Persistent inequalities in the academic learning trajectories of underserved students have led to a growing interest in interventions for young children who are at higher risk for academic difficulties later on. This study's primary goal was to understand how the integration of video, computer games and associated hands-on activities impacts…

Abracadabra (ABRA) is a 20-week online literacy program composed of phonic fluency and comprehension activities based around a series of age-appropriate texts. Four 15-minute sessions per week are delivered by a teaching assistant (TA) to groups of three to five pupils. This report summarizes the findings of a randomized controlled trial assessing…

The ReflectED programme was developed by Rosendale Primary School to improve pupils' metacognition--their ability to think about and manage their own learning. This includes the skills of setting and monitoring goals, assessing progress, and identifying personal strengths and challenges. ReflectED consists of 28, weekly, half-hour lessons, which…

Young people have been hit especially hard by changes in the labor market over the past decades. Unemployment among 16- to 24-year-olds increased the most of any age group during the recent recession, and remains more than double that among older adults. The unemployment rate is especially high for young people without high school diplomas.…

This paper is the first summary of two studies and 10 years of evaluating the Milwaukee Parental Choice (voucher) Program (MPCP). This paper discusses school voucher evaluations in general terms and how these studies are carried out. The paper outlines the types of studies completed in "Study I" and "Study II" and the results…

This report examines the impact of content-intensive Professional Development (PD) on teachers' math content knowledge, their instructional practice, and their students' achievement. The study's PD had three components, totaling 93 hours. The core of the PD was "Intel Math," an intensive 80-hour workshop delivered in summer 2013 that…

Improving math achievement among U.S. students remains a high priority as results from recent math assessments continue to show room for improvement. For example, 60 percent of fourth-graders scored below the proficient level on the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress. On the most recent Program for International Student Assessment's…

Recent results from national and international assessments continue to show a need for improvement in math achievement among U.S. students. For example, 60 per-cent of grade 4 students scored below the proficient level on the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress. In an era of increasingly rigorous state standards, teachers at all grade…

This study addresses the effectiveness of a widely used core reading program that reflects the research-based practices recommended by the National Reading Panel. This and other similar programs are increasingly used to prevent reading difficulties and ensure that all children are reading at or above grade level by the end of third grade.…

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of an educational agent, used in online task based learning media, and its form characteristics on problem solving ability perceptions of students. 2x2 factorial design is used in this study. The first study factor is the role of the educational agent and the second factor is form characteristics…

We report on a randomized controlled trial of Targeted Mental Health in Schools (TaMHS), which is a nationally mandated school-based mental health program in England. TaMHS aimed to improve mental health for students with, or at risk of, behavioral and emotional difficulties by providing evidence-informed interventions relating to closer working…

Early interventions aim at promoting a good mother-child relationship as basis for a good socio-emotional development, especially in high-risk populations, and at correcting already unfavorable patterns of interaction and are common today. Insecure attachment, both of the child and of the mother, has been identified as a risk factor for early…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have been developed in response to the criticism that students in the U.S. are graduating from high school without being college and career ready and that they are falling behind their counterparts in other countries in key subject areas. In this work, the authors report the results of an efficacy study that…

Effectively grouping learners in an online environment is a highly useful task. However, datasets used in this task often have large numbers of attributes of disparate types and different scales, which traditional clustering approaches cannot handle effectively. Here, a unique dissimilarity measure based on the random forest, which handles the…

Background: Selective outcome and analysis reporting (SOR and SAR) occur when only a subset of outcomes measured and analyzed in a study is fully reported, and are an important source of potential bias. Key methodological issues: We describe what is known about the prevalence and effects of SOR and SAR in both randomized controlled trials (RCTs)…