Parents boost STEM skills by scaffolding children's attention and discovery during play, but many need support doing so. Using human-centered design (HCD) methods, we created activity kits fostering parents' (a) involvement in and (b) valuing of parent-child play to promote preschoolers' STEM skills. Study 1 documents how HCD methods informed the…

Childhood trauma is a worldwide issue impacting children as young as toddlers and infants. Children exposed to traumatic events are at a greater risk of having cognitive and academic concerns. Additionally, children impacted by trauma are more likely to exhibit internalizing and externalizing behaviors than their peers who have not been exposed to…

This study explores the effectiveness and design value of 'Resilience Education Supports Students in Life' (RESSIL), an adventure-based digital game for developing resilience capacities in undergraduate students at one UK University. RESSIL was designed in response to the increasing wellbeing needs of undergraduate students and in recognition of…

Interested in managing existing work-based learning schemes by incorporating monitoring and evaluation methods? Following a brief discussion of the concept of work-based learning, this handbook presents the rationale for monitoring and evaluation as part of good governance. The functioning of work-based learning schemes is represented by a process…

Dominant discourses promote El Sistema and Sistema-inspired music education programmes as positively transforming young lives through social inclusion and musical excellence. However, critics have raised concerns that the El Sistema model has little support from objective, evidence-based research. To address this issue, the authors conducted a…

First-Year Engineering (FYE) programs are a critical part of engineering education, yet they are quite complex settings. Given the importance and complexity of FYE programs, research to better understand student learning and inform design and assessment in FYE programs is imperative. Therefore, this dissertation showcases various uses of data…

National college completion rates for men of color at open- and broad-access postsecondary institutions (including community colleges) lag behind completion rates for White students and for female students of any race or ethnicity. Research points to several broad factors to explain these unequal outcomes, including precollege environments that do…

"ACCESS", A Culture Creating Effective Systems for Success, was a three-year Investing in Innovation (i3) development grant funded by the Office of Innovation and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. The "ACCESS" grant led the way for a district-wide redesign of educational practices based on the novel approach of…

Each summer families across the globe send their children to summer camps and daycares for what amounts to babysitting. This study takes the discussion beyond babysitting and explores a unique summer enrichment program offered to rising second through fifth grade students in a modified enrichment camp model. During the four-week program, students…

Educators have embraced the promotion of social emotional development, student well-being, and mental health as essential educational objectives to promote academic readiness and growth. To address known research-to-practice gaps and limited availability of evidence-based, universal high school programs, we took a community-based participatory…

It has often been lamented that girls are more likely not to attend or to drop-out (for example, because of gender preference by the parents, insecurity, pregnancy, amongst many other postulated factors) or that their achievement even if they stay in school is worse than boys. For the former, UNESCO introduced the Gender Parity Index (GPI), which…

This report presents the findings from an external evaluation of Project COMPASS, an effort by Wake Technical Community College to redesign community college online courses to improve outcomes, particularly for students of color. The evaluation used a randomized controlled trial in which students were randomly assigned to course sections taught by…

Background: Since 1984, Students Taking a Right Stand (STARS) Nashville has implemented Student Assistance Programs (SAPs) in the middle Tennessee area, to include 14 counties and 16 school districts. STARS Nashville serves K-12 with a focus in middle and high schools. Methods: The current study reviewed studies that utilized quasi-experimental…

This report presents outcomes for students who participated in the Cycle 7 of Afterschool Centers on Education (ACE) program managed by Boys and Girls Club of the Greater Austin Area in 2015-2016. The report compares student outcomes over two years by level of program participation.

Many states have scaled up School-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SW-PBIS) with the goal of improving student behavior and academic outcomes. Although the effects of SW-PBIS on behavioral and discipline outcomes have been promising, the findings for academic achievement have been inconclusive and are often limited to…