This longitudinal study evaluated after-school program (ASP) participation and the development of academic performance (school grades, reading achievement) and teacher-rated motivational attributes (expectancy of success, effectance motivation) over a school year. Participants were 599 boys and girls (6.3 to 10.6 years) from an urban,…

The Best Practice Research Scholarship programme (BPRS) was one of a series of initiatives designed by the English Department for Educational Studies (DfES) between 2000 and 2003, to support teachers' continuing professional development. Each year, around 1,000 Scholarships of up to 3,000 British pounds each, were awarded to serving classroom…

This article argues that outcome-based accountability systems are not likely to close the achievement gap. Using California as an example, it suggests that states need to pay closer attention to learning conditions and powerful programs that deliver quality interventions. The article describes the design of the California low-performing schools…

Objective: To test psychosocial mediators of the effects of an intervention in reducing the rate of growth of violence among adolescents. Method: Five hundred and seventy-one African American adolescent males participated in this randomized trial. Multilevel modeling techniques were used to ascertain both intervention and mediated effects.…

In this article, the author discusses how after-school programs are very popular with the public. A series of annual voter surveys conducted by the Afterschool Alliance shows public support consistently running in the 90 percent range, with 76 percent of voters even going so far as to say they would be willing to pay additional taxes if more…

Using this document, school leaders can engage after-school stakeholders in an informed and thoughtful process about developing, implementing and evaluating after-school programs at their schools. As the interest in after-school programs grows, so does the need for reliable information about what works. Although the field is relatively new, a…

In this paper it is argued that the current trend of making assessment criteria more explicit in higher education may have a deleterious effect on students' learning. Helping students to concentrate on assessment criteria paradoxically means that they may take a strategic approach and end up focusing on the superficial aspects of their assessment…

The purpose of the study was to explore the effectiveness of a program designed to improve the number skills of 5-year-olds. The program involved the withdrawal of children from the classroom in pairs to work with a specialist teacher using number books and games. Participants were 106 children who represented approximately the lower two-thirds of…

Appointment coordinators at a mid-western medical clinic were to provide exceptional telephone customer service. This included using a standard greeting, speaking in an appropriate tone of voice during the conversation, and using a standard closing to end the call. An analysis suggested performance deficiencies resulted from weak antecedents, poor…

Maintaining therapeutic programmes for people with learning disabilities over long periods of time presents a major challenge to care systems as the limited and slow pace of client behavioural change is often insufficient to sustain staff behaviour. In this study, a 17-year-old young man with profound learning difficulties was successfully…

Visitors to the Peck School this year would see a very different scene than two years ago. The school has expanded its laptop program to include younger students, begun construction on two new buildings, and revamped the daily schedule. Laptops are moving into the lower grades, with younger students at a ratio of two students per computer and…

The growth of managed care and increasing demands by school systems resulted in of a number of new audiences looking for the evidence underlying the practice of speech-language pathology (SLP). Third-party payers, operating in an environment emphasizing ''return-on-investment,'' sought data linking expenditures on SLP services with tangible…

The objective of this study was to assess the impact of a training programme, designed to make preschool-age children's invented spelling evolve, on their phonemic awareness. The participants were 90 children who were divided into 3 experimental and 3 control groups based on the nature of their invented spelling. Children's phonemic skills were…

An increasing number of girls are entering the juvenile justice system. However, intervention programs for delinquent girls have not been examined empirically. The authors examined the 12-month outcomes of a randomized intervention trial for girls with chronic delinquency (N = 81). Girls were randomly assigned into an experimental condition…

Learning from others in education through study visits and direct observation has a long history. It has always been comforting to expect to avoid mistakes by taking advantage of others' experience. This expectation is even stronger today in our endeavours to create a European future. Yet these are not always successful. Education institutions…