There is fear that adolescents have limited control over their digital technology use. The current research examines longitudinal (Study 1) and daily (Study 2) associations between U.S. adolescents' self-control and digital technological impairment and use. Using a large sample (N = 2,104; Wave 1: M[subscript age] = 12.36, 52% female, 57%…

Negative mood regulation expectancies (NMRE) represent people's beliefs that they can use behaviors and cognitions to alleviate unpleasant emotional states. The relationship between NMRE and measures of affect, coping, depression, and anxiety with youth in Grades 4 through 8 (N = 539) was examined. In hierarchical regressions, scores on an NMRE…

Learning to write in middle school requires the expansion of sentence-level and discourse-level language skills. In this study, we investigated later language development in the writing of a cross-sectional sample of 235 upper elementary and middle school students (grades 4-8) by examining the use of (1) lexico-grammatical forms that support…

Educators have long recognized that parental and community supports are important underpinnings for children's success in school. With respect to the teaching of writing, however, little research has been conducted to provide evidence of effective practices teachers use to involve parents and communities. As part of a national Canadian study of…

KIPP Delta College Preparatory School (KIPP: DCPS), an open-enrollment charter school, opened in 2002 in Helena, Arkansas. Since its opening, KIPP: DCPS students have consistently outperformed their peers in the Helena/West Helena School district, and moreover, recent test scores suggest that white students and minority students are achieving at…

A study investigated the correlation between students' learning styles and their academic achievement on report cards and standardized tests. Subjects were 58 fifth-grade students in a suburban middle school. The "Learning Style Inventory" by Brown and Cooper was administered to this population, and students' academic averages and…

Investigated the effects of transitioning from elementary to middle school on the motivational beliefs of students attending two very different types of middle schools. Surveys of students at the end of grades 5, 6, and 7 indicated that while few differences existed in elementary school, students' motivational beliefs changed differently,…

The transition from elementary school to middle school or junior high school can be exciting, stressful, scary, and fun all at once for young adolescents. The stress of this transition can either be diffused or augmented by school procedures for introducing these students to the school. In this study, a needs survey was given to a heterogeneous…

This paper reports on a project that involved 16 middle school teachers incorporating fraction calculators into the mathematics curriculum. Teachers completed questionnaires prior to the beginning of the project and again two years later. Findings indicate that two years after the end of the project, teachers held positive attitudes or…

This paper presents findings of a study that compared the social-adjustment levels of students who participated in a middle-school transition program with students who did not. The program, implemented at Whitewater Middle School in Fayette County, Georgia, was designed to ease elementary students into the middle school system. In the Shadow…

Two studies were conducted in an effort to better understand the role of digitized speech as feedback in computer assisted instruction (CAI). The first study examined the use of familiar and unfamiliar voice feedback in two CAI lessons designed to teach advertising techniques to fifth graders. Subjects were 100 fifth graders from suburban…

The Alpha Program for the 1994-95 school year was operated for at-risk students by the School Board of Broward County (Florida) at two middle schools and one elementary school under the provisions of a grant from the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services. Services included academic instruction, parent involvement, group…

This paper critically examines the rhetoric of the effective schools and school-based management (SBM) models for educational reform as they relate to an ongoing schoolwide demonstration project to enhance children's motivation and learning. The demonstration project, also called "the coalition," was adopted at one elementary and one…

Collected observations of parental behaviors of fifth graders and then obtained adjustment measures for the fifth, sixth, and seventh grades. Supportive, aware parenting was associated with early adolescents' positive academic, social, and psychological adjustment in fifth grade and with further improvement in adjustment in seventh grade. (RJM)

The continuation of an earlier study examined to what extent students change in their use of evaluative criteria in writing between the fifth and sixth grade. Twenty-five students were interviewed in fifth and sixth grade. In the fifth grade, all students were taught writing by the same teacher who emphasized student choice of topic, recursive…