This article reports data from a 2-year longitudinal study on cooperative learning in school science. The study reported the effects of cooperative learning in science on science attainment, effective development and social connectedness, and interactions during transition from elementary to high school in rural and urban school settings. The…

The present study explores the impact of an experimental reading intervention focusing on explicit reading strategy instruction and cross-age peer tutoring on third and sixth graders' reading strategy awareness, cognitive and metacognitive reading strategy use, and reading comprehension achievement. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design was…

The research analyzes the interaction of 24 students (12 pairs) of secondary students when using peer tutoring techniques to learn Catalan. Students worked together in a program to produce an authentic writing experience. Significant increases were observed in pre- and posttest Catalan attainment scores of students. An analysis of the…

This study examines two journals specific to the middles grades where original quantitative empirical articles are published, Research in Middle Level Education and Middle Grades Research Journal to determine what quantitative statistics are used, how they are used, and what study designs are used. Important for those who write for the…

The present article provides a primer on using effect sizes in research. A small heuristic data set is used in order to make the discussion concrete. Additionally, various admonitions for best practice in reporting and interpreting effect sizes are presented. Among these is the admonition to not use Cohen's benchmarks for "small," "medium," and…

The t-test is one of the most commonly used significance tests to assess whether the means of two groups are statistically significantly different from each other. The use of t-test has become a natural choice, and rarely practitioners question its appropriateness. This article reviews and discusses t-test's value in providing a rough comparison…

Recommendations made by major educational and psychological organizations (American Educational Research Association, 2006; American Psychological Association, 2001) call for researchers to regularly report confidence intervals. The purpose of the present paper is to provide support for the use of confidence intervals. To contextualize this…

Commonality analysis is a method of partitioning variance to determine the predictive ability unique to each predictor (or predictor set) and common to two or more of the predictors (or predictor sets). The purposes of the present paper are to (a) explain commonality analysis in a multiple regression context as an alternative for middle grades…

This article presents findings from an action research study that investigates the impact of an inquiry project designed to help better prepare pre-service middle level teacher interns for their work with English language learners (ELLs). The inquiry project combined a "rounds" approach with ethnographic observation to help pre-service interns see…

This study emerged out of a year-long narrative ethnography that investigated the first year of ESL teachers. It describes key personal, contextual, and structural factors that influenced the teachers' professional beliefs and practices. The focus of this study centers on the conversations of three middle school ESL teachers during new teacher…

This mixed-methodological study examined changes in perceptions of teachers (n = 70) engaged in a two-year professional development program designed to meet the unique needs of English Language Learners (ELL), and changes in ELL students' (n = 235) math and reading achievement scores. The study was conducted in two urban middle schools in Kansas…

This article explores the theoretical framework upon which a democratic classroom is based, and the effects that a curriculum based on social justice has on English Language Learners (ELLs). Furthermore, it explores authentic means of assessing ELLs, in addition to other more traditional and standardized testing. In a social justice framework, all…

The purpose of the present study is to summarize the research to date and report additional findings on a successful alternative model for urban middle level education that is incorporated in NativityMiguel schools. These schools, designed particularly to meet the educational and social developmental needs of young adolescents at risk because of…

This article presents a model that instructional leaders can use to engage in a change process that fosters effective instructional change in school districts and individual school buildings, specifically middle schools and alternative middle schools. The authors describe four dimensions of leadership and explain how each dimension informs…

The purpose of this case study was to explore the perceptions and experiences of one class of sixth grade middle students enrolled in a Title I reading class. The class consisted of 15 students. Through instrumental case study, qualitative data were collected over 24 weeks through (a) interviews, (b) observations, and (c) documents: student…