This dissertation critically examines grading practices within schools, tracing the evolution from traditional to modern approaches and highlighting the social dimensions and debates surrounding grading. Through a mixed-methods study spanning three empirical chapters, it explores students' and teachers' perceptions of grading practices, the impact…

Discourse around Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education in the United States has long focused on improving the persistence and academic achievement of students. On the surface, such goals are reasonable and well-intentioned. However, the near-exclusive focus on those two outcomes as shorthand for "success"…

Teacher leadership is a critical aspect of school change while there is lack of a consistent definition for it. This examines teacher leadership conceptualization and its associated outcomes. The review of 33 articles published 2018-2023 focused on teacher leadership in K-12 setting, found that many authors relied on established definitions, with…

This paper uses critical archival analysis, paired with textual analysis of grant descriptions, to understand how nine foundations -- all with endowments derived from the student loan industry -- have motivated their college completion work and the relationship between these commitments and grantmaking over time (2000-2019). Mobilizing concepts of…

This action research study explored the use of mentorship as an intervention to improve the attendance chronically absent ninth grade students at an urban high school. Chronic absenteeism is a phenomenon with multiple compounding negative impacts on students. Moreover, it is a complicated problem with multiple contributing factors and potential…

Increased accountability measures over the past two decades caused schools to seek new ways to increase student achievement. As principals play a crucial role in implementing reforms to improve instructional practices and student achievement, understanding the competencies that make principals successful is essential. Research indicated that…

Given little research using meta-analysis for SSI-based interventions and their limitations (e.g. data selection and analysis processes), further study is needed to validate previous findings and provide a broader sense of the effectiveness of SSI-based interventions in promoting scientific literacy. Therefore, this study aimed to…

School-based anxiety interventions reduce anxiety and related impairment, but little is known about whether they improve academic outcomes, especially when delivered by non-mental health specialists. This study examined the impact of two brief, school nurse-delivered anxiety interventions on working memory, school functioning, and school…

Background: Mid-adolescence is an important phase of self-development in various domains including academics as well as for changes in the neural mechanisms underlying the self-concept. Students' academic self-concept (ASC) is affected by educational achievements and social others (such as teachers and peers). To what extent these external…

Accountability efforts under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) has brought greater attention to school-level processes and practices and their impact on student outcomes. This has pushed states to report more school-level inputs, including per-pupil expenditures. Grounded in an open systems theory (OST) framework, we identify the association…

Future education requires fostering high-level competencies to enhance student talent, and artificial intelligence (AI) can help in profile analysis. The aim was to determine the variables that predict the GPA of students in the 'Leaders of Tomorrow' program through an integrated methodology of data analytics, machine learning modeling, and…

Australian Indigenous education policies are formed in settler colonial systems that are structured by institutional racism. Gumbaynggirr academic Lilly Brown (2019) argues that Australian 'education was incorporated into Indigenous policy as a justification for dispossession' (p. 67) throughout the 20th century. In recent times, First Nations…

This study examined changes of test anxiety under the reform of the examination system in Taiwan. We sampled 46,361 Grade 9 students in Taiwan for 9 consecutive years starting from 2011 to collect data on their test anxiety, cram school attendance frequency, and academic achievement. Students' test anxiety level was compared between three periods:…

In this review, I examined the last two decades of research on data use in education to outline the ways in which principals used data to inform their own leadership practices. I found three themes: first, student achievement data were the most widespread form of data that principals used; second, principals' work has been reshaped by teacher…

Sociology plays a key role in empathy development, which is central to addressing complex social problems. However, little is known about what types of courses work best to enhance empathy. In parallel, sociological animal studies (SAS) has evolved as a relatively new subfield focused on assessing human and animal relationships. SAS research…