This article describes the Youth Network for Healthy Communities (YNHC). YNHC is a teacher-driven project in Washington State. Through YNHC, students research environmental health issues in their communities and present their findings to other students throughout the state via videoconferencing. YNHC focuses on environmental health science in the…

In this article we examine the ability of contextual information to enhance assessment of behavior problems in schools. Capitalizing on the multisituational structure of the Adjustment Scales for Children and Adolescents, exploratory and confirmatory analyses with a representative national sample (N = 1,400, ages 5-17 years) revealed three unique…

An important area for the application of instructional design is the development of effective teaching strategies for mathematics. Activities that include the use of computers, cooperative learning, and active learning materials are associated with mathematics achievement. Student self-beliefs are also significantly related to mathematics…

Teacher implementation of the Accelerated Reader Program is as widespread as it is diverse in terms of classroom and campus application. This manuscript highlights the findings of an informal, pilot study that examined four categories regarding the Accelerated Reader Program. The categories include: (1) assessment; (2) aesthetics and text…

Educational psychology has a tradition of considering learning and motivation in terms of the individual and individual functioning. Short-term intervention studies have been common and quantitative measurement of the causes and effects of variables has been the aim of much research. When a sociocultural approach forms the basis of research into…

In this article, the author discusses the teaching strategy of the mixed independent school where she works, in which they split the students into four or five ability sets. The sets are decided primarily either by pupil achievement in the entrance examinations prior to Y9 or by pupil performance in the prep school. The author also presents the…

Psychologists and educators have often conceptualized motivation as an individual difference variable, something that some students simply have more of than other students. This view of motivation can underestimate contextual influences. In this article we consider how characteristics of the school and classroom may influence student motivation,…

Does anticipated future racial discrimination undermine African-American adolescents' academic motivation and performance? Do face-to-face experiences with racial discrimination at school undermine African-American adolescents' academic functioning? Does African-American ethnic identity buffer these relations? This paper addresses these questions…

What types of personal support are critical in helping teachers to integrate technology? How can adult education programs provide this support and who is best equipped to provide it? What organizational implications should program administrators consider when institutionalizing this personal support infrastructure? The experiences of eight adult…

The Partnership for Reading (PFR) in the United States has recently thrown its hat into the ring of adult literacy research and practice. Its information about adult literacy comes, almost entirely, from the National Reading Panel's (NRP) data on children. Building its case from the NRP data, the PFR advocates for a narrow, school-based conception…

National attention has been focused on the fact that math and science scores for students in the United States are among the lowest in the world. In DeSchryver's (1998) article, "Fifteen Years and Still a Nation at Risk," it was noted that American twelfth graders ranked nineteenth out of 21 industrialized nations in mathematics…

Marijuana-dependent young adults (N = 136), all referred by the criminal justice system, were randomized to 1 of 4 treatment conditions: a motivational/skills-building intervention (motivational enhancement therapy/cognitive-behavioral therapy; MET/CBT) plus incentives contingent on session attendance or submission of marijuana-free urine…

A zoo outreach program led to placing animals in classrooms where those animals became foci for numerous learning activities such as writing, observing, and care. Systematic debriefings suggested uniqueness to learning outcomes connected to zoo animals. Subsequent analysis of student writing indicated that students responded to situational…

A description is made of the first steps taken towards the development of a model of epistemic beliefs, which is conceptually based on the learning process. In two studies, which were conducted in the domains of mathematics and physics, a quest was made to secure the first evidence of the usefulness of the model. The most important results of the…

The purpose of this study was to (1) reexamine academic achievement motivation orientations within the context of instrumental music, and (2) examine relations among achievement motivation orientations, self-concept in instrumental music, and attitude to band in relation to teachers' ratings of performance achievement and effort, and students'…