The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have recommended that students increase reading of expository texts in order to be successful in both the university setting and in the workplace. Yet, frequently, the demands of expository text involve prior knowledge that might be limited for students of low socioeconomic status (SES). In this study, we…

The implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) has placed increased accountability for outcomes on both students and teachers. To address the current youth literacy crisis in the United States, the CCSS call for students to read increasingly complex informational and literary texts. Since teachers are held accountable for students'…

This sequential exploratory mixed methods study addressed the problem of low academic achievement in mathematics, specifically for African American middle school students who historically score below proficient levels on standardized mathematics assessments. The purpose was to investigate the effectiveness of the Project-Based Learning (PBL)…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to compare faculty and student perceptions of "student engagement" at a mid-Atlantic community college to determine the level of correlation between student experiences and faculty practices in five benchmark areas of student engagement: "academic challenge, student-faculty interaction,…

The study analyzed whether participation in a multisensory, structured language intervention for students identified with dyslexia yielded any relationship to progress in reading comprehension as measured on state-mandated assessments of reading comprehension. The study analyzed both the amount of progress made in the curriculum, as well as, the…

Although England was not included in the International Instructional Systems Study because it was not a high-performing jurisdiction by the Study's definition, contributors largely were England-based. Analysing the Study's nine overall aspects of instructional systems, this paper finds that England is out of step with many of the high-performing…

The material in this article is a compilation of the results of an National College Learning Center Association (NCLCA) study conducted by Dr. Marcia Toms under the auspices of NC State University which came from 211 unique institutions during the Spring of 2014. Invitations to complete the survey were sent to all past and present NCLCA members as…

The creators and supporters of the Common Core State Standards claim that the Standards require greater emphasis on higher-order thinking than previous state standards in mathematics and English language arts. We used a qualitative case study design with content analysis methods to test the claim. We compared the levels of thinking required by the…

The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability of written expression curriculum-based measurement (WE-CBM) in the context of universal screening from a generalizability theory framework. Students in second through fifth grade (n = 145) participated in the study. The sample included 54% female students, 49% White students, 23% African…

This article begins with a brief overview of the aims and activities of the CercleS CEFR/ELP Focus Group. It goes on to report on some of the outcomes of the 2015 CercleS CEFR/ELP seminar hosted by the Centre for Language and Communication Studies at Trinity College Dublin. The five examples presented during the seminar's plenary sessions are…

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an important international study of 15-year-olds' academic achievement. Although PISA has traditionally been used to draw comparisons across countries, there is growing interest in the production of regional (i.e. city,state, or provincial level) results. In this paper we present the…

The goals of this study are to identify key competency areas that lead to success in online instruction and to develop a framework that supports professional development and self-assessment. To identify the key competency areas, skills and behaviours presented within current literature were analyzed. Secondly, gaps were identified and levels of…

Research shows most teachers teach as they were taught. However, distance educators lack a model or benchmark for online teaching because many of them have not taken online courses as students. Indeed, many studies on teaching online point to the importance of training for online instructors. Few studies go into specifics about exactly what that…

Recent demographic, economic and political trends have drawn attention to the issue of effectiveness and efficiency in the use of resources in the education sector. In the context of the renewed interest for the optimisation of resource use, this paper attempts to review the literature on budgeting and accounting in OECD education systems. The…

This research examined the extent to which benchmark assessments can be accurate forecasters of student performance on a state assessment in Algebra 1. The study applied correlational analysis, regression analysis, and receiver operator characteristic (ROC) analysis to the benchmark and state assessment results of a rural school district in…