This study examines the extent to which fourth and fifth grade primary school Social Studies textbooks published by the Ministry of National Education in Turkey between 1980 and 2009 represent neoliberal ideology. In an examination of changes following the restructuring of Turkish primary school education in 2004, this analysis compares pre- and…

Pierre M. Van Hiele created five levels of geometric thinking. We decided to identify the level of geometric thinking in the students in Slovenia, aged 9 to 11 years. The majority of students (60.7%) are at the transition between the zero (visual) level and the first (descriptive) level of geometric thinking. Nearly a third (31.7%) of students is…

Feedback is crucial to students' growth as dancers. When used within the framework of formative assessment, or assessment for learning, feedback results in actionable next steps that dancers can use to improve their performances. This article showcases the work of two dance specialists, one elementary and one middle school teacher, who have…

This study analyses 10 Swedish music teachers' descriptions of how a new music syllabus and a new credit scale have influenced their practice. In the new curriculum, grading is introduced in year 6 and not, as previously, in year 8. We have therefore focused on the effects of this change on school years 5-7. The new syllabus is much more precise…

Background: Students may be receiving less than an average of 4?hours of nutrition instruction per year. Integrating nutrition with other subject areas such as science may increase exposure to nutrition education, while supporting existing academics. Methods: During the 2009-2010 school year, researchers implemented the Food, Math, and Science…

The Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement (CAREI) conducted two analyses with the purpose of examining the association between elementary school start time and students' academic achievement in mathematics and reading in Wayzata Public Schools. The first analysis examined the association between elementary school start time and…

Over the past several years, research teams have developed observational instruments to measure the quality of teachers' instructional practices. Instruments such as Framework for Teaching (FFT) and the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) assess general teaching practices, including student-teacher interactions, behavior management, and…

This research aims to determine whether Problem-Based Learning (PBL) helps in fostering scientific creativity among fifth graders. Students' scientific creativity (SC) was investigated in the product dimensions of (a) solving scientific problems, (b) understanding scientific phenomena, (c) advancement in scientific knowledge, and (d) improvisation…

Background: Education has much in common with professions that are using positive psychology and positive organizational scholarship to transform practice, yet the science behind peak human and group functioning has been slow to displace deficit-based framing of reform policies and improvement strategies in education. Purpose of the Study: This…

This paper explores the relationship among ICT infrastructure (i.e., computing devices and Internet), one-to-one computing program and student ICT activities in school. It also looks into the differences of how ICT is being used in the teaching of English, mathematics and science at the elementary school level in relation to the availability of…

We examined the developmental relations between knowledge of reading strategies and reading comprehension in a longitudinal study of 312 Dutch children from the beginning of fourth grade to the end of fifth grade. Measures for reading comprehension, reading strategies, reading fluency, vocabulary, and working memory were administered. A structural…

Engagement in academic tasks is important. However, compared to the large body of research on task engagement, the number of studies on task disengagement is quite limited. The aim of this study is to examine the associations between the motivational (self-determination) and attitudinal antecedents (learning orientations) of task disengagement.…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the reliability and validity of using a motivation inventory with music students in upper-elementary, middle, and high school. We used the middle/high school version of the MUSIC Model of Academic Motivation Inventory to survey 93 students in the 5th to 12th grades in one school. Our analysis revealed…

New systems that seek to evaluate teachers with regard to their classroom quality often rely on observation instruments that capture general instructional pedagogies. However, decades of research suggest that content-specific dimensions of instruction also are important to differentiate teachers and improve student outcomes. We explore the degree…

The trajectory of early adolescents' popularity goal during the transition to middle school was examined in a diverse sample of 401 students. Popularity goal was assessed at five time points from the spring semester of fifth grade through the spring semester of seventh grade with the transition to middle school occurring between the fifth and…