Review of Educational Research

The incidence of violence in dating relationships has a significant impact on young people, including decreased mental and physical health. This review is the first to provide a quantitative synthesis of empirical evaluations of school-based programs implemented in middle and high schools that sought to prevent or reduce incidents of dating violence. After a systematic search and screening procedure, a meta-analysis of 23 studies was used to examine the effects of school-based programs. Results indicated school-based programs influence dating violence knowledge ( g ¯ = 0 . 22 , 95% confidence interval [0.05, 0.39]) and attitudes ( g ¯ = 0 . 14 , 95% confidence interval [0.10, 0.19]); however, to date, the results for dating violence perpetration and victimization indicate programs are not affecting these behaviors to a significant extent. The results of this review are encouraging, but they also highlight the need for modifications to dating violence prevention programs including the incorporation of skill-building components and a need to address the role of bystanders.

Value-added estimates of teacher or school quality are increasingly used for both high- and low-stakes accountability purposes, making understanding of their limitations critical. A review of the recent value-added literature suggests three concerns with the state of the research. First, the issues receiving the most research attention have not always been the concerns of greatest importance to theorists or critics. Second, there has been insufficient research on the interactions among various issues or assumption violations. Third, some of the big issues in value-added modeling have been challenging to address and may require educators to step back and answer some underlying philosophical questions about the nature of teacher and school quality.

Students with significant behavioral and social problems experience some of the poorest outcomes in school and beyond. It is imperative, therefore, that educational researchers and school-based professionals address the needs of students who exhibit maladaptive behavior to alter their poor outcome trajectory. Social problem-solving (SPS) instruction is a promising approach for improving social competence and changing problem behaviors. Despite documented outcomes for SPS instruction in school settings, Coleman, Wheeler, and Webber’s review appears to be the most up-to-date compilation of the SPS literature. Thus, the purpose of this article is to present a more current review of the literature on SPS interventions in school settings. We examine and summarize studies investigating SPS interventions in K–12 settings from 1993 to 2015 and discuss findings and implications for educational research and practice.

The purpose of this article is to synthesize the extant research on peer-mediated interventions (PMIs) with English language learners (ELLs) in kindergarten through Grade 12. Fourteen studies that were published in peer-reviewed journals from 1983 to 2013 were examined in terms of study characteristics, the effects on academic outcomes, study quality, and overall effectiveness. Structured, heterogeneous grouping was used in the 10 peer pairing and 4 collaborative/cooperative grouping PMIs with ELLs. Eight of the 14 studies included high methodological quality. Overall, PMIs with ELLs are associated with medium to large effects on measures of phonemic awareness, vocabulary, and comprehension when compared to teacher-mediated comparison conditions. More research on PMIs with ELLs in high school and across core content areas, particularly mathematics, is warranted. Implications and future research for PMIs with ELLs are discussed.

In the current review, we examined teacher leadership research completed since York-Barr and Duke published the seminal review on teacher leadership in 2004. The review was undertaken to examine how teacher leadership is defined, how teacher leaders are prepared, their impact, and those factors that facilitate or inhibit teacher leaders’ work. Beyond this, the review considered theories informing teacher leadership, teacher leadership within disciplinary contexts, and the roles of teacher leaders in social justice and equity issues. The most salient findings were (a) teacher leadership, although rarely defined, focused on roles beyond the classroom, supporting the professional learning of peers, influencing policy/decision making, and ultimately targeting student learning; (b) the research is not always theoretically grounded; (c) principals, school structures, and norms are important in empowering or marginalizing teacher leaders; and (d) very little teacher leadership research examines issues of social justice and equity.

Overviews, or syntheses of research syntheses, have become a popular approach to synthesizing the rapidly expanding body of research and systematic reviews. Despite their popularity, few guidelines exist and the state of the field in education is unclear. The purpose of this study is to describe the prevalence and current state of overviews of education research and to provide further guidance for conducting overviews and advance the evolution of overview methods. A comprehensive search across multiple online databases and gray literature repositories yielded 25 total education–related overviews. Our analysis revealed that many commonly reported aspects of systematic reviews, such as the search, screen, and coding procedures, were regularly unreported. Only a handful of overview authors discussed the synthesis technique and few authors acknowledged the overlap of included systematic reviews. Suggestions and preliminary guidelines for improving the rigor and utility of overviews are provided.

This article critically reviews recent literature on the relationship between family formation and academic-career progression, emphasizing obstacles women face seeking a tenured position and beyond. Evidence indicates that the pipeline model is dominated by “ideal worker” norms. These norms impose rigid, tightly coupled, sequential, time-bound requirements on aspiring academics, making the raising of young children and advancing an academic career incompatible. Studies indicate that women with PhDs and young children are disproportionately more likely to leak out of the tenure-track pipeline. Lack of family friendliness is one of the chief reasons why women opt out of tenure-track careers. One way to increase the proportion of tenured women is to adapt the pipeline model by bolstering institutional work–family policies and providing child care centers. Departmental leaders can ensure that making use of work–family policies does not negatively affect tenure decisions. Collecting longitudinal data to evaluate how well policies are working is critical.