Although low performers should invest more time and effort in their studies, they seldom do. One reason is because they often feel that they get no return on their investment: more studying does not automatically lead to better marks in school. But with the right kind of in-school support, including creative and engaging mathematics-related…

Socio-economically advantaged and disadvantaged students are not equally exposed to mathematics problems and concepts at school. Exposure to mathematics at school has an impact on performance, and disadvantaged students' relative lack of familiarity with mathematics partly explains their lower performance. Widening access to mathematics content…

With all the debate over school reform and Common Core, the issue of science performance among students that attend low performing school continues to be overlooked. These students may have developed the perception that science is either boring, too hard, or they have no interest in science due to mediocre experiences within the classroom, poor…

In spite of over a decade of U.S. school reform emphasizing test preparation and performance, students from minoritized backgrounds continue to underachieve on standardized testing. With an abundance of research on the achievement gap, we are now more than ever aware of this problem. But to avoid reproducing longstanding school inequities, testing…

Introduction: Recent research has shown that students tend to be overconfident when judging future performance on coursework, particularly students with lower academic ability. Some research suggests that these lower performing students are "doubly cursed" in that they are not only less capable of assessing their own performance, but…

Introduction: Despite data showing the relationship between depression and decreased school performance, there is a lack of studies with Spanish children. The objective of this research is to examine school performance as a function of depression and gender. Method: Participants were 658 Spanish children aged between 8 and 12 years, 49.6% male,…

After two decades teaching elementary aged children, Janet Erskine states that she has grown increasingly concerned with the use of high-stakes tests to determine how well students, teachers, and schools are performing. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandates took effect in 2002, requiring the results on some standardized assessments be used to…

In its final report, the At-risk Working Group, which reported to the Ontario Minister of Education, described at-risk secondary students as performing significantly below the provincial standard, failing to meet curriculum expectations, and being disengaged from school (O'Connor, 2003, p. 5). In this special issue, authors examine this topic,…

The high attrition rate among science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors has long been an area of concern for institutions and educational researchers. The transition from introductory to advanced courses has been identified as a particularly "leaky" point along the STEM pipeline, and students who struggle early in…

A cluster analysis data classification technique was used on assessment scores from 157 undergraduate nursing students who passed 2 successive compulsory courses in human anatomy and physiology. Student scores in five summative assessment tasks, taken in each of the courses, were used as inputs for a cluster analysis procedure. We aimed to group…

This study considers the discursive construction of a particular type of student in Singapore--the lowest-tracked, Normal Technical (NT), secondary school student. Shaped by meritocratic policies, educational practices, and ideologies common to many late-modern societies, students in the NT track are institutionally and individually constructed…

The purpose of the present study is to identify to what extent writing motivation can classify readers as good or poor comprehenders. The study was conducted on a total of 156 fourth graders studying at a state-run primary school in the center of Duzce, Turkey. The data were collected through the Writing Motivation Scale and the Mistake Analysis…

Using data from a multi-year study of eleven low-performing high schools, Cooper and Davis examine the academic aspirations and motivations of urban African American high school students in California. Situating their discussion within the context of neoliberalism and its manifestation in urban school reform and community cohesion, the authors…

This study investigated how individuals' reading and writing habit levels contributed to their levels of learning effectiveness while participating in a learning blog. A survey was conducted to understand the relationship between individuals' reading and writing habit levels (i.e., heavy or light) in terms of their attitudes and behavioral…

The significant growth of charter schools in the United States has brought praise for the excellent results achieved by some schools as well as criticism that charter schools may not be serving the most disadvantaged students. Critics of charter schools, in New York City and elsewhere, commonly assert that charters' (often) strong academic…