This study examined the effects of increasing task difficulty when inadequately challenging tasks are assigned. Jason, a 10-year-old, typically developing Caucasian boy, attended a fourth-grade general education classroom at a public elementary school. During independent academic assignments in math and reading, Jason often talked with other…

Educational theorists and researchers have long considered time a key component of individual learning. Caroll, in his classic model of school-based learning, conceptualized achievement as an outcome of two time variables: first, the amount of time a learner is engaged in learning; and second, an individual's learning rate. Caroll's ideas…

Written dialogue journals are intended to improve writing and encourage positive social skills by promoting individualized written discussions between a teacher and students' emotional and behavioral needs. This study investigated expressive writing using dialogue journals with five elementary students with emotional and behavioral disturbance…

Secondary vocational-technical education programs in Mississippi are faced with many challenges resulting from sweeping educational reforms at the national and state levels. Schools and teachers are increasingly being held accountable for providing true learning activities to every student in the classroom. This accountability is measured through…

Secondary vocational-technical education programs in Mississippi are faced with many challenges resulting from sweeping educational reforms at the national and state levels. Schools and teachers are increasingly being held accountable for providing true learning activities to every student in the classroom. This accountability is measured through…

This pilot study examines the effects of the implementation of the Cool Tool, a social skills strategy, on the disruptive and problem behaviors of third-grade (n = 4) and fourth-grade (n = 6) African American students in an urban elementary school. Following the completion of the social skills intervention in both classrooms, the findings of pre-…

This study investigated the effects of Classwide Peer Tutoring (CWPT) on the reading skills of urban middle-school students using novels as the curriculum. Teacher-led instruction was compared with CWPT and CWPT plus a lottery contingency for appropriate on-task and tutoring behaviors. Three sixth-grade general education reading classes under the…

There is a body of evidence that has linked teachers' verbal feedback to pupils with pupil behaviour. In this study teacher verbal behaviour that was directed towards those pupils that the teachers had nominated as being especially difficult to teach was examined. A series of lessons was observed in a secondary school. The quality and quantity of…

Background: There is increasing evidence that schools internationally are not meeting the needs of increasing numbers of young people, especially those at the secondary level, and whose backgrounds have placed them at disadvantage. The evidence is that significant numbers of young people are becoming disconnected from school. While the official…

This report presents preliminary findings from the Reading First Impact Study, a congressionally mandated evaluation of the federal government initiative to help all children read at or above grade level by the end of third grade. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) established Reading First and mandated its evaluation. This document is…

Secondary vocational-technical education programs in Mississippi are faced with many challenges resulting from sweeping educational reforms at the national and state levels. Schools and teachers are increasingly being held accountable for providing true learning activities to every student in the classroom. This accountability is measured through…

This research is an effort to best utilize the interactive anatomical images for instructional purposes based on cognitive load theory. Three studies explored the differential effects of three computer-based instructional strategies that use anatomical cross-sections to enhance the interpretation of radiological images. These strategies include:…

This study replicates a 2005 study of the status of social studies in the K-5 curriculum in Indiana. The current study reports the results of a comprehensive survey (33 fixed and 2 open-ended) of a stratified (by grade) random sample of K-5 teachers in Indiana (n = 385; response rate = 32%). Results indicated a continued marginalization of social…

This brief report uses data from five administrations of the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) to examine the distribution of weekly instructional hours by regular, full-time first- through fourth-grade teachers of self-contained classrooms in four subjects: English/reading/language arts; arithmetic/mathematics; social studies/history; and,…

This study examines out-of-school use of Irish and motivation to learn Irish among final year post-primary students from three different instructional backgrounds: mainstream students studying ordinary and higher level Irish as a subject only and immersion students. Information on motivation and use is linked to student proficiency in Irish.…