Equitable instructional practices are vital to closing the educational achievement gap for African American students. However, there is a gap in research on understanding the lived experiences of educators and the ability to provide equity instruction to African American students. The impact of equitable instructional practices and the role of…

Teachers set the tone for their classrooms, but what teacher beliefs shape students' sense of belonging? We investigate how teachers' mindsets--or their beliefs about learning and school--relate to adolescents' individual and collective reports of classroom belonging. Our pre-registered analyses include a multilevel design of how 1,200 US middle…

The purpose of this study was to assess the perceptions of middle school math teachers, as captured by survey ratings, of the frequency and quality of professional development programs. The study further examined the relationship of these perceptions to the degree to which professional development increased self-efficacy and social connections.…

Principals' instructional leadership has been the focus of research for decades. Research shows that principals' impact on student achievement is second only to teachers (Grissom et al., 2021; Herman et al., 2017). Student literacy achievement concerns that continue trending nationwide, and specifically in North Carolina, indicate the need for…

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to investigate how general and special educators' attitudes, efficacy, and collaboration promote co-teaching relationships that benefit exceptional students in urban middle schools. The impacts of co-teaching on the attitudes, efficacy, and collaboration of secondary teachers were explored. A…

School policies and interventions are implemented with the hope of increasing achievement, but that alone has not been found to support all students in accessing their potential (Savitz-Romer & Bouffard, 2013). The disparities that exist within the education systems provide unfair advantage to some students over others and this is seen across…

This study piloted a survey to determine possible use in a future study that would assess teacher efficacy, the relationship between teacher self-efficacy and the implementation of professional learning communities, and how perceived leadership support impacts that relationship in an urban school district. The data collection process included…

Social-emotional learning (SEL) and character education are important components of adolescent development. In this study, we evaluated a randomized controlled trial of CharacterStrong, a curriculum that combines SEL and character education that included 1609 students and 242 teachers across 14 schools. This study applied baseline target…

This convergent mixed methods study examined the impact of student learning objectives (SLOs) and the evaluation process on teachers' sense of efficacy. The study participants included kindergarten through eighth grade teachers from one large urban Midwestern school district. The quantitative research questions examined teachers' reported sense of…

We examined the effect of multiple school-related, resilience-promotive factors against exposure to violence (ETV) at school among an urban sample of 6th-grade students (n = 441, 57% female, mean age = 11.81), 90% identify as students of color. Using multilevel mixed-effects linear models, we analyzed two waves of data (baseline and 4-month…

The COVID-19 global pandemic created challenges for educators across the United States and worldwide. Without the skills, prior experience, or preparational training, educators were tasked with continuing to provide instruction (and support) for their students while teaching remotely. Due to these challenges in education, the researcher chose to…

The learning losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic make this an important time to identify strategies that can help students accelerate their learning. The Strategic Adolescent Reading Intervention (STARI) is a year-long supplemental reading intervention that is intentionally designed to address the motivational barriers of middle school students…

Minority underrepresentation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) perpetuates the income inequality that minorities experience and leads to a lack of diversity in STEM. The purpose of this quantitative nonexperimental study was to examine the effect of student demographics, STEM, science technology, engineering, art, and…

The persistent inequalities in urban public education in the U.S. that have left far too many Black and Hispanic male students behind with respect to academic skill development, high school graduation, and college success have led Catholic groups to provide alternative secondary school models to advance the academic and career success of urban…

We examined the additive associations of two motivational beliefs (growth mindset and academic self-efficacy) and self-regulation with mathematics and English Language Arts (ELA) scores, as well as the interplay of students' beliefs and self-regulation skills, controlling for previous test scores. We tested whether these pathways differed across…