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As the COVID-19 pandemic upended the 2019–2020 school year, education systems scrambled to meet the needs of students and families with little available data on how school closures may impact learning. In this study, we produced a series of projections of COVID-19-related learning loss based on (a) estimates from absenteeism literature and (b) analyses of summer learning patterns of 5 million students. Under our projections, returning students are expected to start fall 2020 with approximately 63 to 68% of the learning gains in reading and 37 to 50% of the learning gains in mathematics relative to a typical school year. However, we project that losing ground during the school closures was not universal, with the top third of students potentially making gains in reading.

This study investigated the attitudes of teachers and students toward the Iraqi primary school sixth grade task-based English textbook. Two hundred students and two hundred English teachers were invited to provide their opinions through questionnaires and interviews. Specifically, the focus was on the suitability of English textbook tasks in terms of the target age group, culture, customs, traditions, class duration, classroom capacity, the availability of teaching aids, as well as the capability of teachers to interact and communicate the textbook material to students to achieve the desired learning outcome. Two instruments were used in this study. The first instrument was two questionnaires to investigate the teachers’ and students’ attitudes toward the English textbook of sixth-grade primary level based on TB, and the second instrument was a semi-structured interview to investigate teachers’ attitudes. The semi-structured interview was used to survey the participants’ attitudes, feelings and intractability with the task-based English text. The results of questionnaires pointed to the negative attitudes of the teachers and students toward the English textbook of grade 6. Moreover, both the teachers and students faced difficulty understanding and following the tasks in the textbook, leading to their confusion and waste of time. That is, the tasks were believed to be difficult to complete, perform or even redo out of the class. Finally, the textbook content appeared unsuitable for both teachers and students in terms of cultural norms and their application in local daily life situations. The study concluded with recommendations for the Iraqi Ministry of Education to modify the textbook content to match the group age-targeted 12 years old, their cultural standards, the classroom capacity, and teaching aids.

To determine whether formative writing assessments that are directly tied to everyday classroom teaching and learning enhance students’ writing performance, we conducted a meta-analysis of true and quasi-experiments conducted with students in grades 1 to 8. We found that feedback to students about writing from adults, peers, self, and computers statistically enhanced writing quality, yielding average weighted effect sizes of 0.87, 0.58, 0.62, and 0.38, respectively. We did not find, however, that teachers’ monitoring of students’ writing progress or implementation of the 6 + 1 Trait Writing model meaningfully enhanced students’ writing. The findings from this meta-analysis provide support for the use of formative writing assessments that provide feedback directly to students as part of everyday teaching and learning. We argue that such assessments should be used more frequently by teachers, and that they should play a stronger role in the Next-Generation Assessment Systems being developed by Smarter Balanced and PARCC.

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting stay-at-home orders created a need for assessing elementary, middle, and high school students' experienced stressors associated with the coronavirus situation. In collaboration with a school district wanting information about their students' well-being during the pandemic school shut-down, the current study investigated students' reported types and levels of COVID-19 stressors. Data were collected from 2,738 students from fourth through 12th grade in a suburban Midwestern school district in the United States following school closure related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Data on stress associated with the COVID-19 pandemic were gathered from students via an online survey using Qualtrics. The students rated 20 items (e.g., not motivated to do schoolwork, not going to my school) on stress level. Stressor categories found included Social Isolation, Schoolwork Stress, Fear of COVID-19 Illness, and Missing Events. Middle and high school students reported higher schoolwork stress than did elementary students, and overall, females had higher reported stress on several stressors. The current study has implications for school psychologists including utilizing a tool to assess pandemic-related stressors, using prepandemic normative data in schools with caution, promoting education about COVID-19 to reduce fear, supporting teachers regarding addressing schoolwork stress experienced by students, and teaching students anxiety-reducing strategies such as mindfulness or coping strategies.

Using student survey data from six U.S. school districts, we estimate how assignment to a demographically similar teacher affects student reports of personal effort, happiness in class, feeling caredfor and motivated by their teacher, the quality of student-teacher communication, and college aspirations. Relying on a classroom fixed-effects strategy, we show that students assigned to a teacher with similar demographic characteristics experience positive benefits in terms of these academic perceptions and attitudes. The most consistent benefits are among gender matches, and the largest benefits are demonstrated by the combination of gender and racial/ethnic matches. The effects of gender matches are largely consistent across elementary and middle school, while the most consistent effects from race matches occur in middle school.

Around the world, programming education is actively promoted by such factors as economic and technical requirements. The use of a robot in programming education could help students understand computer-science concepts more easily. In this study we designed a course in programming a robot for elementary school students and investigated its effectiveness by implementing it in actual classes. We further examined the effects of students’ prior skills and of gender on the outcomes. In addition, we reviewed the applicable teaching and learning strategies in the field of robotics programming. Our course in programming a robot was implemented for 155 Korean elementary school students in the fifth and sixth grades. The course was conducted for 11 weeks. Our results show that teaching programming by using a robot significantly improved computational thinking and creativity. Computational thinking, however, was not significantly improved in the group that initially showed high scores. Further, creativity was improved more in girls than in boys, and the mean difference was statistically significant, but the difference in computational thinking was not. The implication of this study is that the best approach is to design a course in programming a robot and apply it in actual classrooms in order to discuss teaching and learning strategies according to students’ prior skills and their gender.

Student self-efficacy, behavioral engagement, and emotional engagement are key factors for academic achievement. Research has yet to identify the developmental cascades linking these four constructs. Three theoretical frameworks, i.e., Self-Efficacy Theory, the Self-System Model of Motivational Development, and Expectancy-Value Theory, suggest different nexus. Following 671 students (51.8% girls) from their 4th to 6th grade, this study aims to assess competing hypotheses from these three frameworks in math. Three cross-lag models were tested to test each theoretical framework. A fourth and final model was tested to include the significant paths from the previous models. Mediation paths were also tested. Results mainly support assumptions from Self-Efficacy Theory, that is student self-efficacy and academic achievement are mutually associated from 4th to 6th grades. Some of the propositions of Expectancy-Value Theory were also supported. Self-efficacy was associated with later emotional engagement and academic achievement. However, emotional engagement in 5th grade was negatively associated with achievement in 6th grade and was not associated with behavioral engagement. Assumptions from the Self-System Model were not supported by the data. Testing the fourth model revealed an unexpected developmental cascade: 5th-grade self-efficacy mediated the association between 4th-grade achievement and 6th-grade emotional engagement. This last finding may have great implications for young adolescents as emotional engagement is an indicator of student well-being and intrinsic value of learning. Implications for theory validation and intervention targets for adolescents are discussed.

In this meta-analysis, the authors synthesize results from 44 (quasi-) experimental studies on informational and narrative text structure interventions involving students in grades 4–6 in regular school settings. Findings show that text structure instruction had positive immediate effects on students’ reading comprehension but that effect sizes varied largely across outcome measures: questions (Hedges’ g = 0.25), summarization (g = 0.57), recall (g = 0.37), and knowledge about text structure (g = 0.38). However, students who received text structure instruction no longer outperformed control groups at delayed posttests. Content-related features, such as a focus on paragraph-level structure, active construction of graphic organizers, and teaching rule-based summarization techniques, moderated the effectiveness of text structure instruction, but these effects also varied across outcome measures. Instructional features moderated delayed effects: Interventions with opportunities for individual student practice resulted in higher delayed effects for comprehension questions. The authors argue that text structure instruction deserves a place in the primary school curriculum so the positive effects on reading will be maintained.

Despite academics’ enthusiasm about the concept of grit (defined as consistency of interest and perseverance of effort), its benefit for academic achievement has recently been challenged. Drawing from a longitudinal sample (N = 2018; 55.3% female; sixth–nineth grades) from Finland, this study first aimed to investigate and replicate the association between grit and achievement outcomes (i.e., academic achievement and engagement). Further, the present study examined whether growth mindset and goal commitment impacted grit and whether grit acted as a mediator between growth mindset, goal commitment, and achievement outcomes. The results showed that the perseverance facet of grit in the eighth grade was associated with school achievement and engagement in the nineth grade, after controlling for students’ conscientiousness, academic persistence, prior achievement and engagement, gender and SES, although the effect on engagement was stronger than on achievement. In addition, grit was predicted by goal commitment in the sixth grade, but not by the growth mindset in the sixth grade. Finally, the perseverance of effort (not the consistency of interest) mediated the effect of goal commitment on engagement. These findings suggest that grit is associated with increased engagement and academic achievement; and practitioners who wish to improve grit of adolescents may encourage goal commitment more than growth mindset.

The underrepresentation of girls from nondominant backgrounds in the sciences and engineering continues despite recent gains in achievement. This longitudinal ethnographic study traces the identity work that girls from non-dominant backgrounds do as they engage in science-related activities across school, club, and home during the middle school years. Building a conceptual argument for identity trajectories, the authors discuss the ongoing, cumulative, and contentious nature of identity work and the mechanisms that foster critical shifts in trajectories. The authors argue that the girls view possible future selves in science when their identity work is recognized, supported, and leveraged toward expanded opportunities for engagement in science. This process yields layered meanings of (possible) selves and of science and reconfigures meaningful participation in science.