Educational research over the past 15 years shows that schools and school districts have, on a large scale, failed to translate reform goals into improved teacher practice and student learning. Although classroom teachers are central to successful school reform, research has rarely examined how teachers experience reform initiatives and how that…

This book highlights the experience of Liberia in both assessing and improving reading in primary schools. As a result of an Early Grade Reading Assessment, the Ministry of Education and partners, including the United States Agency for International Development, came together to identify and develop strategies for improving reading in schools.…

The current study analyzed existing data, collected under a previous U.S. Department of Education Reading First grant, to investigate the strength of the relationship between scores on the first- through third-grade Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills-Oral Reading Fluency (DIBELS-ORF) test and scores on a reading comprehension test…

Even though English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) courses constitute a significant part of the Iranian university curriculum, curriculum developers have generally developed the programs based on intuition. This study assessed the present and target situation academic language needs of undergraduate students of computer engineering. To this…

This study examines the impact of various types of preschool care and education on the reading achievement of children, kindergarten through fifth grade, who participated in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K). The participants in this study are located throughout the United States of America. These…

Successfully inducting new teachers creates professional alliances to sustain learning organizational cultures. This research involved 30 beginning teachers from a large school board in southern Ontario. The theoretical frame of the study consists of a mixed qualitative data analysis methodology of grounded theory and discourse analysis. The…

Today, the term "quality" cannot be used without evidence--evidence of learning for teacher candidates, and evidence that these teachers impact their young learners. In response to this call for evidence, teacher education programs are currently developing assessment systems that emphasize the analysis of data to make educational decisions about…

Data from college admissions tests can provide a valuable measure of student achievement, but the non-representativeness of test-takers is an important concern. We examine selectivity bias in both state-level and school-level SAT and ACT averages. The degree of selectivity may differ importantly across and within schools, and across and within…

The need to address social and economic changes has focused greater attention on our public education system and the need to better equip students with the skills needed for a global society. This quantitative study was grounded in the principles of the constructivist learning theory. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the added…

Social cognitive research has linked students' perceived academic capabilities, or self-efficacy, to academic choices, self-regulation, and performance in diverse contexts from reading comprehension to mathematical problem solving. This study addressed a need to investigate the interactions among prior achievement, self-efficacy, calibration (the…

Class-size reduction (CSR) mandates presuppose that resources provided to reduce class size will have a larger impact on student outcomes than resources that districts can spend as they see fit. I estimate the impact of Florida's statewide CSR policy by comparing the deviations from prior achievement trends in districts that were required to…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss a case study which examines and analyses a information communication technology training programme conducted using an e-learning platform at the Dartmoor National Park Authority, UK. Design/methodology/approach: The research adopted a mixed method approach which involved the use of questionnaires…

Administrators across the U.S. are collecting and analyzing program and student-specific data to meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act (2001), Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (2004), and state performance plans. Although most states are not required to disaggregate data for students who are visually impaired,…

The present article focuses on how faculty can be guided in the mentoring process and how formal mentoring programs improve practice, as well as the impact of formal mentoring on new faculty and faculty mentors. The empirical case study described features a new faculty mentoring program in its second year of development in a university research…

The last time Virginia Commonwealth University had to prepare for an accreditation review, the school's officials found themselves overwhelmed with data. The university's accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, was asking for more information than ever before about how much students were learning: grades, test scores, written…