This article highlights a core lesson that has been used in a number of Lincoln Park Zoo educational programs. The lesson teaches students to conduct an ethological, or animal behavior, study on a bird. This study can be implemented in a variety of outdoor settings, including a park, schoolyard, or zoo. Using an ethogram, students will practice…

School federations are groups of two or more schools operating under a single governance structure. The study reported in this article compared federations designed to raise performance in low-attaining schools against a matched sample of their non-federated counterparts. The findings are based on quantitative analysis of data collected in…

Although there exists a large body of research concerning the relationship between expenditure and student achievement, a lack of research exists analyzing this relationship as it pertains specifically to students with disabilities. Given the increasing fiscal and academic pressures districts face to allocate resources efficiently, the purpose of…

This study exploits a randomized trial of two light-touch elementary school interventions to estimate long-run impacts on postsecondary attendance and attainment. The first is a classroom management technique for developing behavioral skills in children. The second is a curricular intervention aimed at improving students' core reading skills. We…

The assessment participation of students with disabilities is now an important part of students' education and educational decision-making. While much attention has been paid to the participation of students with significant intellectual disability, little research exists regarding the extent to which students with mild intellectual disability…

As school choice options have evolved over recent years, it is important to understand what family and school factors are associated with the enrollment decisions families make. Use of restricted-access data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study allowed us to identify household location from a nationally representative sample of students and…

This article summarizes Canadian research in "dual diagnosis" spanning the past 20 years and places this research within a historical and policy context. Canadian researchers have made important contributions with regard to understanding inpatient and outpatient mental health services, families, autism, specific disorders and behaviors,…

Secondary respondent data are underutilized because researchers avoid using these data in the presence of substantial missing data. The authors reviewed, evaluated, and tested solutions to this problem. Five strategies of dealing with missing partner data were reviewed: (a) complete case analysis, (b) inverse probability weighting, (c) correction…

A widely cited meta-analysis of the effects of comprehensive school reform and student achievement (Borman, Hewes, Overman, and Brown, 2003) found Modern Red Schoolhouse-developed whole-school intervention programs to boost student achievement outcomes at rates on par with or higher than other comprehensive school reforms such as "America's…

This dissertation comprises three papers that propose, discuss, and illustrate models to make improved inferences about research questions regarding student achievement in education. Addressing the types of questions common in educational research today requires three different "extensions" to traditional educational assessment: (1)…

The emphasis on engaging young learners in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) professions is driving calls for educational reform. One movement that is gaining momentum is exposing K-12 learners to engineering. With the advent of the "Next Generation Science Standards" (2012b), engineering is being more formally integrated…

English writing, an indispensable skill in English learning, plays an important role in improving learners' language proficiency. With the wide spread and use of wired or wireless internet, EFL students can easily help and be helped with English writing. Therefore, the application of internet-based peer feedback training on writing to foreign or…

This article presents the findings of an action research study on developing learner autonomy through project work in an English for Specific Purposes class. The study was conducted at a Colombian regional and public university with environmental engineering undergraduates. The instruments for data collection were field notes, semi-structured…

This qualitative comparative case study identified factors that distinguish between high and low-performance on reading achievement in elementary rural Appalachian schools. This study determined the most effective instructional reading strategies, as well as other influential factors, implemented by school districts in the rural Appalachia area…

Women of color, specifically African American women, within science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) areas are significantly underrepresented. The majority of the research addressing STEM issues is centered on increasing the pipeline, which includes recruitment, and retention of underrepresented groups in the K-12 and collegiate domain.…