The North Carolina Opportunity Scholarship Program is a private school voucher program that provides state-funded vouchers worth up to $4,200 to eligible students entering kindergarten through 12th grade. Because the public and private school sectors administer different assessments, we recruited approximately 700 students to take a common,…

This paper drills deeper into the documented effects of the Cognitive Tutor Algebra I and ASSISTments intelligent tutoring systems by estimating their effects on specific problems. We start by describing a multilevel Rasch-type model that facilitates testing for differences in the effects between problems and precise problem-specific effect…

The study authors examined the effects of using "Diagnostic Assessment Tools" ("DAT") on mathematics and reading outcomes for students in Indiana schools during the 2009-10 academic year. "DAT" consists of interim assessment tools--Wireless Generation's mCLASS for students in grades K-2 and CTB/ McGraw-Hill's Acuity…

Research on blended learning's effect on student motivation has been largely limited to undergraduate and adult populations. To address this gap in research, a mixed methods approach is used to examine the impact of the STEM21 Academy's blended instructional approach on 9th-grade students' (1) engagement in science and mathematics learning; (2)…

The school involved in the study is a diverse, faith-based, private school located in a large Midwestern city. Within the school, reading skills vary considerably. Typically, decoding and word skills are not widely taught after the third grade. Sixteen Junior High students who underachieve in reading were given additional instruction using the…

Although research on the effectiveness of differentiated and enriched instruction in improving the achievement of diverse students is still emerging, some studies suggest that students in academically diverse classrooms benefited academically from differentiated learning experiences. The primary research question explored in this study was…

The educational community is discussing response-to-intervention (RTI) as an alternative assessment method. This study investigates assessment elements (beginning text level, ending text level, and number of weeks' participation) of the Reading Recovery (RR) program as part of a future RTI model. By means of a discriminant function analysis, third…

This study investigated the effectiveness of the S.P.I.R.E.® reading intervention program for struggling readers in grades 2-10. Specifically, the study examined the program's impact on students identified as English Language Learners (ELL) and Special Education students. Seventy-five students from the Whitehall City School District (Ohio)…

While many of the concepts and approaches that comprise student-centered learning have deep roots in learning theory, the cognitive sciences, and youth and child development, empirical research on student-centered learning's impact in K-12 classrooms remains limited. This report offers highlights from three studies commissioned by Nellie Mae,…