Purpose: College placement assessments in the USA have underperformed in predicting college readiness. This has prompted a wave of reforms to placement practices and policies. Recently, student preparation for placement assessments has come to the forefront as a means for enabling better evaluation of college readiness. In this study, the authors…

In January 2000, the Alternative and Safe Schools Instructional and Support Division (ASSIS) of the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NC DPI) was charged with developing guidelines that determined how districts could establish and maintain effective Alternative Learning Programs (NC DPI, 2014). In 2003, ASSIS produced the first…

Background: We evaluated a transition to retirement intervention that adapted strategies used to support employment of people with intellectual disability in mainstream workplaces. The intervention facilitated their independent participation in mainstream community groups and volunteering. Methods: We randomised 29 older Australians who…

Stand-alone reading intervention courses, or reading classes, are designed to facilitate the literacy development of adolescents who have been deemed "struggling" readers. However, the existence of such courses does not mean that these goals are realized. Decades of qualitative research on youth perspectives and experiences have…

Gaps in advanced high school coursework by socioeconomic status and geography persist in the United States, even among students with the ability and access to succeed in them. Lack of information on course availability and inaccurate self-perceptions may contribute to these inequities. We report on a large-scale experiment designed to increase…

We present a system for math placement and intervention that pairs ALEKS PPL with an online, standards-based "bridge" course designed to prepare students interested in STEM for PreCalculus. To determine the efficacy of this system we studied ALEKS PPL placement scores, bridge course grades, ALEKS concept mastery percentages, and…

This study examined the impact of Classworks® Individualized Learning math instruction on second-grade students performing below the 25th percentile in math. The research, conducted during the 2021-2022 school year, involved 1,367 students from 45 schools across seven districts. A quasi-experimental design compared 941 students who had any use of…

There is substantial evidence on the effectiveness of many forms of advanced education, especially various approaches to acceleration, ability grouping, and curricular innovations such as structured curriculum and enrichment. Nonetheless, additional research on the ways in which advanced education impacts the learning and lives of students across…

Gifted youth frequently experience perfectionism, which for some can affect their emotional well-being. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a 6-week mindfulness intervention for 42 middle school students who were identified as Gifted and Talented. Participants' levels of self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism, as well as their…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of Knowledge in Action (KIA) project-based learning (PBL) approach to Advanced Placement (AP) on students' AP examination performance. This study used a randomized controlled trial, with school-level randomization within five large and predominantly urban U.S. school districts, to compare the AP…

This study explores the impact of implementing a peer mediation program in a middle school setting through an action research framework, presented as a series of case studies. The group of students receiving the intervention are on one "team" in the middle school, sharing the same group of teachers. The team is on a lower academic track,…

This study addressed the impact of VAM, concerns with VAM data, uses and interventions educational leaders provided teachers, and components perceived as necessary for VAM effectiveness as an evaluation tool. The demographics used for this study were position, school size, and experience. Due to the documented need for educational accountability…

Background: The teacher-driven, lecture-based approach to instruction may not be the best way for students to develop necessary skills including critical thinking, creativity, teamwork, and productive debate (Bransford, 1999). However, lecture remains the dominant instructional style in U.S. schools (Mehta & Fine, 2019). Teachers may be…

Offering "Early Start" programs in the summer before students start their first year of college is one of the strategies that the California State University (CSU) system has used to support incoming students who may not be ready for college-level work in mathematics or written communication. In 2017, the CSU system began implementing a…

This report is part of a series focusing on studies intended to inform the California State University (CSU) system about the implementation of Executive Order 1110 (EO 1110). A major policy adopted by the CSU Chancellor's Office in 2017, EO 1110 requires CSU campuses to eliminate noncredit developmental courses -- often known as…