Background: Despite much discussion on the role of education policy on school and student performance, we know little about the effects of school spending at the margin on student cognitive achievement beyond the effects of class size. Purpose: The paper examines the effects of annual ninth grade classroom hours in literacy and maths on ninth…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the conceptual change text based instruction on ninth grade students' understanding of ecological concepts, and attitudes toward biology and environment. Participants were 82 ninth grade students in a public high school in the Northwestern Turkey. A treatment was employed over a…

The purpose of this study is to adapt the Lifespan Sibling Relationship Scale (LSRS) developed by Riggio (2000) to Turkish. The scale with its original form in English consists of 48 items in total. The original scale was translated into Turkish by three instructors who are proficient both in the field and the language. Later, the original and…

The authors outline results of 3 studies conducted to examine the structure of disciplinary knowledge from reading measured through proximity data. In Study 1, 168 third-grade students were asked to read a science text and rate the relationships of keywords from the passage. From these ratings, comprehension scores were calculated that related…

The authors investigated the impact of a manualized high school transition program, the Peer Group Connection (PGC) program, on the graduation rate at a low-income, Mid-Atlantic high school. The program utilized 12th-grade student peer leaders to create a supportive environment for incoming ninth-grade students. Results of a randomized control…

Using a realist grounded theory method, this study resulted in a theoretical model and 4 propositions. As displayed in the LINK model, the labeling practice is situated in and endorsed by a social context that carries explicit theory about and educational policies regarding the labels. Taking a developmental perspective, the labeling practice…

The author examined the relationship between student engagement and academic performance, using U.S. data of the Program for International Student Assessment 2000. The sample comprised 3,268 fifteen-year-old students from 121 U.S. schools. Multilevel analysis showed that behavioral engagement (defined as effort and perseverance in learning) and…

The purpose of this study is to identify the sources of reading difficulties and to evaluate reading fluency of 9th grade students which aims to improve students' reading and their understanding of complex literary texts. The sample is composed of 120 students selected from 9th grade of 10 different high schools in central province of Ankara…

The purposes of this study were to explore students' learning styles and teachers' teaching styles and study the effects and interaction effects of learning styles and teaching styles on mathematics achievements. The subjects were 3,382 ninth-grade students and 110 mathematic teachers. The main results revealed that most students were…

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship of gender between actual and preferred classroom environment and use of technology in the science classroom of Turkish students. Employing stratified random sampling procedures, data were collected from 985 students from schools across twelve different districts in Istanbul, Turkey. The…

Many researchers consider a lacking interest in science and the students' belief that science is too demanding as major reasons why young people do not strive for science-related careers. In this article, we first delineated a theoretical framework to investigate the importance of interest, self-concept, and school factors regarding…

Only recently has cognitive load theory been applied in conceptual change approaches. To the authors' knowledge, theirs is the first study to examine the effects on students' cognitive load of an approach contrary to a refutation text design. The authors combined computer and textbook instruction with involving alternative conceptions…

Despite possible negative effects, many children do not tell their teachers when they have been bullied. This study examined junior school pupils' ("N" = 294) reports of instrumental, emotional and validation social support received after disclosing being bullied to teachers, and associations with intentions to disclose in the future. Overall,…

Digital games are very popular in modern culture. The authors are examining ways to leverage these engaging environments to assess and support student competencies. The authors examine gameplay and learning using a physics game they developed called Newton's Playground. The sample consisted of 167 eighth- and ninth-grade students who played…

In 2003, Chicago schools required students entering ninth grade with below-average math scores to take two periods of algebra. This led to higher test scores for students with both above- and below-average skills, yet failure rates increased for above-average students. We examine the mechanisms behind these surprising results. Sorting by incoming…