Literacy assessments are transforming the contexts of secondary instruction. This article reports how literacy assessments are shaping the instructional choices of nine English Language Arts teachers who work in three different states in northeastern United States--New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Through interviews, the teachers reported…

The purpose of this interpretive study is to situate teachers' understanding and interpretation of their experiences with indigenous students in city schools. This qualitative study examines six teachers' perspectives of indigenous students and reveals factors that potentially impede or promote the success of indigenous students in Taiwanese urban…

This article describes the preliminary exploratory process used to develop the research questions that will be addressed during a project to be offered in the 2005-2006 academic year. The project will bring together Maine high school and college faculty to learn from each other about shared needs, methods and priorities, in a year long series of…

This article presents findings of an instrumental case study that examined the perceptions held by African-American parents on the efficacy of schools in meeting the needs of African-American learners in a North Carolina community. A theme of distrust emerged and evidenced the need for teachers, administrators, and teacher educators to reconsider…

A prominent class of explanations for the gender gaps in student outcomes focuses on the interactions between students and teachers. In this study, I examine whether assignment to a same-gender teacher influences student achievement, teacher perceptions of student performance, and student engagement. This study's identification strategy exploits a…

A key determinant of the new relationship between students and universities in Australia is the changing nature of higher education funding arrangements and the shift towards "user-pays". In 2007, the Centre for the Study of Higher Education (CSHE) completed a commissioned national study, "Australian University Student Finances…

A longitudinal study of teachers' computer use and personal variables which might predict that use was performed. The study was begun with questionnaires administered to 167 preservice undergraduate elementary education majors during their final year of study, and was repeated 3 years later after the 100 participants had graduated and had worked…

This book is about developing "resiliency," a new paradigm of student and staff development that offers schools a coherent, research-based framework for the achievement of success and lifelong learning for all. A six-step plan of action for resiliency building is introduced. The resiliency model offers hope based on scientific evidence…

Guidelines regarding self-efficacy assessment are highlighted in the first section of this paper. In the second section, the issue of specificity versus generality of measurement is clarified. And last, preliminary results of a study of eighth graders (n=172) are presented which demonstrate that: (1) the optimal level of specificity of any…

A study of junior high schools (MacDonald 1995) found that students and administrators held significantly different perceptions regarding the nature, extent, and management of violent behaviors. This paper presents findings of a study conducted 1 year later that more thoroughly examined students' perceptions of the effectiveness of current school…

An advocate of the Natural Approach to second language instruction discusses problems associated with error correction, highlighted in her personal experience when she visited Italy to explore her heritage and use her Italian language skills. After requesting to have her errors corrected by a native-speaking friend, the visitor experienced great…

This paper describes the status of the standards movement in relation to the middle grades and in terms of the policy context of the 1990s. It also outlines the potential of standards-guided reform at the middle level. By the early years of the 1990s, two key assumptions characterized the new wave of proposed reforms: that schools needed to…

A study reviewed the data on three innovative San Diego, California Unified School District programs: the Reading Recovery program, Turning Point project, and the Hispanic Reading project. The Reading Recovery Program is an intensive, individualized program focused on improving first-grade student reading skills, serving approximately 80 students…

This paper reports on a study that asked six groups (totalling 175 third-year medical students), before taking their surgery clerkship, to make predictions about their experiences in the clerkship. For male students, those in the high-expectation group had records of consistently higher mean academic performance in their first 2 years of medical…

An exploratory study examined teachers' perceptions of students' motivation to read and the relationship between those perceptions and students' reading achievement. Focus groups of third- and fifth-grade teachers were convened and given an initial questionnaire. A second questionnaire based on those findings was developed and field-tested with…