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Tracking has been criticized for relegating disadvantaged students to lower track courses in which students encounter a greater lack of instructional support. While an end to tracks through detracking is a possible solution, there are concerns that detracking will create more heterogeneous classrooms, making it harder for teachers to provide adequate support to their students. Using the 2015 PISA dataset, this study conducts a causal inferential analysis to understand the differences in student perceptions of teaching in tracked and untracked environments. The results provide evidence that students’ needs, with respect to adaptation of instruction and provision of individualized feedback and support, are being met to the same extent on average in tracked and untracked science classes, suggesting that teachers may not necessarily have a harder time meeting the needs of students in untracked classes.

Language testing research has suggested that placement accuracy can be an important factor in the consequences of placement decision-making. However, previous studies primarily have used a one-shot teacher judgment of placement accuracy, suffering from a lack of students’ perspectives of their time-varying experiences. The present study aimed to understand the experiences of nine Japanese students who were placed in (in)appropriate levels of English as a foreign language (EFL) speaking course by measuring flow experiences and their fluctuation over time. A flow questionnaire was administered four times during the speaking course, followed by semi-structured interviews at the end of the course. The findings empirically supported the discrepancy between students’ flow experiences and the one-short teacher judgment of placement accuracy. The in-depth investigation of students’ experiences also suggested two main factors affecting flow experiences: environmental factors and students’ attempts to find meaningfulness in their courses. Based on these findings, this study emphasizes the applicability of flow theory to the understanding of test consequences from students’ perspectives.

This case study explored how a teacher, Ms. Walter, and her students experienced a unit of study on market structures in an Advanced Placement (AP) Microeconomics course. We employed qualitative research methods, drawing on the work of Nuthall and Alton-Lee, to connect students’ experiences of classroom instruction to their reasoning on an end-of-unit multiple-choice test modeled after the AP Exam. Findings indicate a key misalignment between opportunities to learn the content during the unit and student performance on the unit test. Despite engaging in student-centered, interactive methods of instruction, students were unable to engage in the tasks required by the assessment.

Background/purpose. The scientific basis for positive reinforcement is clear: when a behaviour is accompanied by a desirable outcome, such as attention, a tangible reward, or a sensory experience, the probability of that behaviour being repeated in the future is heightened. Praise is a motivating strategy to cultivate a robust relationship between teachers and learners while promoting inclusive classroom management. Nonetheless, there is a paucity of research about the precise application of praise in South African secondary schools. This article examined learners' experiences about teachers' use of praise.Materials/methods. The study employed an interpretive paradigm with a qualitative approach and a phenomenological, multiple-case study design. Data was collected through focus group discussions from two secondary schools in quintiles 2 and 3, with 12 progressed learners selected using purposive sampling.Results. The study revealed three primary themes: how learners respond to praise, the conditions prompting teachers to praise learners, and the emotions and behaviours associated with the absence of praise. The study indicated that learners experience encouragement and reinforcement towards commitment after receiving praise. Nonetheless, it also indicated that teachers predominantly praised learners for their academic achievements, resulting in progressed learners feeling marginalised due to their poor performance. The study also revealed that the absence of any kind of acknowledgement in the form of praise leads to the development of anger, deviant conduct, and a mixed-feeling attitude about attending school.Conclusion. This research offers a novel viewpoint contesting other findings that progressed learners are disruptive and unmotivated due to their expectation of automatic progression to the next grade without exerting effort. The study introduces a novel idea that teachers' use of praise may lead to exclusions, causing progressed learners to feel somewhat excluded from the school community.

The purpose of this narrative analysis was to assess the perceived curricular offerings and challenges of traditional-aged rural students in higher education, and to understand how these challenges relate to AP courses. Specifically, this study assessed the secondary curricular offerings available to rural students and how they affect their perceptions of success in the postsecondary environment. I conducted phenomenological interviews with 18 students and uncovered several key findings. Rural students in this study reported that Advanced Placement (AP) courses were critical to their preparation for higher education, but that these courses' availability was limited in their schools. Participants in this study reported feeling a loss of self-efficacy and perceived shift in identity due to their lack of advanced curricular offerings, especially AP courses. As a result, rural youth in this study reported being behind their peers in terms of credit-hour production by one to two academic years. Participants in this study felt that there was a particular lack of AP courses in science and math fields in their high school, which impacted their decision to enter a STEM field.

There's a dire need to repair aging infrastructure in the U.S., and an innovative building material could be a game changer. Embedded with steel fibers, ultra-high performance concrete is about five to 10 times stronger than standard concrete -- and unaffordable for most government-funded projects. Special correspondent Cat Wise reports from Iowa on how researchers are working to bring costs down.

This article combines descriptive statistics and interviews with college-bound high school students to explore the connection between increased access and academic quality of Advanced Placement (AP) courses in low-income urban high schools. Results suggest that although moderately more opportunities to take AP courses exist than in previous years, students' sense of their own preparation and their resultant performance on AP exams do not indicate quality or appropriate preparation for college. The article is guided by a “funds of knowledge” framework, which emphasizes the value of instrumental and content aptitudes in preparation for college success.