The effect of two training procedures on the development of reading speed in poor readers is examined. One training concentrates on the words the children read correctly ("successes"), the other on the words they read incorrectly ("failures"). Children were either informed or not informed about the training focus. A randomized controlled trial was…

Educational concepts, such as enrolment, attendance, passing or failing students, school retardation, and school desertion, which made it possible to describe the course of children through the school system, went through a gradual process, beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century and throughout the first decades of the twentieth. In…

Although competition is regarded as a powerful motivator in game-based learning, it might have a negative influence, such as damage to confidence, on students who lose the competition. In this paper, we propose an indirect approach, substitutive competition, to alleviate such negative influences. The approach is used to develop a My-Pet v3 system,…

School policy regarding student failure of courses at the K-12 level generally focuses on grade retention or social promotion, neither of which addresses the students' needs. Grade retention has never been effective in helping students gain mastery of course objectives. To reduce the numbers of social promotions, many states require 8th graders to…

Research suggests that students who fear failure are likely to utilize cognitive strategies such as self-handicapping that serve to perpetuate failure. Such devastating motivational dispositions clearly limit academic success. The present study examined negative emotional responses to scenarios involving academic failure among a sample of…

A new analysis finds that policies known as "last in, first out" may disproportionately affect schools receiving federal School Improvement Grants (SIGs). A centerpiece of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's school reform agenda, SIG funds are intended to transform or turn around chronically failing schools. Analyzing Washington…

Background: Academic self-handicapping (ASH) tendencies, strategies students employ that increase their chances of failure on assessments while protecting self-esteem, are correlated with classroom goal structures and to learners' general self-perceptions and learning strategies. In particular, greater ASH is related to poorer academic performance…

Early identification of risk can support interventions to prevent academic failure. This study investigated patterns of evolution in achievement trajectories for 1,522 high school students in relation to initial achievement, student motivation, and key demographic characteristics. Growth mixture modeling identified 2 classes of longitudinal…

Schools across the country have seen the benefits of implementing three-tiered models of positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS). Within that model, secondary-tier (ST) interventions are an essential component because they (a) require relatively little implementation time compared with more intensive interventions, (b) address the…

For some time now, school boards, Ministries of Education, and the popular media have been expressing concerns about failing boys and how best to meet their needs, framing these concerns in terms of a crisis in which boys are the "new disadvantaged". This perspective does not provide an accurate representation of the problem and, in fact, detracts…

Understanding hetereogeneity in symptom expression across the autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is a major challenge for identifying causes and effective treatments. In 40 children and adolescents diagnosed with ASD and 37 IQ--and age-matched comparison participants (the TYP group), we found no differences in summary measures on an experimental…

More than 690,000 foreign students studied in the United States during the 2009-10 academic year. As non-native English-speaking students continue to pour into American educational institutions, one question many educators have is: are these international students adequately prepared for the language and cultural demands they will face when they…

The research presented in this paper aims to challenge the belief held by some education professionals that Roma pupils do not value education. The research sample included groups of Roma pupils from two countries (Slovenia and Serbia) and from different socio-economic backgrounds. The results suggest that the majority of the pupils are aware of…

We evaluated the effects of the preschool life skills program (PLS; Hanley, Heal, Tiger, & Ingvarsson, 2007) on the acquisition and maintenance of functional communication and self-control skills, as well as its effect on problem behavior, of small groups of preschoolers at risk for school failure. Six children were taught to request teacher…

In this scholarly commentary, the author examines the major reasons U.S. charter schools have closed since 1992. The commentary provides examples of charter school failures in high-frequency areas, such as financial and organizational mismanagement, and academic underperformance; it further identifies two subcategories of academic risk:…