An impediment to conducting high-quality quantitative research studies in education is the paucity of valid measures of learning gains. Studies often seek to investigate students' deep, conceptual understanding yet many measures assess only surface, procedural understanding. One reason is that the development of validated measures of conceptual…

Classroom observations have long been considered a necessary component of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) evaluations. Yet, research evaluating the utility of observational ratings in ADHD assessment is limited. This study examined the contributions of the Behavioral Observation of Students in Schools (BOSS) to ADHD assessment by…

We investigated the effectiveness of two teaching formats that fall under the canopy of Mosston and Ashworth's (2008) practice style, on fifth grade students' motor skill performance and task engagement. Both formats are also known as station teaching or learning centers. In the teacher-rotated format (TR), the teacher decides the amount of time…

In this digital era, a fundamental challenge is to design digital reading materials in such a way that they improve children's reading skills. Since reading books is challenging for many fifth graders--particularly for those genetically susceptible to attention problems--the researchers hypothesized that guidance from a digital Pedagogical Agent…

Efficacy of games as learning medium is of interest to researchers and the gaming industry. A critical metric for learning is knowledge retention and very few studies have conducted in-depth comparisons of: a) game versus no-game learning, b) collaborative versus individual learning. Towards this, the study reported in this article will present…

The present paper examines if developmental pathways for students at risk for academic failure can be improved through social and emotional learning (SEL). Specifically, we test this hypothesis by accounting for shifts in student engagement, a highly studied and malleable construct often inclusive of SEL interventions, as the pathway by which to…

Little research has explored the impact of teacher behavior in the relationship between classroom movement breaks and student outcomes. The authors' primary purpose was to explore teacher behavior during classroom movement breaks to determine if teacher behavior served as a moderating variable in the relationship between physical activity and…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of self-monitoring training on the motivation of elementary school students with dyslexia. This quasi-experimental study was conducted along with a pre-test, post-test, with a control group and a follow-up test. 32 students with dyslexia (2nd to 5th grades) were chosen and divided into two…

A quasi-experimental study was conducted to examine the impact of Strategic and Interactive Writing Instruction on 3rd-5th grade deaf and hard of hearing students' writing and written language compared to a business-as-usual condition (treatment group N = 41, comparison group N = 22). A total of 18 hours of instruction was provided for each of two…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of a school counselor-led classroom intervention, Student Success Skills (SSS) program (Brigman & Webb, 2010), on Grade 5 Hispanic students' self-regulation, school attendance, and test anxiety. The study used non-identifying archival data from a random controlled trial (RCT) collected at 30…

In a cluster-randomized study, we investigate the impact of an argument-based approach to teaching science in elementary school on science learning and critical thinking skills. Forty-eight schools participated in the study, with data on 9,963 students across the 2 years of the intervention. Annual standardized tests assessing science content…

We present main effects of treatment and moderating effects of student background on science and engineering outcomes for grades 3-5 children participating in an engineering intervention. Data is from a large-scale randomized-controlled trial of two matched pairs (intervention and comparison) of engineering units. The intervention curriculum…

This study examined the effectiveness of two instructional mind-mapping approaches to stimulate fifth and sixth graders' graphical summarization skills. Thirty-five fifth- and sixth-grade teachers and 644 students from 17 different elementary schools participated. A randomized quasi-experimental repeated-measures design was set up with two…

In this presentation discussed in this brief abstracted report, the author presents about an ongoing partnership with the Philadelphia School District (PSD) to implement and research the Ongoing Assessment Project (OGAP). OGAP is a systematic, intentional and iterative formative assessment system grounded in the research on how students learn…

Strong correlational evidence suggests that involvement in the arts improves students' academic outcomes and memory of learning events (e.g., Peppler et al., 2014; Robinson, 2013; Scripps & Paradis, 2014). It is unclear, however, whether the improved outcomes are the result of general exposure to the arts, arts integrated into content…