The 10 most-cited articles in American Educational Research Journal, 2018

Critical race theory (CRT) has been used in educational literature to emphasize the influence of racism on educational opportunity and the assets of students of color. Quantitative methods appear antithetical to CRT tenets according to some, but this article endeavors to show why this is not the case, based on both historical and contemporary notions. To build this argument, the author presents results from an empirical study that used data from a survey of undergraduates and measurement theory to quantify students’ community cultural wealth, a CRT framework that describes the cultural assets of communities of color. The author concludes with recommendations for incorporating quantitative methods into future CRT studies.

The maker movement has evoked interest for its role in breaking down barriers to STEM learning. However, few empirical studies document how youth are supported over time in STEM-rich making projects or their outcomes. This longitudinal critical ethnographic study traces the development of 41 youth maker projects in two community-centered making programs. Building a conceptual argument for an equity-oriented culture of making, the authors discuss the ways in which making with and in community opened opportunities for youth to project their communities’ rich culture knowledge and wisdom onto their making while also troubling and negotiating the historicized injustices they experience. The authors also discuss how community engagement legitimized a practice of co-making, which supported equity-oriented goals and outcomes.

Based on the control-value theory of achievement emotions, this longitudinal study examined students’ control-value appraisals as antecedents of their enjoyment and boredom in mathematics. Self-report data for appraisals and emotions were collected from 579 students in their final year of primary schooling over three waves. Data were analyzed using latent interaction structural equation modeling. Control-value appraisals predicted emotions interactively depending on which specific subjective value was paired with perceived control. Achievement value amplified the positive relation between perceived control and enjoyment, and intrinsic value reduced the negative relation between perceived control and boredom. These longitudinal findings demonstrate that control and value appraisals, and their interaction, are critically important for the development of students’ enjoyment and boredom over time.

While much is known about how Black students negotiate and navigate undergraduate studies, there is a dearth of research on what happens when these students enter graduate school. This article presents the results of a study of 21 Black male graduate students in engineering from one highly ranked research-intensive institution. This article provides evidence of structurally racialized policies within the engineering college (e.g., admissions) and racialized and gendered interactions with peers and advisors that threaten Black males’ persistence in engineering. We argue for taking an anti-deficit approach to understanding Black males’ persistence in engineering. We conclude with implications for policy, practice, and research that could further improve the scholarship and experiences of Black males in engineering graduate programs.

Studies link principal effectiveness to lower average rates of teacher turnover. However, principals need not target retention efforts equally to all teachers. Instead, strong principals may seek to strategically influence the composition of their school’s teaching force by retaining high performers and not retaining lower performers. We investigate such strategic retention behaviors with longitudinal data from Tennessee. Using multiple measures of teacher and principal effectiveness, we document that indeed more effective principals see lower rates of teacher turnover, on average. Moreover, this lower turnover is concentrated among high-performing teachers. In contrast, turnover rates of the lowest-performing teachers, as measured by classroom observation scores, increase substantially under higher-rated principals. This pattern is more apparent in advantaged schools and schools with stable leadership.

Attendance in kindergarten and elementary school robustly predicts student outcomes. Despite this well-documented association, there is little experimental research on how to reduce absenteeism in the early grades. This paper presents results from a randomized field experiment in 10 school districts evaluating the impact of a low-cost, parent-focused intervention on student attendance in grades K–5. The intervention targeted commonly held parental misbeliefs undervaluing the importance of regular K–5 attendance as well as the number of school days their child had missed. The intervention decreased chronic absenteeism by 15%. This study presents the first experimental evidence on how to improve student attendance in grades K–5 at scale and has implications for increasing parental involvement in education.

Students often struggle to comprehend complex text. In response, we conducted an initial, year-long study of Quality Talk, a teacher-facilitated, small-group discussion approach designed to enhance students’ basic and high-level comprehension, in two fourth-grade classrooms. Specifically, teachers delivered instructional mini-lessons on discourse elements (e.g., questioning or argumentation) and conducted weekly text-based discussions in their language arts classes. Analysis of the videorecorded discussions showed decreases in teacher-initiated discourse elements, indicating a release of responsibility to students, whereas students’ discourse reflected increased critical-analytic thinking (e.g., elaborated explanations or exploratory talk). Importantly, statistically and practically significant increases were evidenced on written measures of students’ basic and high-level comprehension, indicating the promise of small-group discourse as a way to foster individual student learning outcomes.

Both scholars and professional standards identify teachers’ knowledge of students as important to promoting effective instruction and student learning. Prior research investigates two such types of knowledge: knowledge of student thinking and teacher accuracy in predicting student performance on cognitive assessments. However, the field presents weak evidence regarding whether these constructs are amenable to accurate measurement and whether such knowledge relates to instruction and student outcomes. Without this evidence, it is difficult to assess the relevance of this form of teacher knowledge. In this article, evidence from 284 teachers suggests that accuracy can be adequately measured and relates to instruction and student outcomes. Knowledge of student misconceptions proved more difficult to measure, yet still predicted student outcomes in one model.

Black men, underrepresented in engineering, constitute a missing segment of the population who could contribute to the global knowledge economy. To address this national concern, stakeholders need additional research on strategies that aid in Black men’s persistence. This study explores the experiences of 30 Black men in engineering graduate programs. Three factors are identified as helping them persist from year to year, and in many cases through completion of the doctorate: the role of family, spirituality and faith-based community, and undergraduate mentors. The article concludes with implications for future research and professional practice that may improve the experiences of Black men in engineering graduate programs, which may also increase the chances that they will remain in the engineering workforce.

Our secondary analysis of Measures of Effective Teaching data contributes to growing evidence that observation ratings, used as part of comprehensive teacher evaluation systems across the nation, may measure factors outside of a teacher’s performance or control. Specifically, men and teachers in classrooms with high concentrations of Black, Hispanic, male, and low-performing students receive significantly lower observation ratings. By using various methodological approaches and a subsample of teachers randomly assigned to classrooms, we demonstrate that these differences are unlikely due to actual differences in teacher quality. These results suggest that policymakers consider the unintended consequences of using observational ratings to evaluate teachers and consider ways to adjust ratings to ensure they are fair.