Widespread critical shortages of high-quality teachers in the United States (Sutcher, Darling-Hammond, Carver-Thomas, 2016) has prompted considerable research on staffing trends within the teaching profession. Research suggests both an increase in the demand for teachers and a "chronic and relatively high annual turnover compared with many…

In educational research, characteristics of the learning environment (e.g., social climate, instructional quality, goal orientation) are often assessed via student reports, and their associations with outcome variables such as school achievement or student motivation then tested. However, studying the effects of the learning environment presents a…

Many would agree that learning on the Web--a highly autonomous learning environment--may be difficult for individuals who lack motivation and self-regulated learning skills. Using a social cognitive view of academic motivation and self-regulation, the objective of the present study was to investigate the relations between students' motivational…

The authors test biosocial models that posit interactions between biological variables (testosterone, estradiol, pubertal status, and pubertal timing) and social context variables (family, peer, school, and neighborhood) in predicting adolescent involvement with cigarettes and alcohol in a sample of 409 adolescents in Grades 6 and 8. Models…

Purporting to test a contingency model for schools, data from 45 Arizona schools and 4 British schools were analyzed and compared to examine relationships between organizational environment, structure, leadership style, and perceived effectiveness. Environmental factors were measured by teacher and administrator responses to four Likert-type…

Previous research on friendship selection has failed to focus on how the selection process changes with age or in differently organized environments. This review of the literature takes a life-course perspective on the selection of friends, charting research results on three aspects of the selection process: (1) the number of friends and their…

A study of the effect of implementing educational innovations in local schools across the country explored several factors affecting successful improvement. This paper provides a general overview of the interrelation among these factors, with illustrative diagrams. Particular attention is paid to innovations requiring major changes in teacher…

The National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) is the most recent in a series of longitudinal studies conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics at the United States Department of Education. The NELS:88 began with a baseline assessment of school experiences, with the purpose of relating these experiences to current…

This paper is one of a series to guide research linking educational policy and management with student achievement. It specifies the determinants of key paradigm variables and teacher and principal work. The paradigm developed for this type of research is presented in an earlier paper in the series. The constructs of the paradigm are defined,…

Recent research casts doubt on the commonly held notions that administrators affect student learning through instructional leadership and that changing administrators will improve school performance. To help construct a model for examining the process of leader succession that specifies a number of major school process and outcome variables…

Hierarchical linear modeling allowed the indentification of specific school characteristics and policies which help explain the relationship between social class and minority status with mathematics achievement, the relationship between social class and minority status with mathematics course enrollment, and school means for achievement and for…

With over half the nation's infants and toddlers in regular, non-parental child care, the quality of that care is a priority concern for policymakers. Many studies show that high-quality child care supports the positive social, emotional, and cognitive development of young children. The research summarized in this policy brief identifies factors…

This study examined institutional researchers' perceptions regarding their effectiveness in influencing institutional policy changes, the factors that make institutional researchers effective in the policy arena, and researchers perspectives regarding job-related rewards; challenges encountered in seeking to establish influential roles in decision…