Objective: Participatory learning strategies are integral to the effectiveness of school-based health education programmes; however, use of such methods is not the norm in teaching. The omission of participatory learning strategies is a common form of programme breakdown leading to erosion of positive learning and behavioural outcomes. Based on a…

This report presents the findings of a rigorous experimental impact evaluation and implementation study of one such intervention, the Content Literacy Continuum (CLC), developed by researchers at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. This evaluation of CLC was conducted by three partnering organizations: REL Midwest, MDRC, and…

Ninth graders (n=30 and n=39) who learned to use a prior knowledge activation (PKA) strategy consistently outperformed students in a main-idea strategy treatment group (n=25 and n=43) and those in a no-instruction control group (n=24 and n=44) on application-level questions but not on literal-level questions. (SLD)

To determine if performing mental exercises (thinking skills which activate cognitive mental alertness) before taking a test affected test results, a study examined spelling test results of three ninth-grade English classes instructed by the same teacher. Subjects were of similar educational background and had similar characteristics…

Students who successfully complete grade nine are substantially more likely to graduate from high school than are students who fail the freshman year. However, many middle grades students are not academically prepared for ninth grade. This report addresses five questions that can help school leaders ensure that middle grades students know the…

In an effort to determine whether the metacognitive strategy of self-questioning enhances lecture comprehension, 56 Honors Program ninth graders in two sections of a freshman honors world history course were assigned to four conditions. Subjects: (1) were trained to pose questions for themselves during classroom lectures and to use their questions…

Finds recent brain research sheds light on roles played by a positive affective environment and the interactive use of language in teaching the learning process through content area classes. Implements these ideas over a 10-month period in a ninth-grade classroom. Compares program students to other ninth graders on measures of metacognitive…

The tenth in a series of studies investigating the educational context and outcomes for high school students with disabilities (SWDs), this study explored the use of a Question Exploration Routine as a means of enhancing the performance of students with disabilities in ninth-grade inclusive content classes. Participants were 134 students, with and…

Models and modeling are frequently used as instructional tools in science education to convey important information concerning both the explanatory and structural features of topic areas in science. The efficacy of models as such rests almost entirely upon students' ability to conceptualize them as abstracted "representations" of…

This practicum was designed to enhance the academic achievement of high school students in English in a suburban community in southeastern New England. Through a 12-week program of study skills introduced in the English 9 collaborative classroom, the practicum aimed to enable students to recognize their best learning strategies. A pre- and…

A 2-week study was conducted to determine what effect the practice of cooperative learning had on the rote memorization of 51 prepositions in ninth-grade English classrooms. One class of 15 students acted as a control group, memorizing the prepositions independently, in a traditional setting. Another class of 15 students acted as the experimental…

Within the Caribbean context, the island of Montserrat included, ability grouping has been employed as the major organizational strategy to address academic deficiencies among high school students. Although no sound philosophical basis for this type of class/group organization has been enunciated, recent research has shown that students with poor…

Cooperative learning generally refers to students working together to achieve academic objectives and the instructional procedures that structure the students' collaborative efforts. Jigsaw is a cooperative learning model that involves small gruops of 5-6 students teaching each other subject matter about which they have become "experts"…

The latent composition of the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory for High School (LASSI-HS) was studied through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis of results from 367 ninth-grade students. Evidence supports a three-factor model. Interrelationships among the constructs are examined, and use of the instrument is discussed. (SLD)

This study investigates gender differences with regard to three factors of scientific literacy. The study involved students (N=772) in Grades 9 and 10. A 100-item multiple choice test based on National Science Education Standards was used to assess scientific literacy while gender differences were explored using analysis of variance procedures.…