In 2004, the Center for Rural Pennsylvania contracted with Pennsylvania State University to begin a longitudinal study of rural Pennsylvania school students to understand their educational and career aspirations and the factors influencing their aspirations, whether their plans change as they age and if they attain their goals. In its entirety,…

Despite the fact that adolescents benefit from caring adults that participate in their child's education, involvement of families decreases incrementally as students progress to higher grades. Through conversations and observations with students, I have examined how students' perceive these points within a poetry program that was developed for…

In this paper, two beginning qualitative researchers describe the challenges and successes of conducting a collaborative self-study. For two academic years, the authors wrote and analyzed personal narratives related to their experiences as a lesbian and a gay man, respectively, in educational contexts. This article addresses the data analysis…

This article presents results of a study of 229 kindergarten teachers who completed a survey designed to gather information about the current state of Michigan kindergartens. In addition to detailed data that reveals teachers' literacy instructional practices, teachers provided written responses to the following open-ended questions: What are the…

This design research describes the development of a student inquiry project in which upper-secondary school chemistry students learn domain-specific concepts by doing inquiry in a simulated inquiry community. The design of the inquiry project is based on the extended procedural and conceptual knowledge in science (PACKS) model; the student…

The purpose of the United States Department of Education's (the Department) Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 "Agency Financial Report" (AFR) is to inform Congress, the President, and the American people on how the Department has used federal resources entrusted to it to promote achievement and preparedness of youth entering a global environment by…

This study was designed to answer the question: What is the status of student achievement in middle school mathematics in the Pacific Region jurisdictions? Findings provide a portrait of the types of mathematic assessments used in grades 7 and 8 and of how well students are performing. In addressing the question of mathematics achievement in…

Workforce planning is essential to ensure sufficient numbers of well-qualified teachers and leaders to meet the emerging needs of schools in the 21st century. Given the current ageing workforce profile in Australia, there are concerns about teacher shortage, especially in some specialist subject areas, in rural and remote locations and in…

We examined how first year students (10th grade) of Greek Senior High School could conceptualize the influence of the molecular weight of saturated fatty acids on the melting and the freezing point, during the "change of phase" phenomenon using the Microcomputer-Based Laboratory (MBL) system. Students had to freeze a melted substance,…

For colleges and universities, the expectation for excellence in teaching and learning has made development of a system for measuring teaching effectiveness critical. Teaching effectiveness is generally assessed with a comprehensive review of skills including instructional design, instructional delivery and course management. This requires student…

Little research has investigated young people's use of school computers outside lessons, a deficiency that prompted the writing of this paper. The ICT-related behaviour of pupils within the Resource Centre of an English high school is scrutinized, with data collected through observation and online questionnaire. The computers, which were…

This study examined the influence of intergenerational assistance with household chores and personal care from sons, daughters, and daughters-in-law on the depressive symptoms of older adults in rural China. The sample derived from rural Anhui Province, a region with a strong hierarchy of support preferences that leads with sons and their…

This study examines whether the mental and physical health of single mothers benefit from marriage or cohabitation compared to childless women who marry. Results indicate that marrying is associated with similar declines in psychological distress for single mothers and childless women, but only when that marriage endures. Single mothers do not…

Seasonality appears to have an impact on children's physical activity levels, but equivocal findings demand more study in this area. With the increased use of pedometers in both research and practice, collecting descriptive data in various seasons to examine the impact of seasonality on pedometer-measured physical activity among children is…

Lincoln and Guba (1985) reminded us that a qualitative study can change midcourse, taking the researcher into areas of inquiry they did not anticipate at the beginning. This case study was originally designed to ascertain the benefits and limitations of video-equipped cellular telephone use by Japanese college students. When the data were…