This study explored middle school teachers' perceptions of struggling readers, including influences such as: understandings of components and factors relating to reading difficulties; views of struggling readers' behaviours and affect; classroom implications of their difficulties; and feelings of both competency and responsibility in the…

The purpose of this descriptive qualitative study was to investigate the ways teachers support young adolescents' academic motivation in one large, urban, ethnically diverse middle school. Data included individual interviews of 24 participants (18 students, 5 teachers, and 1 middle school assistant principal). Findings suggested that the…

This study investigated the relationship among critical motivational variables and mathematics achievement as middle grades students engaged in a reform-oriented curriculum, "Mathematics in Context." We tested 327 students in fifth, sixth, and seventh grade before and after two years of implementation. We performed a path analysis with…

This case study examined a middle school where a new administration had made school-wide reading an immediate and significant priority. The study investigated how and why the culture shift to schoolwide reading appeared to influence student engagement. Existing research suggested that students must feel motivated about their learning to be…

This study focused on parents' relationships and involvement in their children's lives and the effects on the students' school engagement and school performance. The study used the Wave I data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). The data on seventh and eighth grade students' school and family experiences were…

This study was prompted by previous research showing a decline in motivation as students transition from elementary to middle school. The decline in motivation may be associated with changes in the achievement goal structures of their classrooms and schools. This study describes a survey of 69 elementary and 28 middle school teachers that explored…

In an effort to learn more about pedagogy in the action present moments of teaching and in response to Schon's (1987) call for a "phenomenology of practice," this phenomenological study explored the pedagogy of 18 middle school teachers. The researcher selected participants with a purposive sampling procedure. Participants taught for at least…

This qualitative study investigates rural middle school students' perceptions of academic engagement. Participant-produced drawings (Kearney & Hyle, 2003), integrated with a series of semi-structured interviews (Patton, 2002), served as the primary data collection techniques. Twenty middle school students participated, stratified for socioeconomic…

This review of research generates principles for the design of instructional programs that foster critical-thinking dispositions. The dispositional aspect of critical thinking may be considered part of attitudinal memory, readily activated if sufficiently strong. We describe evidence suggesting that ill-structured problem-solving can provide…