The present study explored the heterogeneity of truant youth to provide a more nuanced examination of the nature of adolescent truancy and examine distinct profiles of truant youth as they relate to externalizing behaviors. Latent profile analysis was employed to examine the heterogeneity of truant youth by using a nationally representative sample…

While American universities garner top honors for research, teaching appears to be in a terrible state. There is widespread agreement among business leaders that graduates of American universities are not prepared to assume jobs in their companies. American education has many critics, and studies indicate that the quality of postsecondary…

Transfer students are a distinct population. Their characteristics lead to a qualitatively different student experience. Drawing on interviews with a cross-sectional sample of transfer students at George Mason University (GMU), this study focused on the ways transfer students perceived their social and academic engagement, on the ways they engaged…

In this article we examine how cultural and community factors interact with individual level factors to predict school participation. Participants were 497 Atlantic Canadian youth purposefully selected because of their concurrent use of more than one government service or community program at the time they were interviewed. Results revealed that…

A fundamental goal of any L2 teacher education program is to move novice teachers toward greater levels of professional expertise, both in terms of what they know and what they can do with what they know. Yet, it is less clear how the activities embedded in teacher education programs actually assist novice teachers as they move toward greater…

The purpose of this study was to examine if there were differences between traditional and nontraditional undergraduate students level of engagement on a traditional campus. In addition, the engagement profile of nontraditional students was examined to determine whether there were differences when considering moderator variables: such as gender,…

This dissertation consists of two manuscripts to examine student motivation and engagement in the foreign language classroom. The purpose of the first paper is to propose a model that distinguishes between motivation and engagement. The paper highlights the connections and differences between motivation and engagement in order to point out issues…

This study examined the effectiveness of interactive whiteboards on student engagement. Perceptions from 108 middle school students and one middle school teacher were analyzed to answer the research question: What are the perceptions of middle school students and one middle school teacher regarding student engagement during lessons using an…

Extrinsic inducements to adjust students' learning motivations have evolved within 2 opposing paradigms. Cognitive evaluation theories claim that controlling factors embedded in extrinsic rewards dissipate intrinsic aspirations. Behavioral theorists contend that if engagement is voluntary, extrinsic reinforcements enhance learning without ill…

Large-scale observational measures of classroom practice increasingly focus on opportunities for student participation as an indicator of instructional quality. Each observational measure necessitates making design and coding choices on how to best measure student participation. This study investigated variations of coding approaches that may be…

Over the past 5 years, a great deal of attention has been paid to the development of early warning systems for dropout prevention. These warning systems use a set of indicators based on official school records to identify youth at risk for dropout and then appropriately target intervention. The current study builds on this work by assessing the…

Involve students in the design and construction stages of new schools?--"Are you serious?" "Leave it to the experts", "We don't have time--the programme is very tight", "What do they know?", "They'll get in the way!", "It's not our job!" are still responses from some involved with design…

The widespread turn towards "collaboration" in qualitative research methodologies warrants careful and continuous critique. This paper addresses the possibilities and the challenges of collaborative methodology, and in particular what happens when the line between pedagogy and methodology is blurred in classroom-based ethnographic…

A multiple baseline design was used to examine the effects of participation in antecedent physical activity on the academic engagement of four elementary-school children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The results indicated large effect sizes for academic engaged time for all four students. It was suggested that physical activity in…

This article presents an educational action research study examining how one online, classroom-based role-play simulation offers middle school students the opportunity to strengthen their agency and voice. The Jewish Court of All Time (JCAT) is a web-mediated simulation designed for middle school classrooms where students take on roles of various…