In this study we observed college students' behavior on two self-tailored, multiple-choice exams. Self-tailoring was defined as an option to omit up to five items from being scored on an exam. Participants, 80 undergraduate college students enrolled in two sections of an educational psychology course, statistically significantly improved their…

The authors review the research on children's imagination and fantasy as they relate to children's socio-emotional and cognitive development and link those findings to children's academic and classroom competence. Specifically, children who are imaginative and/or fantasy prone tend to have better coping skills and the ability to regulate their…

The No Child Left Behind Act and the accountability movement in public education caused many states to develop criterion-referenced academic achievement tests. Scores from these tests are often used to make high stakes decisions. Even so, these tests typically do not receive independent psychometric scrutiny. We evaluated the 2005 Arkansas…

The Appalachia Educational Laboratory designed and implemented a long-term staff development program to increase and sustain teacher knowledge of and use of classroom questioning techniques to produce higher levels of student learning. Evaluations from 41 middle and secondary schools establishing the effectiveness of this program are reported .…

A qualitative inquiry describes the sociocultural aspects of an urban elementary school serving as the context for a reading/language arts early field experience and examines how the sociocultural factors of this school contribute to the professional development of the preservice teachers who work there and their three supervising teachers. (SLD)

Describes Invitational Education theory, illustrates it, and describes its application with seven middle schools. Invitational Education is based on the interrelationships among people, places, policies, processes, and programs. Ways in which the Invitational Education process differs from the usual "factory" approach to education are…

Rates of retention over a five-year period were analyzed by grade, school, and the socioeconomic status of each of 32 elementary schools in a Midwestern district. Analysis of variance revealed that schools of middle socioeconomic status retained students at a significantly higher rate than did schools of low or high socioeconomic status. (SLD)

Beginning in 1991-92, a local school district undertook a concerted effort to reduce class size in grades 1 through 3 to 1:15, the Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) Project. Achievement gains and research indicated that class size caused increased achievement and facilitated improved instruction. (SLD)

Studied the degree to which various supervisory theories are dominant in contemporary instructional supervision textbooks through the analysis of 12 texts. Results indicate that theoretical orientations consistent with evaluation-based theories are found in seven of the textbooks, with more clinically based theories dominant in the other five.…

The Lasting Benefits Study is following up the effects of small class size on the achievement of elementary school students in Tennessee's Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio Project (Project STAR). Results show improved achievement for participants in small classes up through grade 3 that last at least through grades 4 and 5. (SLD)

Computer simulations used to compare the Mahalanobis distance procedure with the Andrews-Pregibon statistic for identifying multivariate outliers result in the conclusion that the choice of procedure is not critical, since both identified valid data points as outliers. Results with false outliers as the dependent variable suggest the importance of…

Compares and contrasts piecemeal and whole-theme approaches to learning and teaching, considering the implications of simplifying learning tasks through isolation. Concludes that a whole-theme approach can enable educators to rethink existing ways of going about learning and teaching, and can lead to organizing learning environments in a radically…

As part of the legal defense in an educational-disparity court case in Alabama, school resources and conditions and teacher and principal attitudes were studied in 45 school districts. Findings from all sources show disparities favoring wealthy schools on about 84% of the variables examined. Research impact on the trial is discussed. (SLD)

Examines First Amendment rights of students and illustrates points of contention and conflict as educators try to cope with interpretations that seem to be diametrically opposed, as are those of the Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District and the Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeir court cases. (SLD)

This research is an empirical study, through Monte Carlo simulation, of the effects of violations of the assumptions for the oneway fixed-effects analysis of variance (ANOVA) and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). Research reaffirms findings of previous studies that suggest that ANOVA and ANCOVA be avoided when group sizes are not equal. (SLD)