Many degree-seeking college students struggle academically and ultimately never graduate. Academic challenges and persistence within the major are especially salient issues for students who major in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Academic probation serves as a means for informing students that they are at risk of dismissal, and…

Although basing instruction on learning trajectories (LTs) is often recommended, there is little direct evidence regarding the premise of a LT approach--that instruction should be presented (only) one LT level beyond a child's present level. We evaluated this hypothesis in the domain of early shape composition. One group of preschoolers, who were…

This report presents the findings from an external evaluation of Project COMPASS, an effort by Wake Technical Community College to redesign community college online courses to improve outcomes, particularly for students of color. The evaluation used a randomized controlled trial in which students were randomly assigned to course sections taught by…

With the launch of the New York City Community Schools Initiative (NYC-CS) in 2014, the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) has increased its focus on the implementation of a holistic strategy of education reform to address the social consequences of poverty as a means to improving student outcomes. NYC-CS is a strategy to organize…

Despite years of implementing standards-based accountability systems, many teachers today lack the necessary preparation to develop standards-based instructional strategies and to inform decisions utilizing student assessments. The eMINTS ("Enhancing Missouri's Instructional Networked Teaching Strategies") National Center at the…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of explicit, direct, and generative strategy training and working memory capacity (WMC) on mathematical word problem-solving accuracy in elementary schoolchildren. In this study, children in third grade ("N" = 82) identified as at risk for math difficulties (MD) were randomly…

Nationwide, close to 40 million adults lack a high school diploma or a General Educational Development (GED) credential. About a quarter of high school freshmen do not graduate in four years, and while many high school dropouts eventually do attend GED preparation classes, too few ever pass the GED exam or go on to college. Students with only a…

Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) is a set of instructional strategies designed to improve the reading comprehension of students with diverse abilities (Klingner and Vaughn 1996). Teachers implement CSR at the classroom level using scaffolded instruction to guide students in the independent use of four comprehension strategies; students apply…

Students with high-incidence disabilities struggle with reading comprehension due to difficulties in background knowledge and metacognitive skills, including use of self-monitoring and other strategies. In the United States, these students typically receive the majority of their instruction in general education settings. However, there is little…

Over the last four decades, community colleges have played an increasingly important role in higher education. Today, community colleges enroll more than one in every three undergraduates nationally. Unfortunately, among students who enroll in community colleges with the intent to earn a credential or transfer to a four-year institution, only 51…

This study examines the impact of "Disaggregate Instruction" on students' science learning. "Disaggregate Instruction" is the idea that science teaching and learning can be separated into conceptual and discursive components. Using randomly assigned experimental and control groups, 49 fifth-grade students received web-based…

This study examines whether the Problem Based Economics curriculum developed by the Buck Institute for Education improves grade 12 students' content knowledge as measured by the Test of Economic Literacy, a test refined by the National Council on Economic Education (NCEE) over decades. Students' problem-solving skills in economics were also…

This report describes results from field-testing of POWERSOURCE[C] formative assessment alongside professional development and instructional resources. The researchers at the National Center for Research, on Evaluation, Standards, & Student Testing (CRESST) employed a randomized, controlled design to address the following question: Does the…

Although functional assessment-based interventions have produced desired outcomes in student behavior in applied settings, most of those interventions involved strong, sustained participation with researchers in intervention design, implementation, and assessment. In this article, we describe a systematic approach to designing, implementing, and…

This study examined the effects of individualized, integrated language arts as a reading approach on struggling readers' comprehension scores obtained from oral narrative, silent narrative, and silent expository passages at three levels: below-grade, on-grade, and above-grade levels. Students (N = 93) in grades four through eight, who were reading…