In recent years, states and districts have responded to federal incentives and pressure to institute major reforms to their teacher evaluation systems. The passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015 now provides state policymakers with even greater autonomy to redesign existing evaluation systems. Yet, little evidence exists to inform…

A recent study of honors curricula across the nation indicates that 75.6% of honors programs and colleges at four-year institutions have thesis or capstone requirements (Savage and Cognard-Black). In addition to institutions with thesis requirements, many more also have the option for students to complete theses. For example, an earlier study…

School connectedness has been shown to be an integral part of students' perceptions of school climate, which in turn affects their mental health functioning. Research has suggested that student perceptions of school connectedness may be related to their experiences with peer victimization. However, there is limited evidence of the moderating…

This study examines the relationship between delivery models (the class size reduction model and the sheltered instruction model) and language development levels on the grade-level reading development of sixth-grade English learners (ELs) attending public middle schools in metro Atlanta, Georgia. The instrument used to measure grade-level mastery…

The state of Georgia has a constitutional obligation to provide an adequate and free public education, financed by taxation, for the citizens of the state. Increased accountability measures, continuing projected budget shortfalls, and public resistance to raising property taxes are current challenges for public schools. This study attempted to…

Previous studies have shown that several key variables influence student achievement in geometry, but no research has been conducted to determine how these variables interact. A model of achievement in geometry was tested on a sample of 102 high school students. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypothesized relationships among…

This quantitative study investigated the relationship between teacher dispositions, subject content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and reasons that school principals recommend non-renewal of teachers' contracts. Nearly 2,000 school principals in 13 states completed an emailed survey. In deciding whether to non-renew a teacher contract,…

This article presents an instructional model for teaching a gateway history course that affects students by: 1) improving their ability to think at higher levels; 2) increasing engagement; and 3) enhancing their perception of the relevancy of the course material in comparison to traditional lecture and discussion. The model includes problem-based…

Creativity, invention, and innovation are values championed as central pillars of engineering education. However, university environments that foster open-ended design-build projects are uncommon. Fabrication and prototyping spaces at universities are typically "machine shops" where students relinquish actual fabrication activities to…

The role of causal beliefs in people's decisions when faced with economic problems was investigated. Two experiments are reported that vary the causal structure in prisoner's dilemma-like economic situations. We measured willingness to cooperate or defect and collected justifications and think-aloud protocols to examine the strategies that people…

Mediated priming refers to the activation of a target (e.g., "stripes") by a prime (e.g., "lion") that is related indirectly via a connecting mediator (e.g., tiger). In previous mediated priming studies (e.g., McNamara & Altarriba, 1988), the mediator was associatively related to the prime. In contrast, pure mediated…

Since the American Revolution free public education has been a discussion of political debate. The purpose that such an institution should play in society is a debate fervently argued when the founding fathers wanted to build a republic based on meritocracy. The problem this study addresses is the undefined relationship between the goals of…

This paper describes an attempt to develop a teacher instrument for assessing competencies of public school principals and the subsequent "consequence validation" of its scales and items against school mediating and outcome variables. The competency assessment instrument described was one of several developed as part of the comprehensive…

Ten papers presented at the first annual meeting of the Georgia Educational Research Association describe the following topics in educational research: (1) development and evaluation of the Elementary Curriculum Development Program, which involves individualized instruction in grades K-8; (2) reliability of the eighth grade reading subscales on…