Using a dataset that includes over 17 million students from across all 50 states, we estimate the causal impact of making structural transitions into middle school (in grades 4, 5, 6, or 7) on student math and reading achievement trajectories. This dataset provides an ideal opportunity to engage in the valuable scientific practice of conducting…

Although International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement-pioneered international large-scale assessment (ILSA) of education is now a well-established science, non-practitioners and many users often substantially misunderstand how large-scale assessments are conducted, what questions and challenges they are designed to…

The research aim was to examine the effects of a Critique-Driven Inquiry (CDI) intervention on primary and secondary school students' critical thinking and scientific inquiry competency. Twenty-five 4th grade Taiwanese students from a typical primary school were selected to participate in experimental group 1 (EG1), while 28 7th grade students…

This mixed methods action research study explored how students reacted to using literature circles to enhance their knowledge and understanding of reading nonfiction text as compared to students using guided reading. This study showed a minimal improvement for students participating in the literature circle group in overall understanding of…

Automatic speech recognition (ASR) can be used to score oral reading fuency (ORF) assessments to ameliorate current inadequacies (e.g., administration errors, high opportunity cost), and represents an important part of a larger solution to improve traditional ORF. But more research is needed on how ASR performs for diverse student groups. The…

This study was undertaken to discover how fourth-and fifth-grade teachers implemented the systematic Focused English Language Development (FELD) program with English Language Learners (ELL) students. ELL students are not reaching proficiency at a higher rate because of the gap in teachers' understanding of effective teaching practices and…

This study aims to investigate the influence of story creation on young EFL learners' reading performance. Action research was adopted to examine the effects of two different story reading projects in a library setting in Taiwan. Each project comprised a group of 19 young EFL learner from Grades 4 to 6 (aged 10-12). The first group's activities…

Purpose: In today's world, the rapid spread of technology affects educational life. It has become common place in many countries to read digital texts on tablet computers, preferred for their portability, and long charging times; projects are done to improve educational quality in many countries. However, research is limited about how reading…

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and regression discontinuity (RD) studies both provide estimates of causal effects. A major difference between the two is that RD only estimates local average treatment effects (LATE) near the cutoff point of the forcing variable. This has been cited as a drawback to RD designs (Cook & Wong, 2008).…

A fourth-grade teacher utilized action research in order to make data-driven decisions about reading interventions with her students. The teacher decided on a broad intervention, which was differentiating reading instruction, implemented differentiated instruction, collected data and continuously adjusted interventions based on monitoring data.…

This study investigated the relationship between listening comprehension and reading comprehension to determine if environmental factors might be contributing to a possible change in the equalization age for these two comprehension modalities from what was theorized by Thomas Sticht. The study employed a counterbalanced design to measure the…

The purpose of this quantitative, non-experimental, descriptive study was to determine if participation in project-based learning developed the understanding students need to transfer their knowledge and skills to achieve higher composite and reading scores, as well as demonstrate the ability to read increasingly complex texts on the ACT Aspire as…

The main purpose of this research study was to fill gaps in existing research on the comparative forms and qualities of learning that emerge from formal professional development and from more self-directed teacher teams. This research study also described the extent to which both align to recommendations for professional learning and the extent…

This study aims to compare the reading comprehension skills of the bilingual students studying at the 4th Grade of the Primary School with the monolingual students studying at the 4th Grade. With this purpose, 303 students were included from the Black Sea Region, where mainly monolingual students studied and 247 students were included from the…

The purpose of this study was to characterize and compare 64 elementary science teachers' computer simulation use prior to and following professional development (PD) aligned with Innovation Adoption Theory. The PD highlighted computer simulation affordances that elementary teachers might find particularly useful. Qualitative and quantitative…