Foster parents have special needs which must be addressed to retain them in the child welfare system. Several of these needs may be addressed within their foster parent training experience; however, little research is available to determine the effectiveness of these training programs. What little research is available is fraught with…

A 2008 experiment suggests that a summer books program, when combined with teacher scaffolding lessons and parent support, can significantly improve the reading achievement of low-income children. However, just giving student books to read did not improve achievement. By having teachers provide end-of-year lessons in reading comprehension and…

Creativity continues to be an important goal for 21st century learning. However, teachers often have difficulties fostering creativity in their classrooms. Current creativity research suggests that the act of making can enhance the teaching of creativity. Hands-on engineering design lessons are ideal contexts for studying this effect. Through…

This exploratory study sought to determine if a popular school-based drug prevention program might be effective in schools that are making adequate yearly progress (AYP). Thirty-four schools with grades 6 through 8 in 11 states were randomly assigned either to receive Project ALERT (n = 17) or to a control group (n = 17); of these, 10 intervention…

Alcohol and substance disorders. Life-threatening eating disorders. Suicidal behaviors. Students' mental-health needs continue to garner considerable attention at colleges and universities--as well as among the public and in the press when a high-profile tragedy occurs. Institutions and the boards of trustees that govern them are challenged with…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of a mentor training intervention for experienced entrepreneurs in order to support and advise new and early stage female entrepreneurs in an attempt to enrich the limited literature of empirical data in the area of mentor training intervention assessment.…

Limited evidence exists about the effectiveness of parent/family-based interventions for preventing poor sexual health outcomes, thus a systematic review was conducted as part of a wider review of community-based sex and relationships and alcohol education. Method guidance from the UK's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence was…

The first Norwegian Manifesto (Manifesto-I) Against Bullying was launched by the Prime Minister in autumn 2002 and lasted for 2 years. A background for Manifesto-I was that school bullying had increased almost linearly in Norway with over 60% more victims and bullies since 1995. During the manifest period, the percentage of victims and bullies…

The Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program, currently under development for the U.S. Army, will include a component designed to increase the possibilities for posttraumatic growth in the aftermath of combat. In this article, we briefly review studies that provide evidence for this phenomenon in combat veterans, and we suggest elements that such a…

The Program for Arthritis Control through Education and Exercise, PACE-Ex[TM}, is an arthritis self-management program incorporating principles and practice of self-management, goal setting and warm water exercise. The purpose of this program review is to examine the impact of PACE-Ex on participants' self-efficacy for condition management,…

Building on research that identifies and addresses issues of women's underrepresentation in computing, this article describes promising practices in undergraduate research experiences that promote women's long-term interest in computer science and engineering. Specifically, this article explores whether and how REU programs include programmatic…

Background/Context: School finance litigation has often prompted funding reforms, but what happens as a result is the subject of considerable dispute. Purpose: This article explores design problems encountered in studies examining the nature and effects of those reforms. Analysis: After describing the development and current status of school…

On December 31, 2013, Hillsdale College--a small liberal arts college in rural south-central Michigan--will no longer be authorized to recommend students to the state of Michigan for teacher certification. Hillsdale's over a century-and-a-half tradition of preparing teachers for public schools will, sadly, come to an end. Hillsdale will lose the…

Malcolm Knowles' theory of andragogy is best known in the world of adult education as a conceptualization of how and why adults learn. The following practice-based article that has applied Knowles' theories and precepts to an undergraduate program reflects on how those concepts work with people whom Knowles might well have not considered "adults."…

Several recent meta-analyses of universal school-based violence prevention studies indicate the overall positive impacts of these approaches on aggression. These studies, however, assess impacts on broadly defined measures of aggression. Furthermore, little research has analyzed the mechanisms through which these programs attempt to reduce overt…