The 1998 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act requires all states to report annually to the U.S. Department of Education the number of prospective teachers at each teacher training institution who pass their own state tests for licensure. However, the law left decisions on what tests to require in each field, what to assess on them, and…

Legislation passed during the 2001 Iowa legislative session established the Student Achievement and Teacher Quality Program, Iowa Code Section 284.12(1). This legislation requires the Iowa Department of Education (DE) to annually report the statewide progress on the following: (1) Student achievement scores in mathematics and reading at the fourth…

This study examines development along Perry's intellectual and ethical scale among three successive graduating classes of students identified as gifted and talented in mathematics and science. Perry posits that intellectual development proceeds from a basic dualism through nine stages ("positions") and culminates with a sense of personal identify…

The purpose of this study was to investigate a multi-faceted women's calculus course designed to retain women in advanced mathematics courses. With this research, we wanted to find out, first, in what ways students were influenced by participation in the course and, second, in what ways these influences affected their mathematics learning or…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of computer aided instruction and traditional method of instruction on the junior secondary school students achievement in mathematics. Four research questions and hypotheses were stated and tested in the study. The design of the study was the pre-test post-test control group experimental…

The study in this article employed a multidimensional (behavioral, emotional, and cognitive) construct of school engagement to examine its relationship to school achievement in mathematics across the five major racial groups. The sample included 115 American Indians, 486 Asians, 1,551 Blacks, 1,682 Latinos, and 7,554 Whites who participated in the…

The ultimate goal of high school mathematics teachers is to create a meaningful learning environment that is conducive to teaching students the necessary concepts for academic achievement. Unfortunately, evidence suggests that many secondary educators still teach in a rote lecture style that focuses on the teacher providing information to passive,…

If healthy mathematical beliefs are to be fostered in students, the teachers' beliefs must also be considered. The purpose of this study was to determine: (1) the impact on interns' (n=137) mathematical beliefs of an exploratory, student-centered mathematics course, "Mathematics for Elementary Teachers Via Problem Solving," (T104) for preservice…

This document is the result of the California Mathematics Task Force assigned to address the need to improve the mathematics achievement of California's students. Five recommendations are made and discussed: (1) The State Superintendent of Public Instruction (SSPI) must establish clear and specific content and performance standards for mathematics…

This brochure is part of NAEPFACTS, a new series that briefly summarizes findings from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Course-taking is generally a powerful indicator of mathematics achievement. This occurs partially because students who are more proficient tend to take more mathematics classes and, at the eighth grade, the…

This document presents the executive summary of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 1992 mathematics assessment. It included nearly 250,000 fourth, eighth, and twelfth grade students attending approximately 10,000 schools across the United States. The results from the assessment indicate that student performance is improving…

This report investigates the dimensionality of the 1992 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics test in the context of subgroup differences. The analysis approach of this study utilized key grouping variables of the NAEP reports (e.g., gender, ethnicity), but had the advantage that subgroup comparisons were not only done in…

Judged by its results, the current system for educating African American students in mathematics is a distinct failure. For years, educators either ignored this problem or simply blamed the failure of the system on its victims. In 1984 the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education drew national attention to the problem by devoting an entire…

This report describes a program for increasing student readiness for and achievement in mathematics. The targeted population consists of third grade students in an expanding suburban community and kindergarten students in a culturally diverse urban community, both located in Northern Illinois. The problems of achievement in and attitudes towards…

This quasi-experimental study used the two group pretest/posttest design to investigate the comparison of the acquisition of mathematics skills between General Mathematics students and Applied Mathematics 1 students. In the 1994-1995 and the 1995-1996 school years the Generalizable Mathematics Skills Assessment was administered to General…