Educators face increasing demands to raise student achievement, to improve classroom instruction, and to demonstrate accountability in an environment of high stakes testing. However, meeting these demands is challenging in the face of numerous risk factors that jeopardize the academic success of elementary and secondary students. To that end, the…

This article presents a brief history of organized child and youth care in North America, reviews contributing factors to the growth of the field as a profession, and explores the motivation of practitioners and organizations to contribute to the ongoing development of the field. Included is a panel discussion with four leading experts on…

Over the last two years, the author has talked with thousands of educators about the Common Core State Standards, and she has realized that one of the biggest risks they currently face is full-speed implementation without an understanding of the changes that the standards require. When a new reform initiative comes around, the instinct of teachers…

Although Eriksonian theory suggests that adolescents' sense of fidelity is a key component of healthy development, research on this psychosocial construct has been limited. The current study developed an index of youth fidelity, examined the developmental course of this construct, explored the influence of contextual factors on different fidelity…

This study examined the relationships among group size, participation, and learning performance factors when learning a programming language in a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) context. An online forum was used as the CSCL environment for learning the Microsoft ASP.NET programming language. The collaborative-learning experiment…

In 1986, Paul Friedman and Reva Jenkins-Friedman introduced "Fostering Academic Excellence through Honors Programs" by warning readers that "One might assume that the brightest college undergraduates feel well served during their years on campus and that procedures for educating them are common knowledge." The research on the importance of honors…

The state of Missouri has recently adopted new standards for educators. This study examines the perceptions of teachers in one Midwest school district relative to the current teacher evaluation system used in the district as well as a new model of teacher evaluation connected to Missouri's educator standards. To fully understand the perspective of…

This policy brief presents some basic facts about the retention of recent college graduates and changes in retention over time, updating an earlier report on this topic. It shows, for example, how New England compares with other Census divisions, what factors affect its ability to retain graduates, and the reasons why recent college graduates…

This companion dissertation reports the findings of applied case study research on four community college organizational units that consistently meet or exceed standard performance measures. In addition, prior ample evidence confirms that performance extended significantly beyond what might be explained by available tangible resources alone. The…

This is a fascinating time for adult learning in the UK. With a plethora of reviews reaching report stage alongside ongoing discussion about funding, qualifications and quality and the review of post-16 planning and funding in Wales, there is a real sense that things are about to change after a decade of well-meant but often misfocused reform.…

The National Advisory Board for the Literacy Coaching Clearinghouse have identified a number of considerations that it believed needed further discussion as schools, districts, and states embrace literacy coaching. It negotiated and discussed a number of issues surrounding coaching and agreed on 10 key ideas that should be part of the discussions…

The author explores the challenges encountered when organizations attempt to facilitate evaluation and improvement through policy statements of professional associations. The American Evaluation Association (AEA) is used as an example. Various AEA statements are described as general and avoiding particular value preferences. The author concludes…

In its 10th anniversary issue, "The Chronicle Review" asked a number of scholars to identify the "Defining Idea of the Next Decade." One nominee: the movement to abandon the disciplines in order "to meet the scholarly and public challenges educators face" (Ecklund, 2010). In Elaine Ecklund's perspective, it is only through interdisciplinary…

A combined experimental, individual-differences, and thought-sampling study tested the predictions of executive attention (e.g., Engle & Kane, 2004) and coordinative binding (e.g., Oberauer, Suss, Wilhelm, & Sander, 2007) theories of working memory capacity (WMC). We assessed 288 subjects' WMC and their performance and mind-wandering rates…

The current debate over whether to choose just one universal human performance technology (HPT) model, in particular Langdon's language of work (LOW) model, promises a shared understanding among HPT professionals, credibility for the HPT profession, and a return on investment of time and effort in developing performance models over more than 70…