Last year, Hispanic and African American high school graduates met ACT's College Readiness Benchmarks in English, reading, mathematics, and science at substantially lower rates than did Asian and White graduates. For example, the rate of White graduates who were college ready in English (77%) was twice that of their African American peers (35%).…

Science education reform and state testing accountability call upon principals to become instructional leaders in science. Specifically, elementary school principals must take an active role in science instruction to effectively improve science education for all students including English Language Learners. As such, the research questioned posed…

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) "Special Education at a Glance," which includes a copy of the "Guide to Planning and Assessing School-Based Special Education Programs," provides in a single document, information about the special education population at each Montgomery County public school, including enrollment,…

This study investigated the relative and combined influences of parental involvement and interest in schooling on science achievement of selected Junior Secondary School students in Ogun State, Nigeria. Twelve secondary schools were selected from the four administrative divisions of the State. A sample of 360 students participated in the study and…

Inquiry is seen as an integral part of science education in the USA; however, few American science programs explicitly focus on the higher order thinking skills that are the precursors to inquiry. In this paper, Australian researchers report the result of using a version of the Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education (CASE) program in a…

Teaching and assessing both content and 21st century skills are critical for student academic success and success in the workplace. In the "Highlights from TIMSS 2007" report, released in December of 2008 by the National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, data shows that while 4th- and 8th-grade students in…

When the federal government passed the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation into law, its main objective was to improve the education in America's schools so that all students will be learning at the proficient level by the year 2014. However, not all students may be able to achieve at the same levels in some science classes, especially…

Many authors have posited that agricultural education curriculum in middle schools may enhance student performance in science. To determine the effect that agricultural education curriculum has upon Georgia middle schools' student performance in science, this descriptive study compared science knowledge among middle school students in Georgia who…

This study examines the effects of media resources in the parental home on the science performance of 15-year-old students. It employs data from the 2006 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) containing information on 345,967 respondents from 53 countries. Results show that media assets in the family home are indeed meaningful for…

In this study, a hypothesised model with latent variables such as socio-economic status, students' perception of success and interest in different subject matter areas, out-of-school activities, and classroom teaching learning activities in relation to science achievement of the students was tested via linear structural modelling. The data come…

The main purpose of this study is to investigate whether students' meaningful causal thinking abilities vary with their academic achievement levels, reading comprehension abilities, and gender. The sample of the study consisted of 124 ninth grade students attending a secondary school in Adana City Seyhan District during 2008-2009 academic year.…

A large scale study involving 1786 year 7-10 Korean students from three school districts in Seoul was undertaken to evaluate their understanding of basic optics concepts using a two-tier multiple-choice diagnostic instrument consisting of four pairs of items, each of which evaluated the same concept in two different contexts. The instrument, which…

This study describes the application and evaluation of a novel didactic tool (thermodynamic device) developed for students in the area of biology who have conceptual deficiencies that render the learning of thermodynamic principles difficult. Systems of communicant vessels with equal and different compartments were constructed to correlate the…

Recent studies conclude that teachers are important for student learning but it remains uncertain what actually determines effective teaching. This study directly peers into the black box of educational production by investigating the relationship between lecture style teaching and student achievement. Based on matched student-teacher data for the…

The ACT is a national college admissions examination. ACT, Inc. provides an annual summary of student performance at the end of each academic year. Results from the 2010 annual summary are described in this brief report.