Valid and reliable measurements of teaching quality facilitate school-level decision-making and policies pertaining to teachers. Using nearly 1,000 word-to-word transcriptions of fourth- and fifth-grade English language arts classes, we apply novel text-as-data methods to develop automated measures of teaching to complement classroom observations…

Valid and reliable measurements of teaching quality facilitate school-level decision-making and policies pertaining to teachers, but conventional classroom observations are costly, prone to rater bias, and hard to implement at scale. Using nearly 1,000 word-to-word transcriptions of 4th- and 5th-grade English language arts classes, we apply novel…

This document describes the model used by the New York State Education Department (NYSED) to measure student growth for institutional accountability in New York State for the 2016/17 school year. In 2016/17, growth models were implemented for institutional accountability in Grades 4-8 ELA and mathematics. All models are based on assessing each…

This document describes the model used by the New York State Education Department (NYSED) to measure student growth for institutional accountability in New York State for the 2015/16 school year. In 2015/16, growth models were implemented for institutional accountability in Grades 4-8 ELA and mathematics. All models are based on assessing each…

The Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement (CAREI) conducted two analyses with the purpose of examining the association between elementary school start time and students' academic achievement in mathematics and reading in Wayzata Public Schools. The first analysis examined the association between elementary school start time and…

Social skills involved in leadership were examined in a problem-solving activity in which 252 Chinese 5th-graders worked in small groups on a spatial-reasoning puzzle. Results showed that students who engaged in peer-managed small-group discussions of stories prior to problem solving produced significantly better solutions and initiated…

Previous research has identified various factors that contribute to readers' comprehension of expository texts, including strategy expertise, language proficiency, prior knowledge, and more recently, readers' beliefs about knowledge. This study addresses the need to understand the relative contributions of these predictors to readers'…

Applied early adolescent researchers often sample students (Level 1) from within classrooms (Level 2) that are nested within schools (Level 3), resulting in data that requires multilevel modeling analysis to avoid Type 1 errors. Although several articles have been published to assist researchers with analyzing sample data nested at two levels, few…

Several studies found that direct instruction and task structuring can effectively promote children's ability to design unconfounded experiments. The present study examined whether the impact of these interventions extends to other scientific reasoning skills by comparing the inquiry activities of 55 fifth-graders randomly assigned to one of…

Maternal support is known as a protective factor during infancy, childhood, and adolescence. However, less is known about the conditions leading to support-seeking behaviors toward mothers in early adolescence. In comparison with younger children, it is assumed that the specific nature of these conditions changes with continuing cognitive…

The study set out to discover what characterizes the meaningful learning of mathematics among low-achieving students (LAS) and to highlight the challenges their characteristics pose for scaffolding, in particular for its adaptive core: contingent teaching. The setting was an extracurricular program for teaching meaningful mathematics to LAS…

Continuity and change in children's involvement in bullying was examined across the transition to middle school in relation to externalizing and internalizing behavior problems in fifth grade and peer affiliations in fifth and sixth grades. The sample consisted of 533 students (223 boys, 310 girls) with 72% European American, 25% African American,…

Although quality of the teacher-student relationship contributes to school adjustment, students who experience difficulties appear to be least likely to benefit from positive interactions with their teachers. It was of interest to explore a broadened conceptualization of teacher-student relationship that considers both emotional connection and…

This study examined the individual and combined predictive effects of two types of feedback (i.e., quantitative ratings and descriptive comments) in online peer-assessment learning systems on the quality of produced work. A total of 233 students participated in the study for six weeks. An online learning system that allows students to contribute…

American Indians have the largest high school dropout rates of all ethnic groups in the United States. Though drop outs technically occur in high school, they actually begin with lowered academic achievement during elementary school years. Looking to mothers as the primary caretakers, this study sought to explore the correlations between American…