In an era of social media, and amid the coronavirus pandemic, teachers' curation of instructional resources stands as an opportunity to observe teachers' planning and conceptualization of their practice in real time. This work explores the resources teachers curate, their rigor, and the effects on students' learning across years. Merging big data…

The authors examined the big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE) on academic self-concept (ASC) using different indicators of academic ability (i.e., achievement test, cognitive ability test, grades corrected for grading-on-a-curve effects, uncorrected grades). They investigated under what circumstances grades are suitable indicators of academic…

The study utilized a quantitative multiple regression research design looking at the association between home technology use to complete school work and student achievement scores as measured on an online diagnostic assessment. Despite a tremendous amount of literature studying the potential effect of home use of technology on student achievement,…

This study analyses the effects of school resources on student mathematics achievement in Zimbabwe using a 3-Level Hierarchical Linear Model (HLM). The major findings of the research are that a teacher trained in the relevant subject, class size, having a highly qualified school head and having a generally high resource endowment at school level…

The rapid expansion of charter schools reflects a growing interest in education reform and school turnaround efforts across the United States. However, national research on charter school performance remains inconclusive. Of particular debate is the impact of transferring from a traditional public school to a charter school on student achievement…

This study examines concurrent and short-term longitudinal (i.e., academic year) relations between peer network racial/ethnic diversity and indicators of social and academic competence in a sample of African American, Latino, Native American, and White sixth-grade students attending rural schools (N = 481; 50% female). Results from two-level…

Little is known about factors other than students' abilities and background variables that shape teachers' achievement expectations. This study was aimed at investigating the role of teachers' perceptions of students attributes (working habits, popularity, self-confidence, student--teacher relationships, and classroom behavior) in shaping…

Much of the achievement gap between rich and poor students can be attributed to out-of-school factors, yet few schools have a comprehensive, coordinated system for addressing students' nonacademic needs. Within a group of Catholic schools located in one city, this study examined academic achievement on the Stanford Achievement Test battery in…

This article examines the relationship between after-school program quality, program attendance, and academic outcomes for a sample of low-income after-school program participants. Regression and hierarchical linear modeling analyses use a unique longitudinal data set including 29 after-school programs that served 5,108 students in Grades 4 to 8…

The purpose of this study is to investigate student- and school-level factors that help to explain the difference in the nature of science (NOS) views. Overall, the design of this study is correlational. The sample consisted of 3062 students enrolled in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades of elementary schools in Turkey. A hierarchical linear…

Educators have long used test scores to make educational decisions, but only within the last decade has the availability of data been systematic (Abelman, Elmore, Even, Kenyon, & Marshall, 1999). In recent years, interest has spiked in data-driven decision making in education (Marsh, Pane, & Hamilton, 2006). With technological advances and…

A recent study in the USA documented the existence and growth of "excellence gaps" among students. These gaps are similar to the minimum competency achievement gaps that proliferate in policy discussions in many Western countries, but excellence gaps focus on the highest level of achievement rather than minimum competency. We extend this…

Alternatives to vertical scales are compared for measuring longitudinal academic growth and for producing school-level growth measures. The alternatives examined were empirical cross-grade regression, ordinary least squares and logistic regression, and multilevel models. The student data used for the comparisons were Arabic Grades 4 to 10 in…

The Technology Immersion Pilot (TIP), created by the Texas Legislature in 2003, was based on the assumption that the use of technology in Texas public schools could be achieved more effectively by "immersing" schools in technology rather than by introducing technology resources, such as hardware, software, digital content, and educator…

The Technology Immersion Pilot (TIP), created by the Texas Legislature in 2003, set forth a vision for technology immersion in public schools. Senate Bill 396 called for the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to establish a pilot project to "immerse" schools in technology by providing a wireless mobile computing device for each teacher and…