Background: In Spartanburg County, SC, nearly 33.7% of children are overweight or obese. The purpose of this study was to investigate differences in eating behavior of youth by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Methods: Students (N = 997) in 4th to 5th grades completed the School Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey. School databases…

Self-esteem has always been a hot research object in the field of adolescent mental health. But in longitudinal research, using a single slope to describe the trajectory of adolescent self-esteem is unrealistic. The piecewise growth mixture model (PGMM) was used to fit the data in this study. Selecting from China Family Panel Studies database, a…

We apply "value-added" models to estimate the effects of teachers on an outcome they cannot plausibly affect: student height. When fitting the relatively simple models that are widely used in educational practice to New York City data, we find the standard deviation of teacher effects on height is nearly as large as that for math and…

This study examines the gender gaps in mathematics and physics in Chinese middle schools. The data is from the Education Bureau management database which includes all middle school students who took high school entrance exam in a district of Beijing from 2006-2013. The ordinary least square model and quantile regression model are applied. This…

Estimates of teacher "value-added" suggest teachers vary substantially in their ability to promote student learning. Prompted by this finding, many states and school districts have adopted value-added measures as indicators of teacher job performance. In this paper, we conduct a new test of the validity of value-added models. Using…

This report describes the results of a REL Southeast study using the Florida Department of Education staffing database to describe the demographic make-up, Florida Educator Certificate coverages, career paths from 2001/02 to 2011/12, and evaluation ratings of Florida's educational leaders (i.e., assistant principals and principals) in the 2011/12…

We examined (a) the relative importance of perceived social support from parents, peers, and teachers; (b) the consequences associated with different types of perceived social support; and (c) the mediation by achievement goals in the relationship between perceived social support and academic outcomes. We analyzed the first 3 waves of the Korean…

We study the effectiveness of teachers certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) in Washington State, which has one of the largest populations of National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) in the nation. Based on value-added models in math and reading, we find that NBPTS certified teachers are about 0.01-0.05…

This study examines the rates of exclusionary discipline (i.e., suspensions and expulsions) among English learners and non-English learners in six diverse Oregon districts that serve a third of the state's English learner students. Using 2011/12 databases from the Oregon Department of Education, the study found that differences in suspension and…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the role of teacher characteristics and school demographics in teachers' perceptions of children's cognitive abilities. Most researchers find that teachers' personal characteristics are not related to their perceptions of their children's cognitive abilities. In a 2011 study, Douglas Ready and…

While instructional time is viewed as crucial to learning, little is known about the effectiveness of reducing absences relative to increasing the number of school days. In this regard, this paper jointly estimates the effect of absences and length of the school calendar on test score performance. Using administrative data from North Carolina…

The growing availability of data linking students to classroom teachers has made it possible to estimate the contribution teachers make to student achievement. While there is a growing consensus that teacher quality is important and current evaluation systems are inadequate, many have expressed concerns over the use of value-added measures (VAMs)…

Problem statement: Contemporary global environmental problems have highlighted the importance of acting responsibly towards natural resources and the environment. The role of science education in shaping how people interact with the environment, therefore, has gained importance. The science education community has responded to this challenge by…

Enrolment and success rates are very crucial for any educational system in the world but they are more important for the developing countries like Bangladesh. Gender differences in enrolment and success rates are also emerging issues. This study investigated the enrolment and success rate's status in secondary educational system of Bangladesh…

These proceedings contain the papers of the International Conference e-Learning 2014, which was organised by the International Association for Development of the Information Society and is part of the Multi Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems (Lisbon, Portugal July 15-19, 2014). The e-Learning 2014 conference aims to address the…