Youth-focused Community and Citizen Science (CCS) projects are contexts in which youth can contribute to the entire "data lifecycle"--from data-collection to decision-making with their scientific findings. But data alone does not contain the answers for what action to take and how. Using the educational context of an afterschool CCS bird…

This study examines what forms of data school leaders use, how they matter for students' learning, and which school contexts matter for such leadership practices to succeed. Utilizing hierarchical linear modeling, we analyzed survey responses from 1,381 school leaders and administrative data from 269 Florida schools. We find that although school…

Administrators at a Southeastern elementary school eliminated single-sex instructional grouping in 5th-grade classes without a proper analysis of all available data and later reflected upon whether this instructional model should be revived. Because data-based decisions may positively improve teaching and learning for all stakeholders, the purpose…

Rubrics can be used to give students targeted feedback on their writing and, therefore, teachers should be able to use them as a type of formative assessment to guide writing instruction. This article describes an exploratory study of how three teachers provided instruction for fourth, fifth, and seventh graders with learning disabilities and…

A recent qualitative study by a team of researchers looked into how grade-level teams of teachers are thinking about causes and strategies based on looking at student performance data. What is interesting in these findings is how infrequently teachers attribute student results to instruction -- just 15% of the time. Teachers in this study were…

Data-based decision making (DBDM) is presumed to improve student performance in elementary schools in all subjects. The majority of studies in which DBDM effects have been evaluated have focused on mathematics. A hierarchical multiple single-subject design was used to measure effects of a 2-year training, in which entire school teams learned how…