This report analyzes college completion metrics for the Appalachian Region, compares outcomes of students attending campuses in the Region with those of students attending campuses outside the Region, and offers insight about major stumbling blocks to college progression and completion for students in Appalachia.

By 2012, all of the states in this study had started implementing new or revised teacher and leader evaluation systems. There are many and varying updates to these systems, and some of them have been made to meet conditions for a state's federal "Race to the Top" (RTT) grant. Other updates have been made to meet conditions for a state's…

All of the 15 states in this study have recently been involved in school accountability system reform. Since 2011, the states have taken advantage of a federal program to give them flexibility around certain accountability requirements of the "No Child Left Behind Act" of 2001 (NCLB), the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and…

Education credits are available to help offset the costs of higher education for taxpayers, their spouses, and dependents who qualify as eligible students. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) amended the Hope Scholarship Tax Credit (Hope Credit) to provide for a refundable tax credit known as the American Opportunity…

This study evaluates the 2008-2009 "Lose your Excuse" public service advertising (PSA) campaign on energy efficiency targeting 8- to 12-year-olds, intended to increase knowledge, foster proactive attitudes, and change energy usage behaviors. Baseline and two follow-up surveys were conducted with online samples representative of the national…

Over the past 60 years the internal rate of return (IRR) has become a major tool in investment evaluation. Many executives prefer it to net present value (NPV), presumably because they can more easily comprehend a percentage measure. This article demonstrates that, except in the rare case of an investment that is followed by a single cash return,…

Extant between 2004 and 2011, Aimhigher was the UK government's flagship national initiative for widening participation to higher education for young people from disadvantaged social groups, with costs approaching 1 billion British Pounds. Its demise was predicated on a perceived lack of progress and the absence of compelling evaluative research.…

The aim of this article was to review the evidence of errorless learning on learning outcomes in patients with early-stage Alzheimer's disease. A computer-aided literature search from 1999 to 2011 was carried out using MEDLINE, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), PsycINFO and PsycArticles. Keywords included…

Systematic reviews are used to inform practice, and develop guidelines and protocols. A questionnaire to quantify the risk of bias in systematic reviews, the review paper assessment (RPA) tool, was developed and tested. A search of electronic databases provided a data set of review articles that were then independently reviewed by two assessors…

What difference do your career programs and services make in clients' lives? How do you know? Answer these questions and more. Learn a practical approach to learning outcomes assessment that helps you tell the story of your career programs and services, celebrate your successes, and continuously improve your practice. Within this monograph, you…

AIR is working with states and districts across the country to improve teacher evaluation and feedback. Our work is focused on designing systems of educator evaluation and compensation that incorporate multiple measures of performance and, in particular, measures of student growth. In this work, student learning objectives (SLOs) have emerged as a…

Curriculum-based measurement is commonly used within a response-to-intervention framework to assess the effectiveness of intervention and to triage students into intervention tiers (e.g., the lowest 10% receive a Tier 3 intervention, and those in the 11th to 25th percentiles receive a Tier 2 intervention). We conducted a meta-analysis of 18…

This replication randomized clinical trial examined the efficacy of a comprehensive psychosocial intervention for children aged 7 to 12 years with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders (HFASDs). Participants were randomly assigned to treatment or wait-list conditions. Treatment included instruction and therapeutic activities targeting social…

The purpose of this study was to examine the concurrent validity of the assessment for an early language and literacy project. The goal of the project was to promote a successful transition to kindergarten for preschoolers who were at risk for reading difficulties by equipping them with the necessary language and literacy skills needed for early…

Objective: To determine differences in sun-protection behaviours, and incidence of sunburn, between Australian adolescent female fake tan users and non-users. Design: Cross sectional survey. Method: 398 adolescent females aged 12 to 18 years participated in a survey at public venues, schools, and online. The main outcome measures were…