This study was relational, non-experimental, explanatory, and cross-sectional in nature, using quantitative methods to explain the influence of student, staff, and school independent variables on 6th, 7th , and 8th grade student achievement in both Language Arts and Mathematics on the 2011 NJ ASK. The variable of interest was the length of the…

This study examined mathematics achievement growth of students without disabilities (SWoD) and students with learning disabilities (LD) and tested whether growth and LD status interacted with student demographic characteristics. Growth was estimated in a statewide sample of 79,554 students over Grades 3 to 7. The LD group was significantly lower…

This study examined longitudinal relationships between depressive symptoms and use of alcohol, cigarettes, and illicit substances among adolescents, addressing methodological limitations and potential confounding in the extant literature. The sample comprised adolescents who were surveyed in Grades 6 (n = 916), 9 (n = 804), and 11 (n = 791).…

In 2 experiments the authors investigated whether assigning a perspective to middle school students prior to reading a long informational text would improve their reading comprehension. Pretest-posttest control group designs were employed in both experiments, in Experiment 1 (n = 146 fifth- and sixth-grade students) and in Experiment 2 (n = 83…

This study examined the influence of student demographic variables (i.e., SES, race, attendance, and gender) and the school variable of placement in an inclusion setting on the academic achievement of general education students in grades 6, 7, and 8 (n = 1200) in an urban school district as measured by the 2010-2011 NJASK, the state's annual…

Social psychological interventions in schools have gained popularity in education research for their ability to often dramatically increase student academic performance through simple exercises. Many of these interventions are designed to address stereotype threat, which is defined as "being at risk of confirming, as self-characteristic, a…

The primary purpose of this study was to determine significant relationships between growth in student learning in mathematics and characteristics of effective teacher professional development and teacher demographics. The goal was to determine whether certain characteristics of professional development, as measured by the Characteristics of…

The short-term emphasis engendered by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has focused research predominantly on unraveling the complexities and uncertainties in assessing short-term results, rather than developing methods and assessing results over the longer term. In this paper we focus on estimating long-term gains and address questions important to…

This study examined the correlations between gifted students' self-image, academic achievement, and number of years enrolled in the gifted programming. In addition, the study examined the relationships between gifted students' educational placement, race, and gender with self-image. Study participants were gifted students in third through eighth…

This study investigated the effects of teacher sense of efficacy for literacy instruction on reading achievement in grades three through eight. In previous studies, a teacher's sense of efficacy was shown to be correlated to student achievement (Ashton & Webb, 1986; Moore & Esselman, 1992). However, research attempting to uncover the…

The purpose of this study was to determine if there were differences in MCT2 scores between students who attended a school district that used MSPMS and students who attended a school district that did not use MSPMS. The data for this study were archived and consisted of math and language arts MCT2 scores for two groups of students. The independent…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of Achieve3000, a differentiated online literacy curriculum, on students' scores on the California State Test (CST). In the 2011-12 school year, 1,957 students in Chula Vista began using Achieve3000's solutions in 3rd through 8th grade. Using a form of propensity score matching called Inverse…

High-stakes testing has become crucial in public education, requiring students to meet increasingly higher standards, regardless of their ability levels. This causal-comparative study sought to determine the effectiveness of an intervention mathematics course in the middle school setting for at-risk, sixth grade students. The Georgia Criterion…

The purpose of this ex post facto study was to analyze archive data to investigate the effects of Read 180, a computer-based supplemental reading intervention, on students' academic achievement for the academic school year 2011-2012. Further analyses examined if influences existed in variables such as grade level, gender, and ethnicity of the…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between National Board Certification and student achievement in mathematics and reading as measured by an achievement test used in South Carolina. Using the Northwest Evaluation Association's Measures of Academic Progress (MAP), the study examined the RIT (Rasch Unit) scores of third…