Compared effects on achievement and verbal interaction of a cooperative learning instructional program promoting basic communication skills and academic helping skills (experimental condition) with those of a program promoting only basic communication skills. Results with 166 seventh graders show more elaborated help and higher achievement for…

Studied the effects of extending the pauses between teacher questions and naming a student to respond (wait time) in 2 experiments involving 194 college students. Extending wait time from 3 to 6 seconds actually lowered higher-level cognitive achievement. (SLD)

Identifies the pressures and problems in adolescents' family, peer, and school worlds that they perceive as having impact on their learning. Interviews with 55 ethnically and academically diverse urban youth show problems with social worlds and transitions and the social, emotional, and educational consequences of these problems. (SLD)

Identifies and estimates the influence of educational, psychological, and social factors on learning, using evidence from 61 research experts, 91 meta-analyses, and 179 handbook chapters and narrative reviews. Results suggest an emergent base for school learning, with proximal (psychological, instructional, and home environment) variables exerting…

Asserts that the central problem of the analysis by M. Wang, G. Haertel, and H. Walberg is that they tend to view the teacher, at least implicitly, as the compliant beneficiary of the knowledge of the educational researcher. Any knowledge base that aims to affect classroom practice should take into account and respect the teacher's world.…

Asserts that the reductionistic methodology used by M. Wang, G. Haertel, and H. Walberg in their study does not do justice to the educational phenomena they wish to illuminate. In addition, these authors have too simple a view of the relationship between educational research and educational practice. (SLD)

Asserts that reviews like that of M. Wang, G. Haertel, and H. Walberg are stimulating and useful in thinking about educational research, but they are nearly useless in thinking about educational policy and practice. It is not clear what is meant by "knowledge base," and the finding about proximal and distal variables is simplistic. (SLD)

Asserts that because M. Wang, G. Haertel, and H. Walberg never clarify the contours of their "knowledge base for school learning," it is difficult to know what their broad-based comparison of research studies has really yielded. Explores dilemmas posed by the methodology of the study. (SLD)

Considers the potential impact of the study by M. Wang, G. Haertel, and H. Walberg. Their analysis is the first step in understanding and explaining the factors that really do make a positive difference in quality of school learning, rather than simply describing associations between school-related input and output measures. (SLD)

M. Wang, G. Haertel, and H. Walberg have produced a summary of the bivariate relationships that influence learning. The problem is how to convert such evidence into knowledge, and the knowledge into policy. Discusses how health science provides a guide for making the conversion from evidence to policy. (SLD)

Expresses doubts about whether the evidence presented by M. Wang, G. Haertel, and H. Walberg provides robust and consistent findings that could, or should, be used to inform educational policy and practice. Discusses five questions about the methodology of the study, and indicates that basing educational policy on their findings would be merely an…

Explores the role and purpose of research synthesis, and defends the conclusions drawn about school learning. The selection of the broad outcome "school learning" was an attempt to show that educational research and development can answer important questions about schooling. (SLD)

Explores what the "knowledge base for school learning" described by M. Wang, G. Haertel, and H. Walberg might mean for education by describing some cases of school learning from fieldwork in elementary schools. The focus is on psychological dimensions of school learning. (SLD)

Proposes that the formalization of common schooling in the United States derives from the sequence of institutional formation beginning with the state asylum, moving to the reformatory, and then moving to compulsory attendance. Shows the integration of delinquent and special youth in the U.S. educational system. Contains 112 references. (SLD)

Uses event-history analysis to explore whether and how grade retention influenced graduation outcomes for a cohort of 707 youths from an urban school system. Repeating a grade from kindergarten to grade 6 was associated with an increase in the odds of dropping out. Explores the impact of being over age for grade. (SLD)