The purpose of this eleventh grade Advanced Placement (AP) program study was to determine factors associated with AP placement and subsequent student performance. This research was considered to be a mixed methods case study with elements of arrested action research. One hundred and twenty-four students, four guidance counselors, three AP…

This case study examined the beliefs of African American males on the psychosocial and pedagogical factors contributing to the underrepresentation of African American males in advanced high school math courses. Six 11th grade African American male juniors from a large, comprehensive, Southeastern high school served as individual cases. Within- and…

Career and Technical Student Organizations (CTSOs) assert they are assisting students in developing leadership, teamwork, citizenship, problem solving, communication, and academic skills for workplace success, but with limited research on their outcomes, are these empty claims? With integration of academics being a major Career and Technical…

The Adolescent Responses to Alcohol and Drug Offers Scale (ARADOS) is a self-report questionnaire designed to assess a respondent's anticipated emotional reactions and intended use of cognitive-behavioral refusal skills in response to an offer of alcohol or other drug. A sample of 267 students enrolled in the 11th and 12th grades of four public…

Empirical evidence suggests that the setting of drug use is an important factor in an adolescent's decision to use drugs. In this study, one salient setting is examined-truancy from school. A total of 1000 eleventh grade students from one district in the Mid-Western United States were invited to participate in an in-school anonymous survey in…

This exploratory study investigated the occupational decision-related processes of senior high school students, in terms of the extent to which they may be amotivated in choosing a future occupation. Data were gathered using a newly developed questionnaire, which was largely adapted from a number of psychometrically proven instruments, and…

This qualitative study explores large, urban, mid-western principal perspectives about cyberbullying and the policy components and practices that they have found effective and ineffective at reducing its occurrence and/or negative effect on their schools' learning environments. More specifically, the researcher was interested in learning more…

Although reading is a vital component of academic, career, and social success, the majority of adolescents struggle to read proficiently. As a result, there has been increased attention on reading instruction for older adolescents and on what programs, methods, and tools are highly effective in improving their reading achievement. Since motivation…

The national movement to improve K-12 education through the implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) presents a tremendous opportunity for higher education to experience reduced remediation and increased degree completion. In order for the CCSS to realize their promise, however, higher education must be a full partner with K-12 in…

Youth suicide is a public health issue and the second leading cause of death for young Iowans ages 15 to 24 years, with young males six times more likely to die than their female peers (Iowa Department of Public Health, 2009). Suicide among adolescents is a complex issue, but there are patterns of individual, family, school, and community…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of an 11th-grade and 12th-grade zoo-based academic high school experiential science program compared to a same school-district school-based academic high school experiential science program on students' pretest and posttest science, math, and reading achievement, and student perceptions of…

Background/Context: For many children, doing homework becomes an emotionally charged event and one of the most disappointing aspects of school life. It is surprising to note, however, that homework emotion management is noticeably absent from much contemporary homework literature. Purpose: The primary propose of the present study was to propose…

Using seven waves of data, collected twice a year from the 8th through the 11th grades in a low-resource community in Cape Town, South Africa, we aimed to describe the developmental trends in three specific leisure experiences (leisure boredom, new leisure interests, and healthy leisure) and substance use (cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana)…

We report on a survey of 942 grade 10 and 11 students from 10 urban and "rurban" boards in 5 Canadian provinces that takes stock of multicultural education three decades on in the context of youth's multiple, multimedia spheres of learning. This survey is presented as an innovative research instrument measuring "what young people…

What's the best estimate of student performance on the Common Core State Standards? ACT, an organization involved in developing the standards, wanted to know how well today's students are meeting them. To find out, it analyzed the test results of 256,765 11th graders who took selected forms of the ACT test in spring 2010. In its report, "A First…