The President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities report heartily supported arts integration. However, the President's Committee called for a better understanding of the dimensions of quality and best practices. One promising arts integration method is drama-based pedagogy (DBP). A comprehensive search of the literature revealed 47…

What is the impact of garden-based learning on academic outcomes in schools? To address this question, findings across 152 articles (1990-2010) were analyzed resulting in 48 studies that met the inclusion criteria for this synthesis. A review template with operational coding framework was developed. The synthesis results showed a preponderance of…

Recently published social science research suggests that students attending schools with concentrations of disadvantaged racial minority populations achieve less academic progress than their otherwise comparable counterparts in more racially balanced or integrated schools, but to date no meta-analysis has estimated the effect size of school racial…

Educational policies that impact second language (L2) learners--a rapidly-growing group--are often enacted without consulting relevant research. This review synthesized research regarding optimal conditions for L2 acquisition, facilitative L2 learner and teacher characteristics, and speed of L2 acquisition, from four bodies of work--foreign…

This meta-analysis and narrative review synthesizes the literature on classroom goal structures and their relationships with student outcomes, focusing additionally on the ways in which these constructs are operationalized across research studies. Specifically, this study evaluates the relationships between students' perceptions of mastery and…

Despite increased focus on the effects of organized activities on youth development, there is currently no consensus about the best way to assess various dimensions of involvement. This article explores the complexities of assessing involvement and focuses specifically on the following organized activity dimensions: (a) breadth, (b) intensity, (c)…

High school exit exams are affecting a growing majority of high school students. Although exit testing polices were enacted with the goal of improving student achievement as well as postsecondary outcomes, they also have the potential for negative effects. To better understand the effects of exit testing policies, in this article the authors…

A number of studies have documented the cognitive outcomes associated with bilingualism. To gain a clear understanding of the extent and diversity of these cognitive outcomes, the authors conducted a meta-analysis of studies that examined the cognitive correlates of bilingualism. Data from 63 studies (involving 6,022 participants) were extracted…

The authors reviewed all peer-reviewed studies with participants from preschool to Grade 8 for this meta-analysis of morphological interventions. They identified 22 applicable studies. Instructional effects (Cohen's d) were averaged by linguistic outcome categories (morphological sublexical, non-morphological sublexical, lexical, and supralexical)…

This review examined 57 post-1990 empirical studies of school size effects on a variety of student and organizational outcomes. The weight of evidence provided by this research clearly favors smaller schools. Students who traditionally struggle at school and students from disadvantaged social and economic backgrounds are the major benefactors of…

Examining recent research on neighborhood influences on child development, this review focuses on social influences on school adjustment in the early elementary years. A model to guide community research and intervention is presented. The components of the model of integrated processes are neighborhoods and their effects on academic outcomes and…

Prior research has established that peer tutors can benefit academically from their tutoring experiences. However, although tutor learning has been observed across diverse settings, the magnitude of these gains is often underwhelming. In this review, the authors consider how analyses of tutors' actual behaviors may help to account for variation in…

The literature base on technology professional development for teachers reveals that there is a long way to go in understanding methods of effective practice with respect to the various impacts of these activities on teaching and learning. In the No Child Left Behind era, with programs like Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology, the Fund…

This article describes and critically analyzes how sociologists in England have studied racial/ethnic inequalities in secondary education between 1980 and 2005. This study is different from earlier literature reviews conducted in this particular area in that it adopts a more systematic approach and includes the most recent studies in this field.…

This literature review summarizes research on online teaching and learning. It is organized into four topics: course environment, learners' outcomes, learners' characteristics, and institutional and administrative factors. The authors found little consistency of terminology, discovered some conclusive guidelines, and identified developing lines of…