A critical component of scientific reasoning is the consideration of alternative explanations. Recognizing that decades of cognitive psychology research have demonstrated that relative cognitive accessibility, or "what comes to mind," strongly affects how people reason in a given context, we articulate a simple "cognitive…

In most U.S. school districts, a number of teachers are leaving the profession, and more specifically, math and science teachers. Moreover, school work conditions are important predictors of teacher attrition and it is important to understand both when and how these conditions affect teachers. The purpose of this mixed methods study design was to…

Recent literature on high school graduation and drop out have shifted the focus from identifying causes of drop out to identifying students who are at risk of dropping out. The Early Warning Systems (EWS) used to identify students seek to use existing data to predict which students have a greater risk of dropping out of school so that schools can…

The topic of this study was student motivation and intention to graduate at a for-profit university. The research problem addressed is only 23% of bachelor's degree-seeking students at for-profit universities persist to graduate within six years. Students who leave without graduating incur more debt and earn less money over time. Grounded in an…

This study examines whether the physical location of Pre-K programs--whether in elementary school buildings or stand-alone centers--leads to differences in student outcomes in elementary school. Over the past several decades, public investment in Pre-K programming has burgeoned. According to the National Institute for Early Education Research, 32…

This study uses a mixed-method sequential exploratory design to examine influences on urban adolescents' engagement and disengagement in school. First, we interviewed 22 middle and high school students who varied in their level of engagement and disengagement. Support from adults and peers, opportunities to make choices, and external incentives…

The current study examined (1) if the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) would yield alternative factor structures related to either symptoms or strengths with early adolescent students when an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is used; (2) which scales best predicted suspensions of typically developing early adolescents; and (3) what…

The objective of the study was to identify the relationship between psychosocial factors of academic work and Burnout Syndrome in a public university in Mexico. In a sample of 247 academics from a public university in Mexico, an online battery was applied that was made up of an adaptation of the questionnaire Psychosocial Factors of Academic Work…

Currently, a school of nursing in the Northeastern United States is using the Test for Essential Academic Skills (TEAS) examination to help determine which applicants to accept into their nursing programs. To date, there are no statistically significant data to correlate the use of this exam with the selection of applicants who successfully enter…

Hispanic adolescents have high expectations for their own educational attainment, but educational attainment outcomes for Hispanic young adults are relatively low on average. Limited scholarship links Hispanic adolescents' educational expectations with attainment in adulthood. Using a longitudinal within-group approach, the authors examined…

The oldest Millennials are now well-established in their careers, requesting flex schedules so they can take their kids to soccer practice in the afternoons; they have little in common with the typical 18- to 22-year-old undergraduate in many college classrooms. For faculty at campuses serving primarily traditional students, it seems like a good…

This study compares Spanish instructors' use of preterite and imperfect in the foreign language classroom to the distribution of these forms in large-scale corpora, which represent the input learners would potentially receive in a naturalistic learning context. Twenty-four 50-minute class sessions were recorded, and all tokens of preterite and…

Recent reforms in education call for science teachers to incorporate STEM concepts into their curricula. This study explores the association among student and teacher demographics, and student learning of engineering content and attitudes towards STEM after participation in an elementary or middle school engineering-based science curricula.…

This study used the Family and Child Experiences Survey, 2009 cohort, to explore the levels of depression among a nationally representative sample of Head Start teachers at the beginning and end of the preschool year. Results showed that one in three Head Start teachers reported some depression either in fall or spring, and that change in…

Currently, the same criteria are being used for admissions into nursing programs in one school of nursing in the Northeastern United States. To date there are no statistically significant data to correlate these criteria with successfully entering the nursing profession. Due to the nursing shortage, limited number of seats available in nursing…