The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) targeted substantial School Improvement Grants (SIGs) to the nation's "persistently lowest achieving" public schools (i.e., up to $2 million per school annually over 3 years) but required schools accepting these awards to implement a federally prescribed school-reform model.…

Research into teaching practices and strategies has been performed separately in AP Statistics and in K-12 online learning (Garfield, 2002; Ferdig, DiPietro, Black & Dawson, 2009). This study seeks combine the two and build on the need for more investigation into online teaching and learning in specific content (Ferdig et al, 2009; DiPietro,…

Research about motivation indicates that a student's attention must be gained and sustained for learning to occur. As a result, motivational tactics, including adding interesting words, sounds and visuals to instructional materials, are commonly used by designers of instruction to trigger and sustain learners' interest and engagement…

The purpose of this study was to describe what tools and strategies Native Americans who live in Oklahoma believe are important in learning about HIV/AIDS, to determine if culturally specific information is important in developing prevention programs, and to ascertain learning strategies. Data collection was a two-part process. First, the Cultural…

This article examines the reported language ideologies and family language policies of the parents of Cantonese-English bilinguals in the U.S. in relation to their children's achievement scores in Cantonese and English. We explore the relationships first by language of instruction. Results show children in bilingual classrooms scored higher than…

A survey study was conducted to a total of 323 in-service teachers (110 special education teachers and 213 general education teachers) in Shanghai regarding their self-efficacy and concerns about inclusive education. Multivariate analysis results reveal that special teachers have significantly higher self-efficacy about inclusive education than…

This paper provides practical guidance for researchers who are designing and analyzing studies that randomize schools--which comprise three levels of clustering (students in classrooms in schools)--to measure intervention effects on student academic outcomes when information on the middle level (classrooms) is missing. This situation arises…

This study aimed to investigate the relationships between college students' behavioral and cognitive engagements while performing an online collective information searching (CIS) activity. The activity aimed to assist the students in utilizing a social bookmarking application to exploit the Internet in a collective manner. A group of 101 college…

This research study assessed the effectiveness of a three-dimensional mathematics game, DimensionM, through a pretest-posttest control group quasi-experimental design. Participants consisted of 437 eighth graders. The classrooms were randomly assigned either to the treatment group that utilized DimensionM as a supplement to regular classroom…

Educational, social, and learning development theories for inclusion, grounded in Bandura's social cognitive theory, do not explicitly take into account individuals with Down syndrome, one of the most common birth defects. The problem addressed in this study was the lack of data regarding teacher attitudes toward inclusion of students with Down…

This study investigated the effects of integrated illustrations on understanding instructions for practical work in science. Ninety-six secondary school students who were unfamiliar with the target content knowledge and practical equipment took part. The students were divided into two conditions: (1) modified instructions containing integrated…

Objective: The present study investigated relations between reported childhood abuse and recent traumatic stress symptoms in women newly diagnosed with breast cancer (n = 330). Methods: As part of a larger ongoing study, patients from eight public and private hospitals were referred by their physicians and completed the Childhood Trauma…

This article presents findings of research into the quality control (QC) of schools from 2001-2006. In 2001 several targets for QC were set and the progress of 939 primary schools is presented. Furthermore, using cluster analysis, schools are classified into four QC-types that differ in their focus on school (self) evaluation and school…

The present work addresses the associations between self-reported maternal parenting behaviours and aggression, personality and peer regard of children (n = 119) in early childhood (ages three-six years). A k-means cluster analysis derived types of mothers based on their relative use of autonomy support and restrictive control. Outcomes included…

This study explored outcomes in a constructivist career course. Using a pretest-posttest design, the authors assessed the empowerment (operationalized as career decision self-efficacy) and career indecision of 82 culturally diverse college students at a large, midwestern university. Data were analyzed using a multivariate analysis of variance.…