Nationally, "at risk" students make up to 30% of U.S. students in public schools. Many "at risk" students have poor attendance, are disengaged from the learning environment and have low academic achievement. Educational failure occurs when students do not complete the required courses and as a result do not receive a high…

The purpose of this dissertation was to determine the effects of repeated reading on readers identified as below grade in sixth and seventh grade. The study was set in a rural middle school located in the foothills of North Carolina. Students selected for the study were identified utilizing Lexile levels to identify them as below grade level for…

Apex Learning is the largest provider of secondary online curriculum in Houston Independent School District (HISD). Introduced in January 2010 through Graduation Laboratories (Grad Labs) located at each high school, the program has grown from providing seniors with opportunities to recover credits required for graduation to providing students in…

Across 7 laboratory studies and 1 field study, we demonstrated that people remembered an unpleasant experience as more aversive when they expected this experience to return than when they had no such expectation. Our results indicate that this effect results from people's tendency to brace for unpleasant experiences. Specifically, when faced with…

In the past decade the proportion of school-aged children in the United States who are English language learners (ELLs) grew by 32%, compared with a 4.9% overall increase in U.S. school enrollment. This only heightens the already important challenge of providing effective, appropriate reading instruction for ELLs because all teachers can expect to…

One of the most influential models of working memory (WM) is the one developed by Baddeley (1986, 2000, 2003) which views WM comprising several components--a central executive, an episodic buffer, the visuo-spatial sketchpad, and the phonological loop. The phonological loop or phonological memory (PM) deals with the temporary storage of verbal and…

Background: Many school systems have ended social promotion by implementing accountability systems where students who fail academic assessments are retained in grade. Additionally, some parents have delayed their children's entry into school, believing that older students have an advantage. While research has examined outcomes for students who…

The main objective of this study, which evaluated a sample of first-year students enrolled at the University of Burgundy, France, in 2010-2011, is to understand the factors determining success in the first year of university. The originality of this research lies in the inclusion of specific indicators of students' skills when they start…

Parents and caregivers can maximize children's engagement with educational television programming by co-viewing and discussing concepts and issues during and following episodes, and parents and caregivers can poach ideas and processes from these programs and apply them to their own interactions with children. School librarians might also consider…

Receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis was used to investigate the ability of early numeracy curriculum-based measures (EN-CBM) administered in preschool to predict performance below the 25th and 40th percentiles on a quantity discrimination measure in kindergarten. Areas under the curve derived from a sample of 279 students ranged…

A mixed methods convergent evaluation informed the redesign of an innovative public school that uses an accelerated model to serve grades 7-9 students who have been retained in grade level and are at risk for dropping out of school. After over 25 years in operation, a shift of practices/policies away from grade retention and toward social…

Higher rates of school switching by students contribute to achievement disparities and are typically theorized as driven by attributes of individual pupils or families. In contrast the neoclassical-economic account postulates that switching is necessary for competition among schools. We argue that both frames fail to capture social-referential and…

The main goal of this study was to explore the nature and structure of implicit theories of Spanish-speaking in-service teachers on learning to read. The study sample consisted of 591 in-service teachers from various Ibero-American countries (Spain, Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, and Ecuador). The study analyzed attributional structure or teacher…

Based on a large longitudinal sample (N?=?9031) of Luxembourgish secondary school students, this study examined whether variables reflecting the sociodemographic background of the students (gender, nationality and socioeconomic status) as well as the school track proved to be predictors of grade retention. These possible predictors of grade…

Test-based accountability has become the new norm in public education over the last decade. In many states and school districts nationwide, student performance on standardized tests plays an important role in high-stakes decisions, such as grade retention. This study examines the effects of grade retention on student misbehavior in Florida, which…