mississippi students took in grades 6-11; (2) the math…

The present study tested the possibility of operationalizing levels of knowledge acquisition based on Vygotsky's theory of cognitive growth. An assessment tool (SAM-Math) was developed to capture a hypothesized hierarchical structure of mathematical knowledge consisting of procedural, conceptual, and functional levels. In Study 1, SAM-Math was…

The aim of the present study is to enable future studies into students' attitudes toward science, and related constructs, by developing and validating an instrument suitable for cross-sectional designs. Following a thorough review of the literature it was determined that many extant instruments included design aspects that appeared to be limited…

For any student, middle and high school can be challenging. But for an English learner or striving reader--and the myriad words, phrases, syntax, texts, and concepts they must negotiate on a daily basis--the stakes seem a whole lot higher. Fortunately for content-area teachers, Margarita Calderón and Shawn Slakk make available in a single resource…

Strategic Reading and Writing (SRW) is a reading and writing intervention course available to sixth- through tenth-grade students in the Houston Independent School District (HISD) who did not meet Grade Level standards on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) grades 3-8 reading the previous school year or who fell below the…

The central aim of this study was to clarify whether sign language (SL) nativeness is a significant factor in determining prelingually deaf individuals' reading skills and whether its contribution is modified by the reader's orthographic background. A second aim was to elucidate similarities and differences between native and nonnative signers in…

The objective of the present study was to evaluate the extent to which students who took a computer adaptive test of reading comprehension accounting for testlet effects were administered fewer passages and had a more precise estimate of their reading comprehension ability compared to students in the control condition. A randomized controlled…