Seventh- and 8th-grade students in a within-teacher randomized control study read from visual-syntactic formatted text for 44 min per week over the course of 1 year. On the annual state assessment, we found small statistically significant improvements on the overall English Language Arts scaled score (ES = 0.05, p < 0.05) and the writing…

A growing body of correlational research finds a relationship between self-efficacy--beliefs in one's capabilities--and academic success. But few studies have investigated whether self-efficacy is causally related to academic success. We hypothesized that an experience of success would promote self-efficacy in junior high school students and would…

This study utilized secondary analyses of a randomized controlled trial and investigated the extent to which prestest word identification efficiency, reading fluency, and vocabulary knowledge moderated the effects of an intervention on reading comprehension outcomes for struggling readers in sixth through eighth grades. Given that the experimental…

Large numbers of qualified students do not apply to and enroll in college. Yet, earning a college degree is one of the primary pathways for economic success and is increasingly required for good jobs and high wages. A number of programs and practices aim to improve college readiness and enrollment, including "Take Stock in Children's®…

Professional development designed to integrate key features of research-based professional learning has positive and significant effects on teacher practice and student achievement in mathematics when implemented in schools that meet specified technology-readiness criteria. Key features of research-based professional learning include intensive…

The objective of the present study was to evaluate the extent to which students who took a computer adaptive test of reading comprehension accounting for testlet effects were administered fewer passages and had a more precise estimate of their reading comprehension ability compared to students in the control condition. A randomized controlled…

Reading comprehension in the content areas is a challenge for many middle grade students. Text structure-based instruction has yielded positive outcomes in reading comprehension at all grade levels in small and large studies. The text structure strategy delivered via the web, called Intelligent Tutoring System for the Text Structure Strategy…

By 2013, all 50 states and the District of Columbia had adopted college- and career-ready standards in English language arts and mathematics, placing a greater emphasis on argument writing to prepare students for life after high school. Solving the specific problem of how to help teachers teach to new standards for argument writing as well as the…

The objective of this research is to compare the English reading comprehension and motivation to read of seventh grade Thai students taught with applied instruction through the genre-based approach and teachers' manual. A randomized pre-test post-test control group design was used through the cluster random sampling technique. The data were…

This report presents the findings from interviews with principals about their schools' participation in the ASSISTments efficacy study on seventh-grade mathematics. The purpose of the interviews was to explore the following areas: To what extent schools had policies or expectations regarding homework practice and completion; To what extent schools…

Climate change literacy plays a key role in promoting sound political decisions and promoting sustainable consumption patterns. Based on evidence suggesting that student understanding and interest in climate change is best accomplished through studying local effects, we developed a simulation/game exploring the impact of climate change on the…

This study examined the effect of schema-based instruction (SBI) on the proportional problem-solving performance of students with mathematics difficulties only (MD) and students with mathematics and reading difficulties (MDRD). Specifically, we examined the responsiveness of 260 seventh grade students identified as MD or MDRD to a 6-week treatment…

This study evaluated the efficacy of an intentionally brief school-based mentoring program. This academic goal-focused mentoring program was developed through a series of iterative randomized controlled trials, and is informed by research in social cognitive theory, cognitive dissonance theory, motivational interviewing, and research in academic…

The Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) is a statewide initiative offering publicly-funded vouchers to enroll in local private schools to students in low-performing schools with family income no greater than 250 percent of the poverty line. Initially established in 2008 as a pilot program in New Orleans, the LSP was expanded statewide in 2012.…

Improving the long-term life outcomes of disadvantaged youth remains a top policy priority in the United States, although identifying successful interventions for adolescents--particularly males--has proven challenging. This paper reports results from a large randomized controlled trial of an intervention for disadvantaged male youth grades 7-10…