The lives of middle school students are dynamic, and their needs and desires are always evolving. They experience more complicated lives as influences of the broader society including popular media and technology, immigration and cultural diversity, amplified political divisiveness, and bullying effect their daily lives both in and out of school.…

Growing evidence shows that participation in out-of-school time (OST) activities positively supports youth development in general. However, simply participating in a self-identified STEM program is not sufficient. Youth will benefit more if they participate in "quality" afterschool programs. Therefore, a common understanding of quality…

This dissertation focuses on the perceptions that young people have of federal government websites and of the U.S. government, as well as exploring possible connections between the perceptions of government and government websites. Not only is this a virtually unstudied area of e-government and youth information behavior, but it is also of…

Performance-based accountability along with budget tightening has increased pressure on publicly funded organizations to develop and deliver programs that produce meaningful social benefits. As a result, there is increasing need to undertake formative evaluations that estimate preliminary program outcomes and identify promising program components…

My Class Activities (MCA) is an instrument that has been used for evaluation of university-based Saturday enrichment programs, but was originally normed using students in regular schools. A sample of MCA scores from 826 students in grades 3-8 from a Saturday enrichment program was used. Four different MCA models were evaluated: (a) the original…

This brief discusses aspects of healthy diets for children in elementary and middle school. It summarizes the current guidelines and recommendations for child nutrition and provides information for schools and out-of-school time programs about how to measure child nutrition. (Contains 27 endnotes.)

The journey into middle childhood frequently involves a journey into the community of an after-school program, weekend club, or summer camp. Although out-of-school-time settings are less formal than school in academic requirements, they have the potential to provide key developmental experiences: relationship building, learning, and self- and…

The 9th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2016) is held under the auspices of the International Educational Data Mining Society at the Sheraton Raleigh Hotel, in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, in the USA. The conference, held June 29-July 2, 2016, follows the eight previous editions (Madrid 2015, London 2014, Memphis…

This study examined high-performing after-school projects funded by The After-School Corporation (TASC), to determine what characteristics, if any, these projects shared. Evaluators reanalyzed student performance data collected during the multi-year evaluation of the TASC initiative to identify projects where the after-school program was…

This double issue of "The Evaluation Exchange" focuses on one of the central components of complementary learning: family involvement. As outlined in the Theory & Practice article, investments in family involvement are important across ages and settings and through the co-constructed efforts and shared responsibilities of many…