This study focused on the joint effects of teachers and peer groups as predictors of change in students' engagement during the first year of middle school, when the importance of peer relationships normatively increases and the quality of teacher-student relationships typically declines. To explore cumulative and contextualized joint effects, the…

Novice special educators (those in their first 3 years) consistently report their workloads are unmanageable. Yet, it is not clear whether their perceptions of workload manageability contribute to outcomes of concern such as emotional exhaustion (a component of burnout) or intentions to continue teaching in their schools and districts. This pilot…

The present study examined the effectiveness of the oral history approach with respect to students' historical competence. A total of 35 ninth-grade classes (N = 900) in Germany were randomly assigned to one of four conditions--live, video, text, or a (nontreated) control group--in a pretest, posttest, and follow-up design. Comparing the three…

Objective: The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of multiple types of sleep problems in young adolescents with ADHD. Method: 262 adolescents comprehensively diagnosed with ADHD and their caregivers completed well-validated measures of sleep problems and daytime sleepiness. Participants also completed measures related…

The aim of this study was to ascertain which dimensions of parents' experiences with schools are most strongly associated with parents' perceptions that schools are or are not facilitating parent involvement as mandated by the federal accountability system under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Participants were 92 parents…

Policymakers view parental involvement (PI) as a crucial component of school reform efforts, but evidence of its effect on student achievement is equivocal. Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort dataset, we examined the long-term impact on student- and school-level achievement of three types of school-based PI: PI to…

We investigate factors influencing student sign-ups for Washington State's College Bound Scholarship (CBS) program. We find a substantial share of eligible middle school students fail to sign the CBS, forgoing college financial aid. Student characteristics associated with signing the scholarship parallel characteristics of low-income students who…

The primary goal of the current study was to test whether parent and adolescent preference for a common language moderates the association between parenting and rank-order change over time in offspring substance use. A sample of Mexican-origin 7th-grade adolescents (M[subscript age] = 12.5 years, N = 194, 52% female) was measured longitudinally on…

The current study extends research on the transition to early adolescence and middle grade schools by examining students' achievement trajectories from school entry through 8th grade in a national sample, and beginning to disassociate the role of school context and school grade configuration in achievement trajectories. Data were drawn from the…

This study examines the contribution of epistemological beliefs to middle school students' reported use of self-regulated learning strategies. One hundred and sixty 8th and 9th graders from three public middle schools participated in the study. Gender was about equally represented in the sample (89 girls, 71 boys). During the group examination…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of scientific studies on students' scientific literacy and attitude towards science course. For the study, a middle school science study group was established by randomly selecting 30 students from the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. Participating students were given information about the…

While recent evidence has indicated that experienced racial discrimination is associated with increased depressive symptoms for African American adolescents, most studies rely on cross-sectional and short-term longitudinal research designs. As a result, the direction and persistence of this association across time remains unclear. This article…

Engaging in science as an argumentative practice can promote students' critical thinking, reflection, and evaluation of evidence. However, many do not approach science in this way. Furthermore, the presumed confrontational nature of argumentation may run against cultural norms particularly during the sensitive time of early adolescence. This paper…

This study examined whether discourse and topic knowledge separately predicted the overall quality and the inclusion of basic genre elements in 5th grade students' stories, persuasive papers, and informational text once the other type of knowledge as well as topic interest, spelling, handwriting fluency, length of text, and gender were controlled.…

The study purposes were: 1) To study current states and problems of relevant secondary students in developing mathematics learning management model for improving creative thinking, 2) To evaluate the effectiveness of model about: a) efficiency of learning process, b) comparisons of pretest and posttest on creative thinking and achievement of…