With the increasing emphasis on integrating engineering into K-12 classrooms to help meet the needs of our complex and multidisciplinary society, there is an urgent need to investigate teachers' engineering-focused professional development experiences as they relate to teacher learning, implementation, and student achievement. This study…

This study examines the effects of integrated science, technology, and engineering (STE) education on second-, third-, and fourth-grade students' STE content knowledge and aspirations concerning engineering after validation of the measures. During the 2009-2010 school year, 59 elementary school teachers, who attended a week-long engineering…

A sample of third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade student responses to the question "What is a fraction?" were examined to gain an understanding of how children in upper elementary grades make sense of fractions. Rather than measure children's understanding of fractions relative to mathematically conventional part-whole constructions of…

This paper is a report of the impact of an externally funded, multiyear systemic reform project on students' science achievement on a modified version of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) test in 33 small, rural school districts in two Midwest states. The systemic reform effort utilized a cascading leadership strategy…

As the largest international study ever taken in history, the Trend in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) has been held as a benchmark to measure U.S. student performance in the global context. In-depth analyses of the TIMSS project are conducted in this study to examine key issues of the comparative investigation: (1) item flaws in mathematics…

This paper describes a subset of results from a large-scale two-year independent evaluation study conducted with the "Scientists in School" (SiS) outreach program and two large school boards in Ontario, Canada. Specifically, it explores the responses of elementary students (n= 811) from typically underrepresented groups in science (English…

The study examined relationships among key domains of science instruction with English language learning (ELL) students based on teachers' perceptions of their classroom practices (i.e., what they think they do) and actual classroom practices (i.e., what they are observed doing). The four domains under investigation included: (1) teachers'…

The primary purpose of this classroom experiment was to examine the effectiveness of concrete (hands-on) manipulatives as compared with virtual (computer-based) manipulatives on student review of fraction concepts in third grade and introduction of symmetry concepts in fourth grade. A pretest-posttest design was employed with a sample of 91…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of a hands-on science curriculum, which integrates mathematics and supports English language development, on third-grade students' mathematics achievement--specifically the measurement subscale of the statewide assessment. The data drew from a larger five-year research and development project…

Student initiatives play an important role in inquiry-based science with all students, including English language learning (ELL) students. This study examined initiatives that elementary students made as they participated in an intervention to promote science learning and English language development over a three-year period. In addition, the…

The purpose of this article is to focus on the development and refinement of a science instructional design program arguing for the feasibility and usability of integrated reading and science instruction as implemented in third- and fourth-grade science classrooms to meet the learning needs of diverse learners. These instructional components are…

Four hundred and three 3rd- and 5th-grade Chinese students took the Multiplication Estimation Test or participated in the interview on it, designed to assess their computational estimation performance on whole-number multiplication. Students perform better when tasks are presented visually than orally. Third graders tend to use rounding based…

This article documents the development and use of a survey instrument designed to measure K-8 mathematics teachers' perceptions about discourse in mathematics classes. In particular, the 5-point Likert-type survey sought to address teachers' perceptions of their use of dialogic (dialogue to construct new meaning), univocal (conveying information),…

Using the US national sample from the 1995 Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), this study examined students' competence levels in understanding the matter concept at grades 3, 4, 7, 8 and high school graduation, and compared them to the expectations in the US national science education standards. It was found that…