The National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) database was used as a data source to examine school and nonschool factors related to the educational attainment of African American students. The 1,868 African American students who participated in the NELS First Follow-up were the focus of the study. Five predictors of mathematics and reading…

This paper describes a college math and computer science educator's experience integrating multimedia materials in classroom instruction. It serves as a "tutorial" for non-computer science educators considering adding multimedia presentations to their instruction. The paper covers: the time commitment for developing and integrating multimedia…

This study is an attempt to document the connection between the way children construct mathematics in the second grade and the way student teachers construct their knowledge base. The study examines how student teachers integrate their formal and informal knowledge of mathematics and mathematics pedagogy with the reality of the second grade…

The Probability Inquiry Environment (PIE) is being designed as a computer-mediated collaborative inquiry environment to aid middle school students in learning elementary probability. This paper reports on a study in which seventh grade students engaged in probabilistic reasoning while interacting with a preliminary version of PIE. By analyzing the…

This paper addresses the evidence that secondary school students use to imply that they understand something in mathematics. As part of a larger study, an open-ended questionnaire probing several aspects of metacognitive self-knowledge, was administered to students (N=72) in four schools. Two previously identified types of understanding were…

This paper describes the actions of one secondary school mathematics teacher in establishing a community of mathematical practice within which students acquire not only knowledge and skills, but also the epistemological values of mathematics. Classroom observations over a period of 18 months, together with interview and questionnaire data, are…

The research reported followed groups of young women from large national samples to begin to understand the complexities that explain the loss of scientifically talented young women from the sciences. The study explores women's experiences in diverse areas of science and presents a picture of the successful woman scientist. Data sets used are the…

This booklet contains the practice tests for the Sixth-grade Ohio Proficiency Tests. Student work on these practice tests helps the teacher evaluate how well the student understands the subjects of writing, reading, mathematics, citizenship, and science. The writing test consists of two writing tasks based on one stimulus passage, and the reading,…

This study focused on the relationship between high school students' course-taking patterns and their achievement of higher-order thinking skills. PLAN scores (in grade 10) and ACT Assessment scores (in grades 11 or 12) were collected for 73,818 students in 1,174 high schools. The findings show that, in a typical high school, eleventh- and…

Data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), which allow students to be linked to particular teachers, are used to estimate the impact of teacher degrees on student performance in the subject areas of mathematics, science, English, and history. The NELS:88 was a nationally representative survey of about 24,000 eighth…

Connecticut was in the first round of states to be awarded an $8.6 million grant by the National Science Foundation for 5 years to change its system of education for improved teaching and learning in mathematics, science, and technology, with emphasis on improving the achievement of poor and minority children. A private firm evaluated this…

This document, one of four volumes comprising the 1995 Goals Report, is the fifth in a series of annual reports. This core report for 1995 focuses on approximately two dozen indicators that show the progress made by the United States toward the National Education Goals. National performance has improved in five areas, gotten worse in seven, and,…

This booklet, one of a set of four documents comprising the 1995 Goal Report, contains the executive summary for the fifth in a series of annual reports to measure progress toward the National Education Goals. The first part summarizes the nation's progress toward each of the goals. It provides baseline measures of progress, the most recent…

This study used an open-ended problem-solving approach to teaching and assessing middle school students' understanding of the concept of arithmetic average. Three main results of this study show evidence of positive instructional impact on students' understanding of the concept of average: (1) the number of students who gave correct answers…

If labor market phenomena are interpreted from an allocational point of view, where individuals differing in levels of various capabilities have to be matched with jobs differing in job requirements, education can be seen as an intermediary institution affecting the capability endowment of individuals upon entering the labor market. Vertical…