The current study, which uses a survey approach, aims to identify middle school students who visit BILSEMs (Science and Art Centers) in terms of their creativity and learning preferences and to look into the impact of various factors on these traits. In the 2021-2022 academic year, 214 fifth, sixth, and seventh graders were chosen using the…

This study investigated the impact of participation in middle school garden programs on student well-being through a mixed-methods evaluation. Set against a backdrop of escalating mental health crises among K-12 students in the United States, characterized by heightened levels of stress, depression, and anxiety, this study evaluated whether school…

Leading school communities during the pandemic impacted elementary and middle school principals and brought about reflection of their leadership practices. School principals were forced to reassess leadership priorities like those set forth by the National Policy Board for Educational Administration (NPBEA) in 2015. This study looks at information…

Adolescent school connectedness generally protects from risk behaviors such as tobacco use; however, its relationship to e-cigarette use is unclear. This study examines the relationship between adolescent school connectedness and e-cigarette susceptibility in a diverse longitudinal sample. This secondary analysis of a school-based intervention…

Teachers' expectations of student capabilities can meaningfully affect future achievement. However, the consistency of teachers' expectations over time and their differential impact by student gender and ethnicity have not been thoroughly investigated in the context of students' reading achievement. The current study investigates the longitudinal…

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing many industries and becoming increasingly ubiquitous in everyday life. To empower children growing up with AI to navigate society's evolving sociotechnical context, we developed three middle school AI literacy curricula: "Creative AI,| "Dancing with AI," and "How to Train Your…

Middle schools are increasingly diverse places where students see and interact with peers different from themselves. However, students with and without intellectual disability (ID) have few opportunities to interact--they are together infrequently within extracurricular settings and the classroom. As such, students with ID are on the margins of…

Teachers' attributions of student behavior are associated with the decisions they make about how to respond to behavior problems and support their students. This exploratory study investigates teachers' attributions of student externalizing behavior, how attributions vary as a function of teacher and school characteristics, and the association of…

In this article, we present a case study of a sixth grade English Language Arts (ELA) teacher and her students at an American Islamic school. The perception in the literature is that schools are an important bridge for immigrants to engage with their adopted culture. We examined the curriculum and instructional practice of sixth grade ELA teacher…

This article describes music educators' conceptions of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). We collaborated with six music teachers to consider ways in which DEI is conceptualized and practiced in their own teaching settings. The teachers were carefully selected to encompass a multitude of identities, including race, ethnicity, gender,…

Friendships frequently dissolve in early adolescence, but youth may continue to encounter ex-friends in their daily lives. The current study aimed to examine how adolescents' reactions to friendship dissolutions were associated with continued exposure to the former friend both in school and online via social media. Participants were 354 middle…

Determining the most appropriate method of scoring an assessment is based on multiple factors, including the intended use of results, the assessment's purpose, and time constraints. Both the dichotomous and partial credit models have their advantages, yet direct comparisons of assessment outcomes from each method are not typical with constructed…

School burnout is a common problem in students. Therefore, it is a situation that negatively affects students. This study aimed to investigate the mediating role of psychological resilience (PR) in the relationship between quality of school life (QSL) and school burnout (SB). The data of the study were collected by using the "QSL Scale",…

Since its inception, the phrase "Yes, And" has guided the pedagogy of The Second City, the Chicago-based improvisational theatre and training organization. "Yes, And" is a framework that asks participants to accept and expand on the offerings of their partners to maintain momentum and advance the scene. Rejecting an offering…

In the context of an afterschool program in which students explore relatively large authentic datasets, we investigated how 11- to 14-year old students worked with categorical variables. During the program, students learned to use the Common Online Data Analysis Platform (CODAP), a statistical analysis platform specifically designed for middle and…