Over the past fifteen years, new types of "professional practice" doctorates in fields ranging from nursing to bioethics have increased exponentially, from near zero to over 500 programs in at least a dozen fields in the U.S. today. This growth raises many policy questions. For example, do doctorate holders serve their clients and…

Bullying is a large scale social problem impacting educational systems nationwide, and has been linked to negative outcomes for both bullies and targets. Bullying has become more highly technological and is most often referred to as cyber bullying. Bullies have begun to use the internet, social networking sites, e-mail, instant messaging (IM),…

The purpose of this multiple case study described and compared practices utilized to implement the School-Wide Positive Behavior Support (SWPBS) approach at 3 purposely selected Central California elementary school sites. More specifically, this study described and compared: (a) school practices for defining and teaching school rules/expectations;…

The researcher proposed to determine the expansiveness of Louisiana's public school districts' anti-bullying policies. Specifically, student codes of conduct and board polices were analyzed to determine the extent to which schools define, outline reporting procedures, keep written records of, investigate, and render disciplinary sanctions against…

Students who are removed from the regular school setting receive referrals to disciplinary alternative education programs (DAEPs), which focus on behavior management. Because students enroll for less than 30 days, it is important to quickly determine students' level of motivation to change, as doing so allows for immediate connection to…

Resident Assistants (RAs) are traditionally upper-class students who are responsible for enforcing residence-hall policies (Heala, 2006). These undergraduate paraprofessional students are consistently asked to hold their peers accountable for their behavior, yet this task can be a struggle for those RAs who are unable to display consistently moral…

The visualisation of knowledge structures through concept mapping can be employed to reveal critical links between theory and practice. This allows consideration of particular disciplinary knowledge structures and the active role of the student in manipulating these structures to gain understanding, in a manner that can encourage students to…

Professional Development Units (PDUs) are an optional component of the AISD REACH program. The following report summarizes the effects of PDU participation on instructional practice and student growth during 2011-2012.

The ACT is a national college admissions exam that tests English, math, reading, and science content. Students take the ACT during their junior/senior year of high school. This report describes ACT test results for AISD students in 2012-2013.

This article explores the tension between social control and democratic participation in the first American peace education curriculum, "A Course in Citizenship" (1914). Previously, this "Course" has been read as a case study of progressive era peace education, during which the call to teach democratically increased in volume. Building on this…

Promoting students' critical thinking skills is an important task of higher education. Colleges and universities have designed various instructional interventions to enhance students' critical thinking skills. Empirical studies have yielded inconsistent results in terms of the effects of such interventions. This meta-analysis presents a synthesis…

Digital (or computer) games have been extremely attractive to gamers of all ages, especially the young ones. They spend much time playing such games for pleasure and entertainment. Harnessing digital games for education has been attempted in some advanced countries where teachers seemed to be receptive to the idea. In Malaysia no major study has…

The improper use of reported restraints has been associated with serious injury and death in both mental health and school settings. However, there is currently no federal legislation that regulates the use of reported restraints in the schools in contrast to health care facilities (e.g., Children's Health Act of 2000). As children with…

This study utilized school-level data from several combined national databases to address two questions regarding school security policy: (1) What are the school characteristics related to levels of security? (2) How does security relate to school suspension, dropout, and college attendance rates? Among the predictors of school security, having a…

Research shows that school-wide positive behavior supports (SWPBS) can be an effective alternative to traditional reactive, punitive approaches to problem behavior. However, few studies examine the use of the approach as part of a comprehensive school improvement process involving academic as well as behavioral goals, particularly with regard to…