The mission of the Center for Education and Drug Abuse Research (CEDAR) is to delineate the etiology of Substance Use Disorder (SUD). Biobehavioral processes and environmental factors are comprehensively assessed prior to first exposure to alcohol and drugs, and subsequently during the period of substance use behavior leading ultimately to a…

There is an extensive body of research on the factors that are associated with reproductive health, focusing on factors within the adolescent as well as within the various components of the adolescents environment. This paper presents a selective review of the research pertaining to each layer of the adolescent's ecosystem. Emphasized are (1)…

This paper explores the impact of policies and institutions on employment and unemployment of OECD countries in the past decades. Reduced-form unemployment equations, consistent with standard wage setting/price-setting models, are estimated using cross-country/time-series data from 21 OECD countries over the period 1982-2003. In the…

The effects of various college preparation programs, class ranking, and student background characteristics on college retention were studied. The data were obtained from the National Education Longitudinal Study:1988-2000 and NELS:88/2000 Postsecondary Education Transcript Study. The sample contained 4,445 first-time freshmen students who enrolled…

Ongoing efforts to include social contextual dynamics in research on mathematics education require theoretical frameworks that allow researchers to zoom their focus out to include the social sphere (Lerman, 1998). This is especially important when studying teacher development, as teachers learn in a wide variety of social contexts. Here we…

As part of the University of California's recent reconsideration of the role of the SAT in admissions, the UC Office of the President published an extensive report, "UC and the SAT" (2001), which examined the value of SAT I Reasoning Test scores, SAT II Subject Test scores, and high school grades in predicting the grade-point averages of…

The relationship between self-efficacy/interests and college major was the focus of a study. A sample of 760 midwestern college students reported their present college major on a demographic questionnaire and completed either the research version of the 1994 Strong Interest Inventory (SII) or the actual 1994 SII and the 1996 Skills Confidence…

This document summarizes research on the utility of family strength constructs to predict adolescent behavior problems. Three national survey and interview databases were analyzed for this study, the National Longitudinal Study of Youth-Child Supplement (NLSY-CS), the National Survey of Children (NSC), and the National Survey of Families and…

Violence among youth has reached epidemic proportions. Every five minutes a child is arrested for a violent crime. To understand this trend, this paper examines characteristics of adolescent males who come into contact with the juvenile justice system. The study focuses on drug and alcohol involvement, the relevance of education, sexual practices,…

A study examined systematically the relationship of 40 teacher characteristics and the reading improvement of adult basic education (ABE) and adult secondary education (ASE) students. Subjects were 50 adult basic and secondary education teachers and 663 of their students from a dozen adult literacy programs in a Southern state. A multiple…

This paper explores the impact of teacher bias on identifying students as gifted or talented. It reviews findings from an investigation that developed a series of hypothetical student profiles to assess teacher nomination bias of gifted students. The profiles were also used explore both the interaction of gender with student interests and work…

This study analyzed the association between resilience and violence as rated by teachers and parents of exceptional students (N=613) from large urban, public schools in Ohio. Multiple types of exceptionalities were represented and a high proportion of the diversity came from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Resilience predictor variables were…

This Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC) report examines patterns of fall to spring retention rates of first-time students. The report is divided into five sections: (1) retention rates analyzed by students' educational objectives; (2) retention rates by program placement and award type; (3) retention rates of three cohorts of students:…

This paper discusses the results of a study that investigated the need for services across the continuum of child/adolescent mental health services in Virginia. Specific objectives of the study were to: (1) describe the youth receiving services; (2) determine where and to what extent gaps in services exist; (3) determine the reasons why youth do…

This document reviews current literature about predicting student success in an online environment and what influences learning online. Online students are often older and more self-directed than traditional college students. They have their own set of cognitive characteristics and expectations of the learning experience. Among the findings of…