Student mental health disorders have seen an uptick in prevalence in the United States within the past five years. The current study explores the idea of improving student mental resilience as a way to combat the rising percentages of students who suffer from mental disorders. The study uses a mixed-method design that quantitatively includes an…

A college degree is often viewed as a key step toward better employment and higher earnings. Many community college students, however, never graduate and cannot reap the financial benefits associated with a college degree. Although existing research suggests that financial aid interventions can modestly improve students' short-term academic…

Students' inaccurate ideas about what is represented by chemical equations and concepts underlying stoichiometry are well documented; however, there are few classroom-ready instructional solutions to help students build scientifically accurate ideas about these topics central to learning chemistry. An intervention (two inquiry-based activities)…

Background. The family and home environment is an influential antecedent of childhood obesity. The purpose of this study was to pilot test The Enabling Mothers to Prevent Pediatric Obesity through Web-Based Education and Reciprocal Determinism (EMPOWER) intervention; a newly developed, theory-based, online program for prevention of childhood…

A college degree is often viewed as a key step toward better employment and higher earnings. Many community college students, however, never graduate and cannot reap the financial benefits associated with a college degree. Although existing research suggests that financial aid interventions can modestly improve students' short-term academic…

Background: Children in Appalachia are experiencing high levels of obesity, in large measure because of inferior diets. This study screened the dietary intake of third graders residing in 3 rural Appalachian counties in Ohio and determined whether the Food, Math, and Science Teaching Enhancement Resource Initiative (FoodMASTER) curriculum improved…

The ESEA Blueprint for Reform states that teachers need "effective, ongoing, job-embedded, professional development that is targeted to student and school needs… [and] aligned with evidence of improvements in student learning." Unfortunately, the professional development approaches advocated, though sensible and compelling in theory,…

The three-fold purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to examine the impact of the computer-based reading program Fast ForWord (FFW) on the reading achievement of second-grade students in an Ohio school district. The sample included 360 students (treatment group, n = 85; control group, n = 275) from four elementary buildings. FFW is an…

Zili Sloboda, Sc.D., and colleagues at the University of Akron, Ohio, designed and evaluated "Take Charge of Your Life", a substance abuse prevention curriculum for 7th- and 9th-grade students delivered by D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) police officers. They designed "Take Charge of Your Life" to impact students'…

Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) exhibit significant academic impairments, as evidenced by poor academic achievement, grade retention, and school dropout. Deficits in organization skills may contribute to these academic impairments, as children with ADHD frequently lose assignments, misplace their completed work, and…

Rigorous research provides information that will allow other schools and districts to select interventions that have a scientifically based track record of effectiveness. All Striving Reader grants include the mandate to evaluate literacy intervention(s) targeted to adolescents who are reading significantly below grade level. Although all studies…

This research project consists of a randomized experiment in a few of the Reynoldsburg City Schools. The primary purpose of this research is to produce scientifically based evidence of the comparative effectiveness of the "Scott Foresman Science" ("SFScience)" program. The question being addressed by the research is whether…