An intervention was implemented to improve academic success and self-esteem of eighth grade students classified as learning disabled in a district northwest of Chicago, Illinois. Major elements of the intervention included strategies to increase teacher awareness of the students' inability to use and process information, intervention to improve…

To evaluate the effect of typing instruction on knowledge about computers, students from grades 4 through 8 attending computer literacy and programing classes were assigned to either a treatment condition providing 4 weeks of typing instruction or a control group receiving no typing instruction. It was hypothesized that pretest-posttest gains of…

A study examining the effects of computer animation exercises on cognitive development asked two groups of seventh graders to create computer animations, working from a simple mythic text. The ability of students to create narrative scenarios from this mythic text was analyzed. These scenarios were then recreated in the school computer lab, using…

A study examined the relative merits of individual and cooperative methods of vocabulary instruction in the seventh grade. It was hypothesized that socialization would act as a motivating force among these adolescents, and that those involved in paired instruction would show increased vocabulary retention. Students in both control (individual) and…

This study examined the extent to which New Hampshire schools are implementing advisory programs, as suggested by the Carnegie Council's "Turning Points" report. An advisory program is defined as a program within a middle school whereby students work with adults on an individual or group basis. Questionnaires on common practices used in…

This thesis investigates factors associated with the self-esteem of school children in the fourth and seventh grades. The 460 students were drawn from 5 schools in a single school district, located in a town of over 120,000 persons. Students were examined through the independent variables of gender, grade level, race, socioeconomic status, and…

Adolescents continue to use alcohol and other drugs despite the profound risks to their health. This thesis examines the attitudes of students in grades 7-9 toward alcohol and other nonprescriptive mind-altering substances. Eight independent variables were investigated: (1) gender; (2) grade placement; (3) DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education)…

A case study was conducted of a teacher participating in a course for teachers designed to help them create partnerships for learning with students. The Curriculum for Possibilities (CFP) is an in-service course in which teachers examine their underlying beliefs, decisions, and behaviors that dictate their styles and the context of possibilities…

Those who guide and work with children are interested in enabling them to build concepts about themselves that lead to higher self-esteem. This study investigated factors associated with self-esteem in sixth through ninth graders. The independent variables were locus of control, family structure, sex role, gender, grade level, and parental alcohol…

After presenting a research review indicating that English as a second language (ESL) secondary school students need to improve their thinking skills, this paper reports on a study in which 136 analogies were developed for use as tools to teach these students to read at inferential and applied levels. The vocabulary source for the analogies was…

Three readability formulas were applied to chapters from six textbooks to determine (1) if there was a significant difference in readability of three consecutive textbook editions of a seventh grade and of an eighth grade text over a 12-year period (1968-1980), and (2) whether eighth grade students would perform equally to the same content from a…

To compare the self-selection book choices of low achieving junior high school students with those of high achieving students, Title I (low achieving) and honor roll (high achieving) students chose books from the library and were given a cloze test based upon the book chosen before reading it. A cloze score of less than 37% determined that a…

A program for improving adolescent classroom behavior through motivational techniques was developed and implemented. The targeted population was 20 junior high school students in a large, low socioeconomic status community in the Midwest. A problem in motivation had been documented through observation, an analysis of academic achievement, and a…

This thesis investigates the sensitivity of junior high/middle school students to statements depicting verbal and physical sexual harassment. The independent variables that were investigated included gender, grade level, age, size of district, grades received, participation in sports, birth order, developmental level, and self-esteem. Students…

Occupational sex role stereotyping occurs early in children's lives. To understand this process, a study of occupational sex-role stereotyping in seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-grade students (N=178) is presented here. The independent variables were gender, grade level, self-reported grades, participation in career planning activities, family…