Paul Morgan

This Exploration grant will analyze secondary data from three nationally representative databases to examine significant disproportionality in special education, including to what extent disproportionality may be resulting from systemic bias in disability identification. A lack of scientific consensus has emerged regarding racial and ethnic disparities in disability identification. Until recently, over-representation was widely believed to result from U.S. schools inappropriately over-identi...

The intended purpose of this project was to analyze nationally representative and longitudinal data to identify factors associated with or predictive of elementary and middle school students experiencing difficulties in learning science. Some groups of elementary and middle school students are far more likely to experience low science achievement, although the factors leading to this greater risk are poorly understood. Students with disabilities, low-income students, and English language lea...

ADHD is the most commonly diagnosed mental health disorder in school-aged children. Students with ADHD often engage in off-task and disruptive behaviors that reduce classroom engagement and, consequently, student learning. Students with ADHD are more likely to drop out of school, obtain a lower-level diploma, display low academic achievement, and fail to obtain a postsecondary education. Thus, identifying malleable and educationally relevant factors that decrease the impact of ADHD over time...

Little is currently known about early precursors of academic and behavioral school readiness for children, particularly those with or at risk for disabilities. Evidence indicates that vocabulary knowledge constitutes a potentially malleable factor that, if increased, may improve children's reading, mathematics, and behavioral readiness for kindergarten. Yet these relations have not been convincingly established. It is also critical to better understand the onset of vocabulary delays during a...

This project will use social ecological theory to investigate modifiable factors in family, classroom, school, and neighborhood contexts that are associated with or predictive of bullying victimization in 3rd-5th grade, the extent to which these social contextual factors function as mediators or moderators of other explanatory factors (e.g., family sociodemographic level, children's K-2nd grade academic or behavioral functioning), and whether and to what extent bullying victimization is rela...