The report is about the effectiveness of the YoungStar system which provides consumers with a simple 5 Star rating system for the quality of early care and education (ECE) programs for children ages 0 to 5. It also explores what was learned from a recent research study of YoungStar, Wisconsin's child care quality rating and improvement system. The…

Background: Participating in research opportunities during undergraduate education is met with myriad benefits. Students learn the scientific research process, how to think critically, develop transferable skills, refine public speaking, build a professional network, and gain confidence. Despite the numerous benefits of undergraduate research…

This study investigates the interpretive approaches of three English teachers working in different grade levels with the same poem, Walt Whitman's "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer." The researcher sought to learn what the teachers identified as most valuable about studying poetry in school, what interpretive approaches they employed…

There has been concerns about the increasing incidence of youth depression and anxiety, with school teachers seeking out ways to better equip youth with skills to help them deal with daily life. A resilience training programme for youth was implemented in one region of New Zealand. It aimed to enhance resilience through the instruction of…

The purpose of this study was to understand the impact, implementation and costs associated with a one-semester elective lab course in 9th grade, Accelerating Literacy for Adolescents (ALFA) Lab, which seeks to improve students' reading achievement, particularly for those from economically disadvantaged communities. This study used three cohorts…

At a Title I School located in Central Georgia, 91% of the student population is performing below grade level. Lexia-Core 5 is a reading software program purchased by a Central Georgia school district to help students improve in reading. The purpose of this quantitative descriptive and causal-comparative study was to examine the impact of the…

This study was designed to determine what change the i-Ready math tutorial videos had on math performance, self-efficacy, and math anxiety with middle school math students. In addition, the study determined the student perception of the effectiveness of the i-Ready math tutorial videos. The purpose was to help educators identify a specific tool…

The Success By 6® (SB6) initiative is designed to support early care and education centers in improving and sustaining quality in Pennsylvania's Keystone STARS Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS). This SB6 evaluation report examines implementation and outcomes. The findings have implications for SB6 continous quality improvement process…

Understanding the difference between summative and formative assessments is still unclear for many teachers and principals as well as the effects formative assessments have on student learning outcomes. This quantitative study was conducted to explicitly explore formative assessments as a means to improve student learning outcomes, while examining…

Project STAR (Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio) was a large-scale randomized trial of reduced class sizes in kindergarten through the third grade. Because of the scope of the experiment, it has been used in many policy discussions. For example, the California statewide class-size-reduction policy was justified, in part, by the successes of…

In 2000, the state of Nebraska passed legislation requiring the assessment of student performance on content standards, but its requirements were very different from those of any other state. Nebraska created what has come to be known as STARS (School-based Teacher-led Assessment and Reporting System). Under STARS, each of Nebraska's nearly 500…

Analogous thinking has been commonly discussed as being an inherent and distinguishing characteristic of human cognition (e.g., Gentner, 2010; Goldstone, Day, & Son, 2010; Holyoak, in press; Rittle-Johnson & Star, in press). Gentner (2003) has argued that as part of the human cognitive toolbox, comparison accompanied by the relational language to…

In a study designed to determine whether experience in day care or preschool affects children's knowledge and enactment of prosocial behaviors, 59 children in day care, preschool, and home care were pre- and post-tested concerning: (1) their understanding of helping, sharing, comforting, honesty, and civic awareness; (2) their definitions of…

Several dimensions of state-sponsored, reduced-class-size programs are addressed. At present, 20 states are contemplating following the lead of Indiana's PRIME TIME and Tennessee's STAR programs. Yet the effectivenessness of reduced class size in elementary schools continues to be uncertain and controversial. No one knows whether reduced class…

The reading pariety study for 1989-90 provided information for the Cleveland, Ohio school district, parents, and community to determine what progress the school system is making toward parity in reading proficiency. Parity will be attained when statistically equivalent proportions of Black and White students score at or above the thirty-fourth…