THIS WEEK'S EDUCATION RESEARCH REPORT
Testing the effectiveness of individualized college student coaching
College graduation rates often lag behind college attendance rates. One theory as to why students do not complete college is that they lack key information about how to be successful or fail to act on the information that they have. This study presents evidence from a randomized experiment which tests the effectiveness of individualized student coaching. Over the course of two separate school year
YESTERDAY
Does physical education predict academic achievement, self-concept, social skills, food consumption, and body mass index?
Prior research on the efficacy of physical education has been conducted in a piecemeal fashion. More specifically, studies typically test a single benefit hypothesized to be associated with physical education (e.g. body mass index [BMI]) while excluding others (e.g. social skills) and not controlling for important confounds (e.g. diet). Such research designs have precluded a comprehensive evaluati
FEB 06
The Effects of Adolescent Health-Related Behavior on Academic Performance
Schools are increasingly involved in efforts to promote health and healthy behavior among their adolescent students, but are healthier students better learners? This synthesis of the empirical, longitudinal literature investigated the effects of the most predominant health-related behaviors—namely, alcohol and marijuana use, smoking, nutrition, physical activity, sexual intercourse, bullying, and
students in “high-test” districts spend up to 5x as much time on test taking as students in “low-test” districts
A newly released study from Teach Plus demonstrates that urban students spend an average of only 1.7 percent of the school year taking state and district-required tests. The report, “The Student and the Stopwatch: How Much Time is Spent on Testing in American Schools,” also finds that students in “high-test” districts spend up to 5x as much time on test taking as students in “low-test” districts.
Classroom Learning Environment and Middle School Reading
The lack of achievement of students from high-risk and high-poverty environments necessitates changes in today’s middle school environments to create a caring, supportive environment where all middle school students can succeed. This study investigated the classroom learning environments of resilient, average, and nonresilient minority students in middle school reading classrooms. A total of 1,295
FEB 04
Alternative Science course increases undergraduate retention
An alternative approach to the traditional introductory laboratory course at the undergraduate level significantly increases student retention rates, according to research published in mBio, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.In 2012, the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology reported that there is a need for an additional one million scienc
Educational Attainment in the United States: 2013
This report, based on the Current Population Survey, provides a portrait of academic achievement by demographic characteristics, such as age, sex, average earnings, and Hispanic origin. The number of adults who have completed some graduate school, increased 24 percent from 2008 to 2013, from 29 million to 36 million, according to the Educational Attainment in the United Sates 2012 data release. Th
Choosing the Right Growth Measure
State education agencies and school districts are increasingly using measures based on student test-score growth in their systems for evaluating school and teacher performance. In many cases, these systems inform high-stakes decisions such as which schools to close and which teachers to retain. Performance metrics tied directly to student test-score growth are appealing because although schools an
Transcendental Meditation reduces teacher stress and burnout, new research claims
A new study published in The Permanente Journal (Vol. 18, No.1) on health showed the introduction of the Transcendental Meditation® technique substantially decreased teacher stress and burnout.Research indicates that stress and burnout are pervasive problems among employees, with teachers being especially vulnerable to feeling frequent stress from their jobs. Burnout, a syndrome of emotional exhau
FEB 03
Shy toddlers understand more than their speaking ability indicates
Scientists have known that shy toddlers often have delayed speech, but a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder shows that the lag in using words does not mean that the children don't understand what's being said.The nature of the connection between behavioral inhibitions—such as shyness or fearfulness—and delayed language acquisition has not been well understood.The new study, published
Study challenges claims of single-sex schooling benefits
As many American public school districts adopt single-sex classrooms and even entire schools, a new study finds scant evidence that they offer educational or social benefits. The study was the largest and most thorough effort to examine the issue to date, says Janet Hyde, a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison."We looked at 184 studies, representing the testing of 1.
Data-driven team is key to sustaining positive behavior framework in schools
A new study finds that a dedicated team that makes decisions based on data is crucial for launching and sustaining a framework designed at the University of Oregon in the early 1990s to prevent and reduce behavioral problems in the nation's schools.The study, published in the January issue of the Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, involved a comprehensive survey of 257 school team members
Expanded School Time Key to Successful Common Core Implementation
Public schools that significantly expand their schedules will be in a much stronger position to successfully implement the Common Core State Standards, the most rigorous English and math standards in the history of U.S. public education, says a report released by the National Center on Time & Learning, or NCTL, and the Center for American Progress at an event at CAP in Washington, D.C.“The Co
"Turning Around" Urban Texas High Schools: No Improvement
A mainstay in NCLB and the Obama administration education plan is turning around low-performing schools.This study utilized surveys and interviews with school leaders from four turnaround urban high schools in Texas to understand student outcomes before and after school restructuring and reconstitution.Although some organizational changes were apparent; overall, respondents cited rapidly changing
JAN 31
Literacy, teaching skills lacking internationally
A new UNESCO report reveals that a global learning crisis is costing governments $129 billion a year. Ten per cent of global spending on primary education is being lost on poor quality education that is failing to ensure that children learn. This situation leaves one in four young people in poor countries unable to read a single sentence. The Report concludes that good teachers are the key to impr
JAN 30
Trip to an art museum leads to significantly stronger critical thinking skills
. “Learning to Think Critically: A Visual Art Experiment,” by Daniel H. Bowen, Jay P. Greene, and Brian Kisida, published in the January/February 2014 issue of Educational Researcher (ER), a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association (AERA)finds that exposure to the arts improves students’ critical thinking skills. Students randomly selected to participate in a half-day
Low achievement: It's not race or poverty, it's other risk factors
This study investigated the unique relations between school concentrations of student risk factors and measures of reading, mathematics, and attendance. It used an integrated administrative data system to create a combined data set of risks (i.e., birth risks, teen mother, low maternal education, homelessness, maltreatment, and lead exposure) for an entire cohort of third-grade students in a large
JAN 29
Researchers Find that Kindergarten Is the New First Grade
Kindergarten classrooms nationwide have changed dramatically since the late 1990s and nearly all of these changes are in the direction of a heightened focus on academics, particularly literacy, according to researchers from EdPolicyWorks, the center on education policy and workforce competitiveness at the University of Virginia.In a working paper titled “Is Kindergarten the New First Grade? The Ch
Intuitive number games boost children's math performance
A quick glance at two, unequal groups of paper clips (or other objects) leads most people to immediately intuit which group has more. In a new study, researchers report that practicing this kind of simple, instinctive numerical exercise can improve children's ability to solve math problems.A report of the study appears in the journal Cognition."We wanted to know how basic intuitions about nu
