The purpose of this study was to evaluate if an educational package used for animal welfare teaching would have significant effects on the knowledge of first grade children in a rural area of Mexico. The research was conducted with 276 students in six public schools. In the experimental group, 177 children participated in a 10 week-long animal…

In this study, the authors use data from two states to compare how families participating in early intervention who completed a Spanish version of the Family Outcomes Survey (FOS) (n = 291) compared with Hispanic (n = 486) and non-Hispanic (n = 2,363) families who completed the English version. In general, most families reported positive outcomes,…

The purpose of this dissertation is to extend the current knowledge of factors that contribute to career intervention effectiveness. Meta-analyses were performed to examine the effectiveness of career interventions while taking into account contextual and demographic variables. A total of 41 studies involving 10,544 participants fit the study…

This report responds to the legislative requirement of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (P.L.110-246) to assess the effectiveness of State and local efforts to directly certify children for free school meals under the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). Direct certification is a process conducted by the States and by local…

Reports of international studies of student achievement often receive public attention worldwide. However, this attention overly focuses on the national rankings of average student performance. To move beyond the simplistic comparison of national mean scores, this study investigates (a) country differences in the measures of variability as well as…

Prepracticum service-learning (PPSL) was investigated through a qualitative case study of a counselor education program. Participants were PPSL instructors, coordinators, and alumni of the selected program. As it relates to the counselor education program under study, this article illustrates perceived effects of PPSL on student counselors'…

Children living in poverty face considerable developmental risks. This report presents interim results from an evaluation of parental employment and educational services delivered within a two-generational, early childhood program targeting low-income families who are expecting a child or who have a child under age 3. This study is part of the…

Americans like to believe that theirs is the land of opportunity, but the hard facts are that children born into poor families in the United States tend to stay poor and children born into wealthy families generally stay rich. Other countries have shown more success at lessening the effects of inequality on mobility--possibly by making public…

This report presents a snapshot of the academic performance of children on guardianship/custody orders from 2003 to 2006, and changes in their performance over this period. This concludes a two-stage pilot study, the first of its kind in Australia. A considerable proportion of children on guardianship/custody orders are not meeting the national…

This pilot study investigated the impact of group activity play therapy (GAPT) on displaced orphans aged 10 to 12 years living in a large children's village in Uganda. Teachers and housemothers identified 60 preadolescents exhibiting clinical levels of internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. The participants' ethnicity was African and…

No significant difference in beginning ninth-grade pretest compared to ending ninth-grade posttest comparisons of American History t(17) = 0.34, p = 0.37 (one-tailed), d = 0.09, English t(17) = 1.40, p = 0.09 (one-tailed), d = 0.34, and Biology (t(17) = -1.58, p = 0.07 (one-tailed), d = -0.22, course grade scores were observed for students…

E-learning plays an important role in higher education, especially with the appearance of web 2.0. The study investigated the effects of using PBWorks, as a free web 2.0 wiki, on students' academic achievement, and students' attitudes toward collaborative learning. The study was designed as an experimental study. There was comparison between two…

This research examined the relevance of professional associations to effective reading teaching in Chicago Public Schools (CPS). It looked at the performances of students in meets and exceeds in the Illinois State Achievement Test (ISAT) for third and eight grade students in selected schools in CPS between 1999 and 2004 and how the professional…

This article reports on the implementation of the Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA) in an Early Foreign Language Learning program. The goal of this research was to examine the performance of grade 4 and 5 students of Spanish on the IPA. Performance across the three communicative tasks is described and modifications to IPA procedures based on…

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act compelled states to design school accountability systems based on annual student assessments. The effect of this federal legislation on the distribution of student achievement is a highly controversial but centrally important question. This study presents evidence on whether NCLB has influenced student…