This study describes student behavior through the actual assessment and placement (A&P) process. It then uses an alternative A&P policy that utilizes an additional measure that assesses prior math preparedness alongside subtest choice. Utilizing data from a community college that allows its' students to choose the assessment subtest used…

In light of the emergence of statistical analysis techniques based on data mining in education sciences, and the potential they offer to detect non-trivial information in large databases, this paper presents a procedure used to detect factors linked to academic achievement in large-scale assessments. The study is based on a non-experimental,…

This study explores the relationships among Taiwanese high school students' scientific epistemic beliefs (SEBs), conceptions of learning science (COLS), and motivation of learning science. The questionnaire responses from 470 high school students in Taiwan were gathered for analysis to explain these relationships. The structural equation modeling…

A randomized control trial was conducted to study whether providing 10th grade students with information about the returns to upper secondary and tertiary education, and a source of financial aid for tertiary education, can contribute to improve student performance. The study finds that the intervention had no effects on the probability of taking…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand how high-performing schools develop and sustain improvement culture. While school culture has consistently been identified as an essential feature of high-performing schools, many of the ways in which culture shapes specific improvement efforts remain unclear. The paper draws on new research from…

Drastic reform measures have taken place at Howard High School of Technology to incorporate a 10th grade small learning community. Due to the costs and resources associated with implementing small learning communities, it is important to examine if the 10th graders' achievement on the state tests in reading and math were significantly different…

The study explores the effectiveness of the Reading Success Academy on the reading achievement of the selected group of ninth-grade students in a comprehensive high school. We examine in what ways the Reading Success Academy may improve the reading proficiency rates and amount of reading growth of ninth-grade students. The results indicate that…

When designing a reading intervention, researchers and educators face a number of challenges related to the focus, intensity, and duration of the intervention. In this paper, we argue there is another fundamental challenge--the nature of the reading outcome measures used to evaluate the intervention. Many interventions fail to demonstrate…

The purpose of this correlational study is to understand the relationship between end-of-course grades as assigned by teachers and standardized end-of-course scores earned by students in Algebra, Geometry, Biology, Physical Science, and U.S. History courses at one virtual charter school in the State of Georgia. Pearson Product-Moment Correlation…

Research has shown that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors who are more academically prepared--especially in terms of their mathematics and science test scores--are more likely to be successful across a variety of outcomes: cumulative grade point average (GPA), persistence in a STEM major, and ultimately earning a STEM…

Prizes--formal systems that publicly allocate rewards for exemplary behavior--play an increasingly important role in a wide array of social settings, including education. In this paper, we evaluate a prize system designed to boost achievement at two high schools by assigning students color-coded ID cards based on a previously low-stakes test.…

While studies of predictive factors for success in honors have been increasingly creative and expansive on what these factors might include, they have rarely challenged the dominant, virtually monolithic definitions of success. The majority of studies measure success either by collegiate grade point averages (GPAs) or retention rates in honors,…

Between 2005 and 2013, student loan debt in the US increased at a rate of 13.3 per cent per annum. This rise in collegiate student debt has become the focus of any number of new proposals and policies at both the state and national levels. While considering broad policies to stem this rising tide are admirable, they do little to help a graduating…

Students hold many misconceptions as they transition from arithmetic to algebraic thinking, and these misconceptions can hinder their performance and learning in the subject. To identify the errors in Algebra I which are most persistent and pernicious in terms of predicting student difficulty on standardized test items, the present study assessed…

This study explores correlations between human ratings of essay quality and component scores based on similar natural language processing indices and weighted through a principal component analysis. The results demonstrate that such component scores show small to large effects with human ratings and thus may be suitable to providing both summative…