The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to explore the effect of within-gender and cross-gender team argumentation on seventh graders' science knowledge and argumentation skills in a computer-assisted learning environment in the United States. A total of 58 students were engaged in the collaborative within-gender team argumentation process…

Disruptive classroom behaviors are a major schooling dilemma in urban schools. While several contextual and motivational factors have been statistically associated with disruptive classroom behaviors, one overlooked factor has been home-school dissonance. The current study examined the relationship between 260 middle school students' reports of…

What are the motivational differences between students who intend to continue their learning in instrumental and choral music programmes and those who intend to discontinue? Using an achievement-goal perspective, this study investigated motivation and learning intentions of Australian students who had engaged in these extra-curricular music…

The Teaching for Transformative Experiences in Science (TTES) model was designed to facilitate the application of academic learning in students' everyday experiences. In the current study, we describe a 2-year design-based intervention that aimed to further develop and evaluate the TTES model. In the first year, a teacher implemented the TTES…

This study evaluates the use of a hierarchical classification approach to automated assessment of essays. Automated essay scoring (AES) generally relies onmachine learning techniques that compute essay scores using a set of text variables. Unlike previous studies that rely on regression models, this study computes essay scores using a hierarchical…

Much research has been conducted on reading levels of elementary school students. Teachers search for learning experiences that lend inclusion to all genders and levels. How does this all lay out for the students? The initial trial of the study looks into the impact and differences of gender and/or reading level on areas such as school enjoyment,…

This study investigated the impact of topic interest, alongside L2 proficiency and gender, on L2 vocabulary acquisition through reading. A repeated-measures design was used with 135 Korean EFL students. Control variables included topic familiarity, prior target-word knowledge, and target-word difficulty (word length, class, and concreteness).…

Despite a general consensus on the educational effectiveness of inquiry-based instruction, the enacted type of inquiry in science classrooms remains debatable in many countries including Saudi Arabia. This study compared guided-inquiry based teachers' professional development to teacher-directed approach in supporting Saudi students to understand…

Reading achievement scores for adolescents with disabilities are markedly lower than the scores of adolescents without disabilities. For example, 62% of students with disabilities read "below" the basic level on the NAEP Reading assessment, compared to 19% of their nondisabled peers. This achievement gap has been a continuing challenge…

Educational video games provide an opportunity for students to interact with and explore complex representations of academic content and allow for the examination of problem-solving strategies and mistakes that can be difficult to capture in more traditional environments. However, data from such games are notoriously difficult to analyze. This…

Although the topic of cyber-harassment in schools is one that has received significant media and research attention, much of that attention has been given to harassment against (and among) students. In this article, we examine responses from more than 5,700 public schoolteachers regarding their experiences with cyber-harassment by parents, a topic…

This quasi-experimental mixed methods study examined the use of e-readers during guided reading instruction and its impact on 5th grade students' reading motivation, attitude toward reading, and reading comprehension. For 10 weeks, 19 students received guided reading instruction by means of the traditional paper/text format, while 16 students…

To investigate possible iPad related mode effect, we tested 403 8th graders in Indiana, Maryland, and New Jersey under three mode conditions through random assignment: a desktop computer, an iPad alone, and an iPad with an external keyboard. All students had used an iPad or computer for six months or longer. The 2-hour test included reading, math,…

This article presents findings from a large-scale curriculum development, quasi-experimental study. Participating teachers implemented four U.S. history units in their diverse middle-grade classes; these units were developed to engage underachieving students in challenging history and democratic citizenship curriculum and instruction featuring…

The focus of this research was to create and test an introductory computer science course for middle school. Titled "Foundations for Advancing Computational Thinking" (FACT), the course aims to prepare and motivate middle school learners for future engagement with algorithmic problem solving. FACT was also piloted as a seven-week course…