Institutions of higher learning are offering an increasing number of compressed in-person classes with the goal of providing to their diverse student populations flexibility of instruction delivery. SIU and many other colleges are offering an increasing number of classes with compressed schedules to increase student enrollment (Krug, et al.,…

The elementary and middle years give educators a profound opportunity to impact students' long-term outcomes: in this research, students with strong grades and attendance in elementary school were more likely to graduate high school and enroll in college than their peers. Although some Chicago Public Schools (CPS) elementary schools use CPS's…

There is a significant concern about students' achievement in reading comprehension. The study examined the reliability, validity, and slope of curriculum based measures in a content specific area -- science. Participants included students in 6th grade science classes. The curriculum based measures (CBM) being used consisted of vocabulary-matching…

We present a methodological improvement for calculating Grade Point Averages (GPAs). Heterogeneity in grading between courses systematically biases observed GPAs for individual students: the GPA observed depends on course selection. We show how a logistic model can account for course selection by simulating how every student in a sample would…

We test the effect of performance-based incentives on educational achievement in a low-performing school district using a randomized field experiment. High school freshmen were provided monthly financial incentives for meeting an achievement standard based on multiple measures of performance including attendance, behavior, grades and standardized…

Homework varies widely in importance among both teachers and students, as well as in subject areas. In mathematics, it is generally expected that it plays a critical role in students' understanding of mathematics and will be assigned daily. However, it is also understood that whether students take homework seriously can be difficult to ascertain.…

This study aims to examine the effectiveness of web-facilitated and hybrid course delivery formats on student learning outcomes for four sections of an undergraduate Personal Health course at a public institution. This is a quasi-experimental study. Two sections were taught as hybrid classes and two sections were taught as webfacilitated classes.…

The purpose of this study was to examine the Students Who Achieve Together (SWAT) peer tutoring program at Greystone High School (an Illinois suburban high school of approximately 1500 students), and to use the information gathered to evaluate the program's effectiveness and provide an analysis for future decision-making about the program. In…

There are but a handful of experimental or quasi-experimental studies comparing student outcomes from flipped or inverted classrooms to more traditional lecture formats. In the current study, I present cumulative exam performance and student evaluation data from two sections of a statistics course I recently taught: one a traditional lecture (N =…

The study aims to examine the effectiveness of web-facilitated, hybrid, and online learning modalities among undergraduate students in a public institution so as to determine the adaptability and replicability of these three learning modalities. This is a quasi-experimental study. A total of 103 undergraduate exercise science majors participated…

I present a unit on voting theory and social choice taught as the beginning of a liberal arts mathematics course for undergraduates. In this unit, students voted on the final grade calculation formula and topics to cover during the semester and then analyzed the results using various voting systems. I believe that by allowing my students to…

Recently, the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (Smarter Balanced) released a document that established initial performance levels and the associated threshold scale scores for the Smarter Balanced assessment. The report included estimated percentages of students expected to perform at each of the four performance levels, reported by grade…

Chinese parents exert more control over children than do American parents. The current research examined whether this is due in part to Chinese parents' feelings of worth being more contingent on children's performance. Twice over a year, 215 mothers and children (M[subscript age] = 12.86 years) in China and the United States (European and African…

The study reviewed here examined whether taking a course with a tenure track professor versus a non-tenure track professor for first-term freshman-level courses (e.g., introductory economics) had an impact on students' future enrollment and performance in classes in the same subject. Data from 15,662 students who entered Northwestern University,…

In the spring of 2015, Illinois students will take new state assessments that, like the new Illinois Learning Standards, challenge them to think deeply, write often and defend their reasoning--all skills they will need in the world. The Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC) covers math and English Language Arts…