This study examined college admission criteria and college readiness in an effort to reduce barriers in college admission. The Academic Motivation Scale (AMS) was administered to a convenience sample of 74 participants among 503 students during their first semester at a two-year college. Scale scores were compared to demographic characteristics,…

The majority of high school students, particularly underrepresented minorities (URMs) from low socioeconomic backgrounds are graduating from high school less prepared academically for advanced-level college mathematics. Using 2009 and 2010 course enrollment data, several statistical analyses (multiple linear regression, Cochran Mantel Haenszel…

This study investigates the relationship between technology use and student achievement in public high school across North Carolina. The purpose of this study was to determine whether a digital divide (differences in technology utilization based on student demographics of race/ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, and municipality) exists among…

There are long-standing achievement gaps in England associated with socio-economic status (SES), ethnicity and gender, but relatively little research has evaluated interactions between these variables or explored school effects on such gaps. This paper analyses the national test results at age 7 and age 11 of 2,836 pupils attending 68 mainstream…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the college-readiness rates of Black, Hispanic, White, and Asian graduates of public secondary schools in Texas using archival data from the Texas Education Agency Academic Excellence Indicator System. Data examined were the average ACT and SAT scores for the past 10 school years (i.e., 2001-2002…

Today's teachers face more frequent and more severe challenges than perhaps any generation of teachers that have come before them. Administrators attempt to support teaching in an environment of ever-increasing accountability and dwindling financial resources with new and innovative strategies. One such strategy employed by modern educators has…

This dissertation addresses two research questions: 1. Do states misrepresent their progress on their own state assessments? 2. If states do distort their progress, are their predictors to suggest why this distortion occurs? The first research question requires that distortion be defined. For the purposes of this dissertation I calculated the…

The purpose of this study was to: examine differences in students' perceptions of their noncognitive skills and school environments by race/ethnicity, and explore whether students' perceptions of their noncognitive skills and school environments were related to three outcomes that have been identified in the research as mattering most for a…

Purpose: The purpose of this journal-ready dissertation was to examine middle and high school students' perceptions of the relationship between their Biblical literacy practices and academic performance (i.e. grades, test scores, reading ability) and academic success (i.e. attendance, behavior, motivation, goals, decision-making) according to…

The purpose of the study was to determine if there is a difference in mathematics mean scale score growth on the MCT2 mathematics assessment between students taught by national board certified teachers (NBCTs) and those taught by non-NBCTs in a low socioeconomic, high minority, Title I school. For this study, a causal-comparative research design…

Zimmerman, Christakis, and Meltzoff (2007) reported that exposure to Baby Einstein videos was negatively associated with language development. The current study uses the Zimmerman et al. (2007) data set to replicate and extend the original analyses. Caregivers of 392 children aged 6 to 16 months and 358 children aged 17 to 27 months reported on…

In this study, several middle school factors of students from two consecutive graduating classes were analyzed to determine what relation they had to college readiness, as measured by ACT subtest scores. The academic factors included: 8th grade EXPLORE composite score, 7th grade spring reading and math MAP scores, highest math course completed in…

Research studies have yielded inconclusive results about the relationship between teacher training programs and student achievement. With the implementation of end of course exams as a graduation requirement in the state of Florida; continual need to fill teaching positions, rising student enrollment, and legislated class size limits; the level of…

The 2011 NAEP-TIMSS linking study conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) was designed to predict Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) scores for the U.S. states that participated in 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics and science assessment of eighth-grade students.…

Mathematics proficiency of English language learners (ELLs) on the Maryland School Assessments (MSA) for mathematics continues to lag behind the proficiency level of students who are proficient English speakers. The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a statistically significant relationship between English language learner's…