The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between student reading achievement and the organizational health of five middle grades schools in North Carolina. The theoretical framework was based upon Hoy and Feldman's definition of organizational health, which links healthy school climates to improved learning environments and…

"How much popcorn will our classroom hold?" This intriguing question sparked a terrific integrated science and math exploration that the author conducted with fifth-and sixth-grade students. In the process of finding the classroom's volume, students developed science-process skills (e.g., developing a plan, measurement, collecting and interpreting…

The case study examined two groups of grade 7 students as they engaged in four inquiry phases: posing a question and collecting, analyzing, and representing data. Previous studies reported analyses of statistical reasoning on a single inquiry phase. Our goal was to identify the modes of statistical reasoning displayed during group discussions in…

The issue of the disproportionate identification and placement of racial/ethnic minorities in special education has been investigated extensively. One of the most useful tools in this research is the risk ratio, which compares one racial/ethnic group's risk of receiving special education and related services to that of all other students. The risk…

This quantitative study used the Learning/Adoption Trajectory model of technology adoption as a scaffold to investigate whether a faculty adoption level of instructional technology in the College of Education (COE) at a large midwestern university in the US can be predicted by the faculty members' responses to questionnaire items in four areas:…

In this paper, we use a unique data set that includes a panel of all teachers in North Carolina over a 4-year period (1996-1997 through 1999-2000) to describe the distribution of teachers certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) across classrooms, schools, and districts. The sorting of National Board Certified…

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) reviewed interventions to promote middle school students' math knowledge and skills. Because there is some variation in how school districts organize middle school, we considered curricula aimed at students in grades 6 through 9, covering one or more of the following content areas: numbers and operations,…

This chapter examines lessons learned by states that are using student unit record (SUR) data to improve outcomes for community college students and recommends steps states can take to strengthen their use of SUR databases to benefit students and communities. (Contains 1 exhibit.)

In response to the need to train teachers to effectively integrate technology into elementary and secondary education, a teacher professional development program funded by a federal grant provided a selection of instructional technology integration courses to K-12 teachers. This study investigated the impact of these courses on the course…

To complement traditional learning activities in a masters-level research methodology course, social work students worked on a formal research project which involved: designing the study, constructing measures, selecting a sampling strategy, collecting data, reducing and analyzing data, and finally interpreting and communicating the results. The…

The aim of this study was to identify social patterns in mobile technology mediated collaboration among distributed members of the professional distance education community. Ten participants worked for 12 weeks designing a master's programme in information sciences. The participants' mobile technology usage activity and interview data were first…

The U.S. Department of Education recently held a competition for grants to support states in their efforts to build longitudinal data systems to track and analyze student and school performance. The Value-Added Research Center (VARC) at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison, proposed a Tri-State Partnership…

This report is the last in a three-part series examining the relationship between school resources and student achievement in California. The central focus in all three reports has been the standards-based reform of California public schools. Between 1995 and 1998, California introduced academic content standards specifying what students should…

Descriptive statistics were utilized to examine the relation between early childhood education and care quality indicators found in state child care regulations and the number of National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) accredited programs in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The data analysis provided the first…

Data mining of IPEDS data is used to develop models that calculate predicted graduation rates for two- and four-year institutions. (Contains 7 tables and 5 figures.)