The purpose of the present study was to assess the effectiveness of a phonological awareness training program in the specific context of the Luxembourgish educational system. The intervention was run by the kindergarten teachers in their classes with minimal external supervision. Forty-one classes of the area around Luxembourg City participated in…

This paper examines recent privatisation practices in New Zealand public schooling. The standard political rhetoric is that free publicly provided schooling is guaranteed by statute. This position may be challenged by reference to two apparently insignificant practical examples of the way in which policy gives effect to privatisation in public…

Children who are looked after experience significantly higher levels of social, emotional and behavioural difficulties than children who live with their family of origin. Such difficulties tend to be pervasive and can have detrimental consequences for placement stability, and ultimately for the child's ability to reach their potential. Government…

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of screencast with narration and without narration in enhancing learning performance. A series of screencast teaching Flash animation software was developed using screen capture software for the purpose of this research. The screencast series were uploaded to specialized channels created in…

This study investigated the impact of gender, the gender-related self-concept (agency and communion), and the timing of parenthood on objective career success of 1,015 highly educated professionals. Hypotheses derived from a dual-impact model of gender and career-related processes were tested in a 5-wave longitudinal study over a time span of 10…

The international community has identified a positive link between good governance and economic development. There is an increasing appreciation of the effective role that local policy research organizations (PROs) can play in providing evidence-based policy recommendations as the basis for sound legislation and in assessing the efficacy of…

This study examined the effectiveness of a novel intervention called "socio-dramatic affective-relational intervention" (SDARI), intended to improve social skills among adolescents with Asperger syndrome and high functioning autism diagnoses. SDARI adapts dramatic training activities to focus on in vivo practice of areas of social skill…

At the minimum, one of every four middle school students will struggle to cope with the grade-level textbooks they are typically assigned to read. Few reading programs used in middle schools have any research evidence that they actually improve student reading proficiencies. Only three programs had even modest evidence of a positive effect, and…

Solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT) is a form of behavior therapy that focuses on evoking desired behavior rather than on the existing problem behavior. To illustrate the use of this form of therapy, the authors undertook a study of 10 case studies of applications of SFBT with people with a mild intellectual disability (MID). For all 10 cases,…

School accreditation is one process currently mandated in Nova Scotia schools to facilitate school improvement efforts. This mixed methods study sought to discover and describe the impact of the Nova Scotia School Accreditation Program (NSSAP) specifically on teaching and student learning in three secondary schools in one school board. Surveys,…

Objective: To assess the effectiveness of an osteoporosis education program to improve calcium intake, knowledge, and self-efficacy in community-dwelling older Black adults. Design: Randomized repeated measures experimental design. Setting: Churches and community-based organizations. Participants: Men and women (n = 110) 50 years old and older…

This article examines an after-school program in which English language learners (ELLs) collaborated with their mainstream peers at an urban middle school to produce a multilingual video that addressed a social issue. The project, which was grounded in the tenets of critical and culturally relevant pedagogies, allowed the young people to mobilize…

This study examined shifts in adolescents' attachment relationships with parents and peers during a 7-week wilderness therapy program. Ninety-six adolescents, aged 14-17, completed three quantitative measurements evaluating attachment relationships with mother, father and peers pre and post treatment. Adolescents reported improved attachment…

Learning is a lifelong process. It is therefore worthwhile looking at instances where learning takes place outside educational institutions and see how educational principles can be applied there. In a market economy companies have to quest for profit to ensure their long-term survival. In the end, their educational goals have to serve themselves.…

Assistive technologies are often promoted to schools, parents and educators as tools to assist students with special needs by providing a compensatory value, to remediate learning problems and to promote personal independence. These technologies range from simple spellcheckers to more complex speech recognition systems and educational software.…