One of the ongoing challenges all educators face, often on a daily basis, is problem behavior. Compounding this challenge is the need to significantly alter these behavioral patterns among at-risk students early in their development to prevent correlated poor life outcomes such as academic failure and school dropout, mental health issues, or…

Ninth grade, observes Ruth Curran Neild, marks a critical juncture in American schooling. Students who manage the academic demands of the transition to high school have a high probability of graduating four years later. But those who do not--who fail to earn as many credits as they should during ninth grade--face a substantially elevated risk of…

Exposure to violence is a serious public health concern that compromises adolescents by affecting their behavior and psychological well-being. The current study advances knowledge about the consequences of exposure to violence in adolescence by applying a life course perspective to evaluate the developmental implications of adolescents' exposure…

Secondary data analysis as a methodological approach is not without its critics. Indeed, three main objections to the use of secondary data analysis in social research stand out: first that because of the socially constructed nature of social data, the act of reducing it to a simple numeric form cannot fully encapsulate its complexity. Secondly,…

A representative sample of 10,233 adolescent students was recruited to examine the rate of suicidal attempt and its correlates in the adolescents living in southern Taiwan. Five questions from the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (Kiddie-SADS-E) were used to inquire about the participants' suicidality. The associations…

Recent synthesizing work on the student retention literature suggests two divergent discourses. The first is a discourse of assimilation which locates the problem in individual students' circumstances or abilities. This is challenged by an emerging discourse of adaptation. The new discourse focuses on higher education itself, proposing fundamental…

There are millions of youth ages 16 to 24 who are out of school and out of work. They cost the nation billions of dollars every year and over their lifetimes in lost productivity and increased social services. They also represent an opportunity for the nation to tap the talents of millions of potential leaders and productive workers at a time when…

This study empirically examines the instructional value of online video lectures--videos that a course's instructor prepares to supplement classroom or online-broadcast lectures. The study examines data from a classroom course, where the videos have a slower, more step-by-step lecture style than the classroom lectures; student use of videos is…

Despite the ever-increasing number of online professional development (OPD) programs, relatively few studies have been conducted to examine the efficacy of such programs for teachers and students. This manuscript presents findings from an impact study of OPD courses in fractions, algebraic thinking, and measurement on 79 fifth grade teachers'…

This paper demonstrates the analytical importance of employing output-based measures of school quality. The empirical analysis employs data collected in a longitudinal survey of primary school students in Egypt during 2 academic years, 1978-79 and 1979-80. School quality and grade completion are shown to be directly linked, leading to very…

This report explores the situation of at-risk students in small and rural schools in Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas, and compares this information to the at-risk student situation nationwide. In order to explore both the complexity and the degree of risk of dropping out in rural school settings, research questions were posed…

Project Return, a dual-component dropout recovery program under the administration of the Program for Pregnant and Parenting Adolescents began operating in 1990 and by 1993 had expanded to 19 sites. The Community Education Initiative operated in seven elementary schools and one satellite site to target elementary school parents of all ages who had…

In a yearlong project, Britain's Business and Technology Education Council (BTEC) investigated why some students leave their educational programs before achieving their certificates or diplomas. The project drew information on completion rates from the BTEC database. Views of BTEC centers' staff were canvassed through a national survey covering…

This resource handbook was designed to assist constituent school district personnel with the critical issues of student absenteeism and dropouts. From July 1982 through February 1983 and in May 1986, members of the Oakland County (Michigan) Attendance/Dropout Task Force met with educational and community agency personnel, graduating high school…

Data were consolidated from 11 studies conducted at William Rainey Harper College (WRHC) between 1974 and 1981. The studies surveyed a total of 1,939 students, who left WRHC after attending at least one semester, to determine their educational objectives, current activities, employment characteristics, educational activities, and evaluation of…