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Eric.ed.gov – Academic Achievement and School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Turning around chronically low-performing schools requires a multifaceted school-wide, systematic effort that includes strong leadership and data-based decision making. School-wide efforts to turn-around low-performing schools should address the academic, social, and behavioral needs of all students. One evidence-based, systematic school-wide approach for addressing social and behavioral concerns in schools and, distally, increasing students’ access to academic instruction, is school-wide positive behavior interventions and supports (SWPBIS). SWPBIS is associated with increased positive school climate, increased teacher self-efficacy, decreased problem behaviors for the whole school, and potentially, increased academic achievement. The underlying assumption is that by improving social behavior, schools have more time and ability to deliver effective curriculum and instruction. However, to-date, this assumption has not been fully investigated. The goal of this paper is to explicitly examine… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Investigations of Stability in Junior High School Math and English Classes: The Texas Junior High School Study. Research and Development Report No. 77-3.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The stability of classroom behavior is examined from several perspectives: (1) the relative consistency of teacher behavior in two different sections of the same course taught concurrently; (2) the relative consistency of student behavior in math and English classes attended concurrently; and (3) differences in student and teacher behavior in math vs. English classes (to determine the effects of subject matter on teacher and student behavior). In general, stability coefficients obtained here were much higher than those expected on the basis of earlier research on stability in courses taught successively rather than concurrently. Even so, high inference ratings were more stable than low inference counts of discrete behaviors, and many behaviors did not occur often enough to allow stable measurement, despite intensive observation. The data are discussed… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Ethnic Differences in Early Math Learning: A Comparison of Chinese-American and Caucasian-American Families.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This study compared Chinese-American and Caucasian-American children and families in order to better understand which cultural and family characteristics, parent beliefs, and parent practices operate at the early childhood level to produce the more uniform high level of math achievement among Asian-American children. Forty second-generation Chinese-American and 40 Caucasian-American preschoolers and kindergartners from well-educated, 2-parent families were given math, name writing, visual discrimination, spatial relation, and vocabulary measures. Parents completed questionnaires, interviews, and a social behaviors checklist. The study found that Chinese-American children outperformed Caucasian-American children on measures of mathematics, spatial relations, visual discrimination, numeral formation, and name writing. Caucasian-American children had higher scores on receptive English vocabulary. Chinese-American parents indicated a stronger belief in the role of hard work and early skill development in academic achievement,… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Choosing a STEM Path: “Course-Sequencing in High School and Postsecondary Outcomes”

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The College Ambition Program (CAP) model was developed to support high schools in preparing their students to enter STEM fields. CAP includes four programmatic components: mentoring, course counseling and advising, college-related activities and workshops, and teacher professional development and instructional support. This study is part of a larger project that will test the overall effectiveness of the CAP intervention model that is concluding its first year of implementation and data collection (2010-2011). Currently, two experimental schools and two control schools will be included in the analysis. Data will be collected from school records, student surveys, and merged with state data. Each component of the intervention has specific measures for assessing relative value for increasing college attendance and STEM interest among students who are college ready, but do… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Self-Report and Academic Factors in Relation to High School Students’ Success in an Innovative Biotechnology Program

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Biotechnology constitutes one of the most challenging, cutting-edge, and rapidly growing fields in science today. Both the practical implications and the hands-on nature of this “modern science” make the topic of biotechnology an attractive addition to the high school science curriculum. The current study is the first of its kind to explore how student characteristics and biotechnology course outcomes relate to one another. Results indicated that students’ general attitudes about science and their overall math skills predicted success across a number of measures, including both self-reported skill ratings as well as the more traditional measures of course grade and exam score. The results also demonstrated the association between skill, as measured through self-reported proficiency ratings, and achievement on an articulation exam. It documented the relation between skills… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Dimensions of Math Avoidance among American Indian Elementary School Students. Final Report.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Using a cross-cultural perspective, researchers studied the “math avoidance syndrome,” which has reached crisis proportions among American Indians, at two elementary schools on Utah’s Northern Ute Reservation and Wisconsin’s Oneida Indian Reservation in 1980. Researchers gathered data by observing math instruction at the schools and by interviewing parents, teachers, tribal officials, and a group of students from third and fourth grade classrooms. They also discussed with tribal elders each tribe’s style of computation and problem solving. Results showed that, contrary to widely held beliefs, neither degree of traditionality nor sex of student served as an accurate predictor of student math attainment or interest in math. Perceived conflicts between school and home regarding function and purpose of education, social organization of math lessons, incompatibility of classroom management styles,… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Predicting High School Students’ Interest in Majoring in a STEM Field: Insight into High School Students’ Postsecondary Plans

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This study examined how various individual, family, and school level contextual factors impact the likelihood of planning to major in one of the science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) fields for high school students. A binary logistic regression model was developed to determine the extent to which each of the covariates helped to predict such academic interest. High school course taking in science and performance on science and math standardized tests were significantly and positively related to an increased interest in STEM. College aspirations were significant, and those with loftier educational goals were generally more likely to plan to major in a STEM field. Other individual-level factors also played a significant role, as male high school students were significantly more likely to have an early interest in… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Sanger Unified School District: Positive Outliers Case Study. Positive Outliers Series

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Located just southeast of Fresno in California’s Central Valley, Sanger Unified School District (USD) serves approximately 12,000 students in 20 schools. Sanger USD students are predominately from low-income families (73%); most are Latino/a (70%), and about one in five (18%) are English learners. During the accountability era of No Child Left Behind, Sanger had earned the reputation of being a turnaround district based on district students’ steep and steady improvement on California’s Test of Basic Skills between 2004 and 2012. Its success hinged on developing an organizational culture of continuous improvement and an instructional regime of direct instruction for students’ basic skills mastery. This case study addresses the question of how Sanger USD managed to shift instruction and student support to achieve exemplary results on the new… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Children’s Pre-K Outcomes and Classroom Quality in Georgia’s Pre-K Program: Findings from the 2013-2014 Evaluation Study

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The purpose of the 2013-2014 Georgia’s Pre-K Program Evaluation was to examine the learning outcomes for children and the quality of their classrooms during Pre-K, as the baseline year of the Pre-K through third-grade longitudinal study. The primary evaluation questions addressed included: (1) What are the learning outcomes for children attending Georgia’s Pre-K Program?; (2) What factors predict better learning outcomes for children?; and (3) What is the quality of children’s experiences in Georgia’s Pre-K classrooms? To address these questions, the evaluation study included a random sample of 199 Georgia’s Pre-K classrooms and a sample of 1,169 children attending these classrooms. Researchers conducted individual child assessments near the beginning and end of the Pre-K year to examine growth in children’s skills. The assessment measures covered multiple domains… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Content Analysis of the Studies in Turkey on the Ability of Critical Thinking

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Critical thinking, along with other skills, is included as a basic skill in the constructive education program that has been in use in Turkey since 2005. Therefore, a large increase has been observed in studies on critical thinking skills since 2005. In this frame, the present study was conducted in order to systematically examine research papers on critical thinking skills in terms of several variables published between the years 2005 and 2014 in national journals which are indexed by SSCI and the ULAKBIM social sciences database. In this context, a total of 93 articles from 29 different journals were analyzed using the NVivo 10, SPSS 18, and Microsoft Excel programs and performing content analysis which is widely used in qualitative studies. According to the findings, a large… Continue Reading