University of Iowa

Students with or at risk for reading disabilities in Grades 6-8 need both literacy intervention and support for learning in the text-based content areas of science and social studies. However, middle schools struggle to offer intervention time during the day, and typically expose students to less complex text than is expected for achieving grade-level performance. Therefore, the research team will create a semester-long Tier 2 intervention, Varied Practice Reading (VPR), based on statistical...

The University of Iowa Postdoctoral Fellowship Training Program will hire four postdoctoral fellows and prepare them to lead independent, culturally responsive research.

The purpose of this project is to further develop SCORE IT, a technology-based self-monitoring intervention for use in middle school classrooms, by adding critical data-based decision-making support for teachers working with students who have challenging behavior. Although tools exist for teachers to evaluate a student's response to academic interventions, tools are far less common in the area of behavior. The enhanced SCORE IT is intended to increase academic engagement and decrease problem...

The Science Writing Heuristic Postdoctoral Fellowship trained four fellows on topics in the areas of science and special education. Educational and applied experiences ensured that each fellow acquired the skills necessary to conduct rigorous education research. Fellows worked with faculty on an efficacy study of the science writing heuristic approach, which embeds science argument in typical inquiry lessons to improve student understanding of science.

Basic scientific literacy, knowledge, and skills are needed in order to participate effectively in a society increasingly shaped by science and technology. Unfortunately, mastery of rudimentary science knowledge and skills continue to be a challenge for many students. To address this need, the current study will test the efficacy of an inquiry approach that helps build elementary school students' science content knowledge, argumentation skills, and interest.

State and federal educational policies are focusing increasingly on school accountability for individual student growth. As statistical models and policy approaches proliferate, little attention is paid to the serious dependency of growth statistics on the choice of the test score scale. A different score scale, defined by a nonlinear transformation of the original score scale, can theoretically alter growth statistics, reverse aggregate trends, and distort interpretations from so called val...