We investigate the effects of a positive income shock on mental health among adolescent girls using evidence from a cash transfer experiment in Malawi. Offers of cash transfers strongly reduced psychological distress among baseline schoolgirls. However, these large beneficial effects declined with increases in the transfer amount offered to the…

Background/Context: Parents, policymakers, and researchers uphold that missing school has negative implications on schooling success, particularly for students in urban schools. However, it has thus far been an empirical challenge within educational research to estimate the true effect that absences have on achievement outcomes. This study…

Background: Data from a school-based study concerning fourth-grade children's dietary recall accuracy were linked with data from the South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE) through the South Carolina Budget and Control Board Office of Research and Statistics (ORS) to investigate the relationships of children's school absenteeism with body…

It is well recognized that for people living with a chronic disease, the largest impact on preserved health may come from persons other than medical professionals. This may be especially true for children for whom the actions of parents and school professionals have significant importance. Sickle cell disease (SCD) is one such disease. Although…

This instructional paper is intended to provide an alternative approach to developing lecture materials, including handouts and PowerPoint slides, successfully developed over several years. The principal objective is to aid in the bridging of traditional "chalk and talk" lecture approaches with more active learning techniques, especially in more…

Greater flexibility in delivery resulting from increased use of e-learning will inevitably change the way university students approach studying. Recent studies have examined relationships between attendance, online learning and performance but findings are inconclusive. One concern is that an unintended consequence of placing lecture resources…

Adolescent stress is clearly implicated in the development of mental health problems. However, its role in dysfunctional body image, which rises markedly in adolescence, has not been investigated. The present study examined the link between stress and body image, as well as self-esteem and depressive symptoms, in 533 high school students in grades…

Asthma is a chronic respiratory disease that affects millions of children and adolescents each year. In 2009, 7.1 million children ages 0 to 17 years were reported to have asthma. Unfortunately, when children and teens are unable to manage and cope with their disease, it can compromise their physical, academic, and social development. Therefore,…

The purpose of this study was to examine two types of school organizational structures: elementary open-enrollment charter schools and elementary traditional public schools. The study examined the degree to which attendance rates (based upon the prior school year's data), class size and average number of years of teaching experience were related…

The foundations of academic and social learning are laid in the early years of school, and attendance is critical to school success. However, research suggests that chronic absenteeism is a significant problem at the elementary school level (Chang & Romero, 2008; Romero & Lee, 2007). This paper presents the results of an action research…

Objective: This study uses data from the largest effectiveness trial to date on treatment of co-occurring posttraumatic stress and substance use disorders, using advances in statistical methodology for modeling treatment attendance and membership turnover in rolling groups. Method: Women receiving outpatient substance abuse treatment (N = 353)…

At the core of school improvement and education reform is an assumption so widely understood that it is rarely invoked: students have to be present and engaged in order to learn. That is why the discovery that thousands of our youngest students are academically at-risk--because of extended absences when they first embark upon their school…

There is a growing concern among academics regarding the poor class attendance patterns of undergraduate students. The reasons why students choose to attend or not attend classes have been investigated from numerous perspectives. Many have sought to explore the relationship between class attendance and academic performance. While there is much…

The presence of microorganisms on common classroom contact surfaces (fomites) was determined to identify the areas most likely to become contaminated. Six elementary classrooms were divided into control and intervention groups (cleaned daily with a quaternary ammonium wipe) and tested for heterotrophic bacteria. Three classrooms were also tested…

In 2007, spurred by University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research (UChicago CCSR) research reports, leadership at the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) began a new targeted approach to reducing course failure in the ninth grade. The research suggested that the transition between eighth and ninth grade played a critical role in shaping…