Play is traditionally considered the foundation of learning in the early years. Because play is characterized by free choice, it can be difficult for adults to ensure all learning is useful for children. The intervention described here took a novel approach to this problematic. It exposed 17 four-year-olds to different adult demonstrations to see…

This report summarizes the two-year findings of a rigorous random assignment evaluation of the WorkAdvance model, a sectoral training, and advancement initiative. Launched in 2011, WorkAdvance goes beyond the previous generation of employment programs by introducing demand-driven skills training and a focus on jobs that have career pathways. The…

This article examines the impacts of the Youth Transition Demonstration, an initiative of the Social Security Administration (SSA) to improve employment outcomes for youth with disabilities. Based on a random assignment design, the analysis uses data from a 1-year follow-up survey and SSA administrative records for 5,203 youth in six research…

Response to Intervention (RTI) is a service model designed to meet the learning needs of students prior to diagnosis and placement in special education settings. Results of a quantitative quasi-experimental research study to investigate the relationship between the RTI plan and self-reported implementation practices among general education…

One of the original purposes of student financial aid was to ensure fairer access to post-secondary education to those least able to afford it and to those traditionally underrepresented. Various federal and state programs were put in place to achieve this goal, including the federal Pell Grant and state aid programs. Yet policymakers and…

The Safe Start demonstration projects, funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) under the first phase of the Safe Start initiative, are primarily designed to influence change at the systems or macrolevels to reduce the incidence of and impact of exposure to violence for children aged birth to 6 years; direct…

Community college stakeholders are searching with increasing urgency for approaches with the potential to improve the success rates for community college students, particularly those in need of developmental education. "Learning communities," which place cohorts of students together in two or more courses for one semester, are a popular…

The purpose of this study was to document the effectiveness of a small pilot program designed to address the academic, psychosocial, and adaptive needs of juvenile offenders with substance abuse diagnoses. This research measured functionally defined outcomes and examined disparities between students who achieved success and those who did not.…

This study is exploratory, examining to what extent the Thai ICT (information and communication technology) schools have classroom learning environments that are associated with certain teacher characteristics using questionnaires, interview surveys, and computer-based classroom observations in order to collect data from 13 Thai ICT model schools.…

To the data analyst, outliers can present both a problem and an opportunity. Stray or outlying observations can severly distort estimates of a distribution's central tendency (like the mean) and estimates of one variable's relationship to another (like the regression coefficient). These problems are frequent and serious, and as a result,…

This evaluator's report of a career education project for the Detroit Public Schools is divided into two sections. Section 1, process evaluation, provides a summary of the activities reported by the project personnel for the eight deliverables collected and analyzed by the evaluator staff: (1) curriculum infusion, (2) career…

The Indiana team approached its research from the hypothesis that one's quality of life is related to the educational system and proposed to explore the relationship between Indiana's educational system and its quality of life. Because of the comprehensiveness of the term "quality of life," the team decided to limit its study to the…

Researchers at Columbia University's Center for Adult Education, using a survey questionnaire delineating a comprehensive range of program areas and specific activities within each area, determined priorities for Adult Basic Education (ABE) Special Projects. The instrument sought the needs and preferences of those most directly involved in…

Both quantitative and qualitative evaluation methods were used to compare perceptions of teacher participants and non-participants in a Title II science update inservice program. The purpose of this article is to compare participants' and selected non-participants' perceptions of their motivations to learn using two evaluation methods. Qualitative…

Results are presented from a study of Project SHOUT, a tobacco-use prevention program which targets sixth and seventh graders. Distinguished from similar programs by its use of college students rather than peer or teacher leaders, Project SHOUT serves as a pilot for a generic tobacco-use prevention program. (IAH)