Journal of Research in Education, Vol. 22, Num. 2

Claims are often made about the impact of high school athletics on academic achievement without reference to empirical research on the issue. In this paper we empirically examine the relationship between the extent towhich high schools have winning sports teams, offer a variety of sports options, and facilitate student participation in athletics on schools’ overall student achievement and attainment. We find that high school athletics do not appear to detract from academic success. In fact, based on the data we examined from Ohio high schools, an emphasis on athletic success and participation is associated with higher scores on standardized tests and higher graduation rates.

This practitioner-research study investigated the effect critical literacy has on content area pre-service teachers’ abilities (N=14) to perceive the sociocultural influences in text. The study further investigated how content area pre-service teachers engage in critical stance during situated reading practices that centered on discussions of young adult literature. Quantitative data were collected on a pre- and post Literary Response Questionnaire (LRQ). Qualitative data collection included videotaped and audiotaped recordings, interviews, and dialogue journals. Results from a paired samples t testfound there was a statistically significant difference between the LRQ pre- and post survey. Informed by grounded theory, reading young adult literature engaged content area pre-service teachers in critical stance through powerful voices in discussion and pens through dialogue journaling.

Social Stories™ were developed as an intervention to help individuals with autism better handle unfamiliar, stressful, or difficult situations. The popularity of this intervention has grown although there is still a relatively limited amount ofresearch to support the effectiveness of this type of intervention. For this article, research published between 1993 and May 2011 was examined to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the current research that explores the use of Social Stories™ as the only intervention rather than as part of a treatment package.

This qualitative research study examined the experiences of five teacher leaders enrolled in an instructional leadership master’s degree cohort who engaged in equity-focused action research. Specifically, the study focused onHow do teacher leaders describe their development as equity-centered leaders after engaging in action research? Findings point to how teacher leaders became empowered and increased in their confidence to advocate for change. The teacher leaders also discussed the development of an equity-centered teacher leadership pedagogy that included: focusing on beliefs before pedagogy, using an asset-based view of teachers, and valuing voices of color.

Chinese college students majoring in medicine participated in this study by completing two questionnaires about their use of self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies and self-efficacy beliefs in studying English as a foreign language. Data on participants’ performance on two English written exams and one oral English test were alsocollected. Statistically significant relationship between the use of SRL strategies, self-efficacy beliefs, and achievement in learning English were noted, providing additional validity information for the scores from the two questionnaires developed in a previous study (Wang & Pape, 2005). Participants’ self-ratings of self-efficacy and use of SRL strategies; however, were not high. Students who read articles before reading questions had better performance on English writtenexams than their counterparts. Implications of the results in a Chinese English instruction context are also discussed.

The purpose of this study was to explore the learning strategies used by ethnically diverse learners and to investigate the relationships among the constructsof classroom goal structure, achievement goal orientation, motivation and self-regulated learning in an ethnically diverse population of fourth and fifth grade learners (n=396). Goal setting, environmental restructuring, and seeking assistance from adultswere described most frequently by this sample of African American and Hispanic elementary students. Correlational analyses revealed moderate positive relationships among the constructsof classroom goal structure,achievement goal orientation, motivation, and self-regulated learning. Further analyses by means of structural equation modeling supported a model depicting positive relationships between classroom goal structure and achievement goal orientation, achievement goal orientation and motivation, and achievement goal orientation and self-regulated learning. Finally, Hispanic students reported higher levels of task structure and task orientation, compared to African American students.

Preservice elementary teachers often struggle with prime decomposition and other mathematical topics that correlate with number theory. This paper provides a framework for integrating prime factor tiles into their curriculum with a particular emphasis on prime decomposition. Using this framework, preservice teachers explored and evaluated numbers using prime factor tiles. The results of the exploratory inquiryshowed that preservice teachers made some progress in their understanding of prime decomposition after exploring with the tools. However, they struggled with problems requiring the application of prime decomposition. More time to delve into this topic is probably needed in order to observe further gains.

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