This study examined the attitudes, preparation, and comfort of early childhood administrators in working with gay and lesbian (GL) parented families and the use of GL inclusive practices within centers. Data were gathered from 203 participants in the state of North Carolina using an online survey. Overall, administrators held a positive attitude…

Developing critical-thinking and scientific reasoning skills are core learning objectives of science education, but little empirical evidence exists regarding the interrelationships between these constructs. Writing effectively fosters students' development of these constructs, and it offers a unique window into studying how they relate. In this…

This study sought to identify correlations between constructs of teacher leadership, teacher efficacy, and teacher evaluation. Teacher perceptual data of support of teacher leadership, perceptual data on personal teacher efficacy, and teacher self-reported scores from the North Carolina Educator Evaluation System were gathered. The relationships…

Although memory retrieval often enhances subsequent memory, Peterson and Mulligan (2013) reported conditions under which retrieval produces poorer subsequent recall--the negative testing effect. The item-specific--relational account proposes that the effect occurs when retrieval disrupts interitem organizational processing relative to the restudy…

This study was designed to explore the relationship between teacher practices and levels of student engagement in secondary agricultural education programs. Most researchers have agreed that student engagement at the secondary level may be measured through three constructs: cognitive engagement, behavioral engagement, and emotional engagement. The…

Evolutionary theory is central to the biological sciences, and to critical aspects of everyday life, and yet a significant proportion of Americans reject evolution. Our study sets out to examine the role of a second year college general education course in affecting students' acceptance of evolution. We report three years of data using the Measure…

A general consensus exists among the leaders of both developed and developing nations that their citizens should be scientifically literate. Therefore, it is important for educational systems to provide students with access to pertinent scientific knowledge, an appreciation for the scientific processes, and the ability to evaluate scientific…

This study explored student abilities in applying conceptual knowledge when presented with structured performance tasks. Specifically, the study gauged proficiency in higher-order applications of students enrolled in earth and environmental science or biology. The student sample was drawn from a Redesigned STEM high school model where a tested…

The purpose of the study was to determine whether the study of diversity topics embedded in a Principal Preparation Program (PPP) internship changed candidates' self-awareness of their biases in educational environments and the biases they observed in their school community. In this study PPP candidates' perceptions of their biases and those of…

In this study we explore students' reading rates in grades 1-3. We begin with a short history of reading rate as an assessment measure in the early grades. Next, we share rate data from a recent study (N = 305) where children's contextual reading was assessed with a traditional passage-reading inventory. A comparison of our average grade-level…

This article presents the results of a study examining the highest implementers of the Schools to Watch (STW): School Transformation Network Project, and the impact the project had on their teaching/learning practices and outcomes. The project was funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation (i3) grant program and was…

Gifted and talented individuals (GT) are those who exhibit high levels of competency or potentiality in one or more domains. Academically gifted students make up roughly six to ten percent of the current total student body population in the United States and can be dated back as far as William Torrey Harris's efforts in 1868. The current state…

Alleviating disadvantage in low-income environments predicts higher cognitive abilities during early childhood. It is less established whether family income continues to predict cognitive growth in later childhood or whether there may even be bidirectional dynamics. Notably, living in poverty may moderate income-cognition dynamics. In this study,…

The ability to interpret and reason from Tree of Life diagrams is a key component of twenty-first century science literacy. This article reports on the authors' continued development of a multifaceted research-based curriculum--including an instructional booklet, lectures, laboratories and a field activity--to teach such tree thinking to biology…

Differences in behavioral and cognitive profiles have been suggested to potentially impact the presentation of social and communication symptoms in females with autism spectrum disorder. This study examined gender differences in age of diagnosis, cognitive profiles, social communication symptomatology, and autism spectrum disorder symptom severity…