When people are exposed to information that leads them to overestimate the actual amount of genetic difference between racial groups, it can augment their racial biases. However, there is apparently no research that explores if the reverse is possible. Does teaching adolescents scientifically accurate information about genetic variation within and…

Introduction: Youth in disadvantaged urban areas are frequently exposed to chronic stress and trauma, including housing instability, neighborhood violence, and other poverty-related adversities. These exposures increase risk for emotional, behavioral, and academic problems and ultimately, school dropout. Schools are a promising setting in which to…

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…

Students with disabilities are often included in general education social studies classes, but these classes can differ in the achievement level of the overall class, including wide variation in content-related background knowledge, reading achievement, or both. The purpose of this study was to examine how background knowledge and reading…

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…

Deficits in academic vocabulary knowledge plague students who struggle with reading and impact their reading comprehension and performance in content area courses. Experts have developed interventions aimed at improving vocabulary instruction. However, questions remain concerning the effects of vocabulary gains on reading comprehension and content…

In this paper we evaluate the effectiveness of an adaptive online learning platform, designed to support Chinese students in learning the English language. The adaptive platform is studied in three studies, where the experimental platform is compared to an alternate, non-adaptive platform, with random assignment to conditions (the adaptive…

This study sought to better understand the prevalence of concurrent and specific difficulties in reading fluency and vocabulary among adolescents with low reading comprehension. Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to identify a sample of 180 students in sixth through eighth grades with reading comprehension difficulties. A subsequent LCA…

The purpose of this paper is to showcase new research that seeks to provide guidance on the heterogeneity of treatment effects by utilizing the variance of demographic differences in state assessments. This study is focused on a simple randomized block design where students are nested within schools, and within each school students are randomized…

Disparities in academic science performance remain for diverse learners, including students with learning disabilities and English learners. Educational technology offers the potential to support diverse learners by taking into account their specific needs and unique strengths. This paper reports on third-year results of a 3-year randomized…

To raise math success rates in middle school, many schools and districts have implemented summer math programs designed to improve student preparation for algebra content in grade 8. However, little is known about the effectiveness of these programs. While students who participate typically experience learning gains, there is little rigorous…

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…

Little is known empirically about intraclass correlations (ICCs) for multisite cluster randomized trial (MSCRT) designs, particularly in science education. In this study, ICCs suitable for science achievement studies using a three-level (students in schools in districts) MSCRT design that block on district are estimated and examined. Estimates of…

Using structural equation modeling, we examined the relationship of Hispanicism on recent substance use and whether Americanism moderated the effect in a sample of 1,141 Hispanic adolescents. The Bicultural Involvement Questionnaire (BIQ) was used to determine the degree of individual comfort in both Hispanic (Hispanicism) and American…