Background: The relation between academic self-concept and achievement has been examined in a large number of studies. The majority of these studies have found evidence for a reciprocal effects model. However, there is an ongoing debate on how students' achievement should be measured and whether the type of achievement indicator (grades, tests,…

Every April, the staff of Stilwell Junior High School (West Des Moines, Iowa) spend a day analyzing student data together. Staff members consider standardized tests scores, look at item-by-item results and trends, and consider how groups are performing. They also look at social data, gathered from students about how the youth view their school…

This paper describes and theorizes principals' support for teacher professional development ("PD") during a time of strong provincial pressure for an increased focus upon literacy, numeracy, and improvements in standardized test scores in elementary schools in Ontario, Canada. The paper draws upon semi-structured interviews with 12…

Background: Development of children with congenital visual impairment (VI) has been associated with vulnerable socio-communicative outcomes often bearing striking similarities to those of sighted children with autism. To date, very little is known about language and social communication in children with VI of normal intelligence. Methods: We…

In an era of evidence-based practice, why are clinicians not typically engaged in evidence-based assessment? To begin to understand this issue, a national multidisciplinary survey was conducted to examine clinician attitudes toward standardized assessment tools. There were 1,442 child clinicians who provided opinions about the psychometric…

In this essay, the author explores the curious irony that a discipline and a profession organized around the study and teaching of language and literacy have had so little influence on the discursive constructions (policies) that govern the teaching of language and literacy. Part of the problem, as the author sees it, is simply that so little…

Learning about linear relationship with one unknown, middle school students may often demonstrate a certain degree of proficiency manipulating algebraic symbols. When encouraged, they can verbalize and explain the steps they perform, thereby demonstrating awareness of the procedures with symbols according to fixed rules. It is well known that…

This paper reports on the feedback and assessment practices of Canadian grades 4-8 teachers; the data are drawn from a national study of the teaching of writing at the middle grades in all ten Canadian provinces and two (of three) territories. Respondents were 216 grades 4-8 teachers from rural and urban schools. Data sources were audio-recorded…

It is established that the socio-economic status (SES) of individual students is strongly associated with academic achievement but less is known about this relationship when both student and school socio-economic status are considered. To examine these associations at a finer grain, with the intent of informing educational funding policy, we…

Modern teachers live in age of accountability, in which their success as educators is determined by individual and group mastery of specific standards demonstrated by standardized test performance. Even before No Child Left Behind (NCLB), standards and measures were used to determine if schools and students were successful. But NCLB has increased…

This quantitative method, quasi-experimental design study examined the possible effect of foreign language study in Tennessee middle schools on mathematics achievement. The population was 1,708 historical student test scores of a single cohort spanning 6th through 8th Grades from the same schools within a large urban public school district. NCLB…

Teacher expectations and their effects on student academic performance began with the work of Robert Rosenthal (1968). His work led to a plethora of studies by researchers investigating teacher behaviors with high and low expectations of students. However, there are few studies on how students' perceptions of teacher expectations influence…

Since the federal law IDEIA of 2004 allowed for the determination of LD eligibility for Special Education services, it was expected that School Psychologists would have begun spending less time devoted to standardized tests, and more time providing other services such as counseling, consultation, and interventions. Moreover, any benefit that these…

Few studies have documented the literacy activities in an after-school setting of affluent early adolescents assigned to remedial reading. This may be because these students are not considered to be at risk of academic failure. The out-of-school literacy activities of 3 sixth-grade students were examined in this qualitative research. Multiple data…

The Federal Pell Grant Program, which provides need-based grants to millions of college students, is the federal government's largest education expenditure. It consumes over half the Department of Education's annual budget and in 2010-2011 cost taxpayers about $36 billion per year. Although the program started out as a way to provide college…