When Thomas B. Lockamy became the superintendent of the Savannah-Chatham County school system in Georgia three years ago, he did not set out to go after students who were missing too much school. While his initial focus was the reliability of data being collected at district schools, those concerns soon exposed a pattern of chronic absenteeism…

Problematic school absenteeism in youth has long been a complex and vexatious issue for psychologists, educators, and researchers from other disciplines. An examination of problematic school absenteeism from different perspectives over many decades has led to poor comparability across publications, policies, and assessment and intervention…

This study considered ways of improving mathematical outcomes for urban Indigenous students. It focused on three primary schools in Western Australia and identified factors that were perceived to be having an impact on student learning. These included expectations for students, attendance rates, parent involvement, student literacy levels, student…

The purpose of this study was to examine possible relationships between participation in extracurricular activities and student achievement, participation in extracurricular activities and attendance, and participation in extracurricular activities and behavior. The setting for this study was a high school in western Nebraska. Data for 275 of the…

In this article the author presents results from an ongoing study about a special education programme in Switzerland for students with behavior disorders. The study explores careers and identities of adolescent students, who were referred to so-called "Timeout-classes" because of behavior disorders (e.g disengagement, disruptive and…

The behavioral processes of weight reduction are poorly understood, and responses to treatments based primarily on caloric restriction have been unfavorable. A theory-based path derived from proposed relations of physical activity, changes in psychological factors, and weight loss was separately tested with women with Class I and Class II obesity…

Treatment outcome studies demonstrate that day-hospital programs are effective in the treatment of eating disorders. Few descriptions are available on the specifics of treatment, particularly the process of therapy. The group therapy modality is thought to provide important therapeutic benefits. The present study aimed to examine the association…

This paper contributes empirically to the literature on peer effects in first-grade classrooms. The paper examines peer effects on academic achievement among first graders randomly assigned to their classrooms and to their teachers as part of Tennessee's Project STAR, America's largest ever education experiment. The analysis draws on previously…

The growth of distance education and the demand for instructors has developed over the past ten to fifteen years. There is a perception that the type and amount of instructor preparation is highly variable between institutions. Of the faculty members at two year institutions surveyed, nearly half did not attend training over the previous year.…

Data from the 2005 Monitoring the Future survey were used to examine relationships between school-related factors and high school seniors' lifetime methamphetamine use. The study applied logistic regression techniques to evaluate effects of social bonding variables and social learning variables on likelihood of lifetime methamphetamine use. The…

Characteristics of university courses and student engagement were examined in relation to student ratings of instruction. The Universal Student Ratings of Instruction instrument was administered to students at the end of every course at a major Canadian university over a three-year period. Using a two-step analytic procedure, a latent variable…

Most of the troubles poor at-risk children have are not "loud" problems like disruptive behavior or gang involvement. They are "quiet." The range of these problems is vast. Hunger, dehydration, asthma, obesity, and hearing problems can all insidiously trip children up in school. Some quiet problems are psychological--depression, anxiety, the fear…

This study examines chronological patterns of attendance and academic performance of urban students who are identified as truants in Grade 8. A chronological review of 42 student records, from school entry through Grade 8, identified high frequencies of absenteeism and academic performance issues beginning at school entry and, in many cases,…

This study investigated the impact of a school-based mentoring program on at-risk students' office referrals, unexcused absences, and school attitude. Students who participated in the mentoring program had statistically significant reductions in office referrals and statistically significant improvements in school attitude. Based on an analysis of…

This study examines resilient and nonresilient characteristics in mathematics among Hispanic students in a major metropolitan city located in the south central region of the United States. The study examined data from semistructure interviews of 118 resilient and nonresilient English language learners (ELLs) in 4th and 5th grade. The interviews…