The planning and implementation of effective transition services for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have emerged as crucial aspects of middle school special education. This action research study examines the impact of professional development and collaborative practices on improving transition services for middle school students with…

The purpose of this quantitative comparative study was to examine if gender and participation in a STEM curriculum have separate and/or interacting statistically significant effects on academic achievement of 8th grade middle school students attending Arizona Title I middle schools. The theoretical foundation was cognitive learning theory, which…

This article examines teaching strategies to empower metacognition through dance writing and collaborative dance making based on a project for middle school dance students at a Title I middle school during the Fall of 2020. This project draws on theoretical frameworks of critical pedagogy, intersectionality, and educational constructivism. Based…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to describe the role parents play and the support they need to better help their child with Common Core math homework, using a sample of parents from Arizona K-8 schools. Epstein's model of parental involvement provided the conceptual framework for this study, with a specific focus on the help…

The overall aim of the Effective Implementation Cohort (EIC) investment is to increase district capacity to implement a high-quality middle years math curriculum as part of a Coherent Instructional System (CIS) to accelerate learning for students who are experiencing poverty, Black, Latino/a, and/or English Learner (EL)-Designated ("priority…

Does school participatory budgeting (SPB) increase students' political efficacy? SPB, which is implemented in thousands of schools around the world, is a democratic process of deliberation and decision-making in which students determine how to spend a portion of the school's budget. We examined the impact of SPB on political efficacy in one middle…

Abstract This study aimed to evaluate the short-term effects of the social networking safety promotion and cyberbullying prevention presentation of the Arizona attorney general's guided by the extended parallel process model (EPPM). A quasi-experimental (a pre-posttest) was used with two groups with random assignment to intervention. A total of…

We report the results of a convergent validity study examining the externalizing subscale (SRSS-E5, five items) of the adapted Student Risk Screening Scale for Internalizing and Externalizing (SRSS-IE 9) with the externalizing subscale of the Teacher Report Form (TRF) with two samples of K-12 students. Results of logistic regression and receiver…

The purpose of this single case design study was to examine the efficacy of using double-bubble Thinking Maps to improve the reading comprehension of middle school Spanish-English bilingual middle school students with learning disabilities. Participants included three female Spanish-English bilingual middle school students with learning…

Connectivism has been studied primarily in online college classes and was shown to increase the self-regulated learning behaviors of tertiary students. It was not known how Arizona public middle school teachers from a single metropolitan school district perceived the influence of connectivist learning networks on the self-regulated learning…

Calls for more civic education have risen alongside political polarization, social injustices, and threats to democracy. Although civic learning opportunities are disproportionately accessible and often not inclusive, one model has shown promising results. Through School Participatory Budgeting, students deliberate and decide how to allocate funds…

This report examines the implementation and outcomes of personalized, competency-based learning in the Arizona Personalized Learning Network (AZPLN) districts. The study conducted by Research for Action (RFA) analyzed survey data from students and teachers, as well as publicly available school-level outcomes data to assess the progress and impact…

Collectively, measures created for research use--whether self-report or observational--have contributed to evidence underscoring the importance of ensuring teachers develop knowledge and skills to engage in asset-based pedagogy. Teachers who wish to enhance their practice, however, do not have a way to elicit students' perspectives of their…

Teachers must meet a variety of students' mathematics learning needs but are often not trained to do so. Little is known about how teachers perceive their efficacy to meet diverse math learning needs. The purpose of this qualitative collective case study was to explore teacher attitudes and perceptions of professional development (PD) and…

This study explores misperceptions about peer norms in support of telling authorities about weapons at school and whether perceptions predict personal support for telling authorities. Anonymous surveys were conducted among youth in 30 schools (Grades 5-12) in six states (n = 12,903) between 2006 and 2014. Personal support for telling principals,…