The present study examined the extent to which the relationships between student self-reported math grades and different types of student variables (standardized math test scores, interest and effort in math, parental education) are predicted by classroom composition and teachers' classroom management. Based on a representative sample of 31,038…

Educational achievement is a key determinant of future life chances, but children growing up in poverty tend to do worse by many academic measures. Family, school, and neighborhood contextual characteristics may affect academic outcomes. In an attempt to explore neighborhood and individual-level factors, we performed multilevel analyses to explain…

This article reports on a large scale randomized controlled trial to study the efficacy of a web-based intelligent tutoring system for the structure strategy designed to improve content area reading comprehension. The research was conducted with 128 fifth-grade classrooms within 12 school districts in rural and suburban settings. Classrooms within…

This study explores the impact of classroom relationships on student engagement. To determine whether improved classroom relations lead to higher levels of student engagement, surveys were distributed to 2,340 students from 117 fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms. Respondents reported the degree to which they felt support from teachers,…

Background: Parents' behaviors, practices, beliefs, and attitudes greatly influence children's active play behavior; however, little research has examined these parental influences on preschool children's sedentary behavior (SB). Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the association between parental influences on preschool SB. Methods:…

This study examined the associations between four types of childcare quality (i.e. teacher-child closeness, frequency of math-related activities, and teacher education and experience) and preschoolers' residualised gain in math over the course of six months. Additionally, potential interactions between teacher-child closeness and other indicators…

Over the past 20 years, gaps in students' educational aspirations have shrunk considerably (Roderick et al., 2008; Roderick, Nagaoka, & Coca, 2011; Kao & Tienda, 1998; Avery & Kane, 2004; Turner, 2007; Deil-Amen & Tevis, 2010). Similarly, racial and ethnic gaps in college enrollment have shrunk. The one area in which postsecondary…

Background/Context: Relying largely on high school measures of home language use, the literature examining immigrant incorporation in schools provides contradictory evidence of home language effects on educational outcomes. More recent research has demonstrated that home language use is dynamic and thus it is important to examine the implications…

Prior research has demonstrated that teachers' professional knowledge and motivation are strongly related to students' learning and motivation. Symptoms of teachers' stress and burnout (e.g., emotional exhaustion) are also thought to influence students' achievement, but no empirical study has tested this prediction. Using multilevel analyses and a…

Literature shows that attendance is an important bidirectional link in engaging students in learning. However, metacognitive awareness eludes many first-year students--particularly the disadvantaged, including those with low admission scores, English as a second language or coming from low socio-economic status (SES), migrant, or first-in-family…

Use of multivariate analysis (e.g., multivariate analysis of variance) is common when normally distributed outcomes are collected in intervention research. However, when mixed responses--a set of normal and binary outcomes--are collected, standard multivariate analyses are no longer suitable. While mixed responses are often obtained in…

National reports reveal one third of American fourth graders read below basic level on measures of comprehension. One critical component of comprehension is fluency: rapid, accurate, expressive reading with automaticity and prosody. Many fluency studies and classroom interventions focus only on reading rate, but this alone is not sufficient. This…

Changes in the demands posed by increasingly complex workplaces in the 21st century have raised the importance of nonroutine skills such as complex problem solving (CPS). However, little is known about the antecedents and outcomes of CPS, especially with regard to malleable external factors such as classroom climate. To investigate the relations…

Finland and Shanghai are strong performers in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). The current study explored the similarities and differences in educational effectiveness between these 2 strong performers. To this end, 14 predictors representing student background and school process characteristics were selected from the PISA…

Over the past few decades, college student survey response rates have been declining. This is a problematic trend because student survey data are used extensively in endeavors such as accreditation, institutional improvement, and scholarly research. While low survey response rates are not necessarily a problem, they will be if they impact the…