University of Kentucky

The purpose of this project is to refine an intervention designed to reduce special education teacher burnout and attrition and improve teaching quality, classroom climate, and student outcomes (i.e., engagement, social/behavioral, academic). Teacher stress and burnout are major contributors to teacher attrition. The costs associated with teacher attrition are significant. Not only is teacher attrition financially costly to school districts, but it also reduces the organizational stability o...

The Principal Investigator (PI) will conduct a program of research for improving progress monitoring practices among preschool teachers while participating in mentoring and training activities around research methods, dissemination, and being an efficient and effective faculty member. Despite agreement between early childhood educators and professional organizations on the importance of progress monitoring in preschool classrooms, many preschool teachers do not engage in these practices regu...

The purpose of this project is to test the efficacy of the Narrative Structure (NS) intervention, which is a supplemental after school intervention for third grade students at-risk for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) developed with prior IES funding (A Narrative Comprehension Intervention for Elementary School Children At-Risk for Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). According to the National Center for Education Statistics, a substantial proportion of U.S. children str...

The goals of this grant were to develop, test, and refine a set of assessment tools for measuring the conceptual understanding and procedural math skills of middle school students with math difficulties (MD). Traditional measurement methods for assessing problem solving do not effectively capture what students with MD know and are able to do in mathematics. Despite best efforts on word problem-solving items, many are still unsure of what test items are asking. Test formats also do little to ...

Children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often have cognitive processing deficits which may partially contribute to their well-documented academic difficulties. Additionally, traditional treatments for ADHD have not been shown to have a sustained positive impact on children's academic outcomes. One specific deficit that has been shown to be common among children with ADHD relates to difficulties with narrative/story comprehension. There are four specific areas of impaire...

The ultimate goal of school-based physical therapy services is to enhance students' successful participation in typical school and community activities leading to further education, employment, and independence. Unfortunately, there is a lack of research examining the associations between characteristics of school-based physical therapy and student outcomes.