Middle School Context Research Articles

Integration of Mental Health Concepts in the Middle School Curriculum

This qualitative study explores the experiences of middle school teachers of Liaocheng Vocational and Technical School with student mental health education within their school setting. Drawing on interviews with teachers, supported interviews with school administrators and parents, the study aims to understand the challenges, resources, and support systems in promoting student well-being that teachers believe would be most beneficial in facilitating effective mental health education. Through a qualitative inquiry, and specifically using purposeful sampling, ten participants will be selected to provide rich insights into the phenomenon. Data will be collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis. Results may highlight the multifaceted nature of supporting student mental health, encompassing recognition of mental health issues, role breadth, efficacy in providing support, and barriers faced within the school environment. It is hoped that the study contributes to the literature by offering insights into the complexities of addressing student mental health within the middle school context and informing the development of effective interventions and support systems.

Managing performance demands: emotional aspects of doing grade policy in feedback practices

ABSTRACT This article explores emotional aspects of national grade policies in Sweden as they are enacted in feedback practices at middle school level. Policy measures such as standardized testing and grades have over the last decades put emphasis on academic outcomes in Sweden. However, research suggests that this emphasis can impact students’ emotions and well-being. An interactionally oriented narrative approach and positioning analysis were used to identify and explore accounts concerning grades and emotions within development talks and grade conferences with students who received grades in Year 4, 5 or 6. The findings present three key aspects for how emotions are used and functions within the feedback practices. Various emotion categories serve as discursive resources to A. explain and justify grades, B. evaluate and negotiate ambition levels and C. balance and manage expectations. This suggests that grades are not merely managed as simple evaluations of students’ academic performance, but rather managed as emotionally significant for students. The findings illustrate the complexity of enacting grade policies in a middle-school context where the participants navigate multiple priorities, demands and values within the school setting while operating within a policy context that emphasise academic performance.

The moderating effect of creative metacognition on adolescents’ risk-taking in creative performance

Research has demonstrated the crucial role of creative metacognition and risk-taking in creativity. However, little empirical research has examined how creative metacognition and risk-taking work on creative performance in educational practice. This paper explored the moderating effects of creative metacognition on the relationships between different types of risk-taking (i.e., propensity for taking a risk, willingness to take a risk) and creative performance (i.e., general creativity, originality, usefulness) in a middle school context. The sample consisted of 350 7th- and 8th-grade students from three middle schools. They completed a survey and a creative performance task. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that creative metacognition moderated the relationships between willingness to take a risk and both originality and usefulness. The results indicated that creative metacognition reinforces the positive effect of risk-taking on originality and mitigates the negative effect of risk-taking on usefulness. Our findings suggest a potential role for creative metacognition in enhancing curriculum-based creative performance in middle schools. In the end, practical implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed.

Non-Native English Language Teachers’ L1 Use in L2 Classroom in Turkish Middle School Context: Amount, Purpose and Beliefs

This study aims to investigate purposes and amount of first language (L1) use in second language (L2) classrooms and English language teachers’ beliefs in Turkish middle school context in order to promote L2 acquisition in English as a second / foreign language (ESL/EFL) classes, boost L2 classroom atmosphere and examine whether L1 is supposed to be used or how frequently L1 can be used during L2 classes. The study also compares EFL/ESL teachers’ classroom practices with their perceptions on L1 use and gives teachers opportunity to observe their own classes and raise awareness about using L1 appropriately in EFL/ESL classrooms. In this case study both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods were used. The data collection instruments were an attitude scale, classroom observation reports and interviews. The findings of the study revealed that all 3 teachers used L1 in their EFL classes 28% in average. Students’ grades affect this amount. Among the purposes of L1 use, giving instructions is the most frequently used. Other functions are listed as vocabulary/sentence translation, teaching grammar, checking comprehension, classroom management, drawing attention and giving feedback. This study is supposed to be beneficial for language instructors and curriculum developers on L1 use in L2 classrooms.

Music Streaming in the P–12 Music Classroom: A Scoping Review

The purpose of this scoping review was to synthesize literature regarding audio streaming in the P–12 music classroom by identifying the varied uses, recommendations for equitable access, and gaps in the knowledge base. A total of 23 publications met the criteria for inclusion. Ensemble and general music classrooms in elementary, middle, and high school contexts were represented in the literature with exemplification of concepts, genres, styles, and techniques evident as the most common usage. YouTube, Spotify, and Pandora were frequently referenced as streaming platforms. Authors cited inexpensive or free platforms and ubiquity of access most frequently when referencing equity and streaming. Most authors made no reference to potential access impediments. I identified gaps in the literature, including the uses of streamed music in jazz classrooms, performer compensation, diversity of content, barriers to student access, potential solutions to equitable access issues, and music perception differences for those with limited access.

Weaving game and task into content-language integration: Proposing a game-mediated dual learning model

Content-based instruction, task-based language teaching, and game-mediated learning are three pedagogical approaches that are perceived as effective in second and foreign language education. These approaches share common ground in a sociocultural and functional view of language learning and popularity as engaging classroom strategies in elementary, middle, and high school (K-12) contexts. However, challenges may exist in ensuring content and language dual learning goals, designing language learning tasks, or implementing game-mediated activities. Therefore, this study seeks to describe the conceptual and methodological alignment among these approaches by reviewing recent research. Moreover, a game-mediated dual learning model is proposed to pinpoint a series of design components for language educators to consider when they integrate the aforementioned three approaches.

Using a Networked Improvement Community Approach to Design and Scale Up Social Psychological Interventions in Schools

In this article, we describe a researcher-practitioner partnership (RPP) that used a networked improvement community (NIC) approach to translate social-psychological interventions into educational practices to enhance student motivation and learning. Specifically, we highlight one of our first collaborative projects to develop and scale up an intervention to teach middle school students about adopting a growth mindset (Dweck, 2006) to address our practitioners’ concern that many of their students lacked the belief that they could learn. Using Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles, we show how we (a) successfully adapted a previously used growth mindset intervention designed for college students into a computer app appropriate for middle school students, (b) embedded using the app in different middle school contexts to promote growth mindset thinking, and (c) linked students’ growth mindset thinking to improved academic performance. We also discuss how this work was conducted as part of a networked improvement community sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching called the Student Agency Improvement Community.

Exploring epistemic agency in students’ problem-solving activities

This case study presents an exploration of epistemic agency in a middle school context. The main focus of this study was to identify and characterize the actions indicative of epistemic agency that emerged in student interactions. The study was conducted with sixth graders. Data were collected from multiple sources including records of student participation in the classroom and in the virtual space, student-created artifacts, and non-participant observations. A qualitative data analysis was conducted to identify actions indicative of epistemic agency. The findings showed that eleven actions emerged in students’ activities: generating new ideas, revising ideas, negotiating new ideas, sharing ideas, sharing data/information, drawing on other group’s ideas, drawing on other groups’ data/findings, collecting additional information, engaging in shared construction of data collection instruments, examining research data–seeking support for ideas, and creating a joint plan of actions. Future research identified by this study suggests further investigations of the interactional processes that may reveal key actions that trigger subsequent actions.

All in a Day’s Play: How a Child Resists Linguistic Racism and Constructs Her Identity

Set in one of the least privileged neighborhoods of the US Southeast, this research project took a discourse analysis approach to construct a day-in-the-life case study. It illustrates how, during an after school storybook cooking class, a 7-year-old, multilingual, Mexican American girl navigated local linguistic microaggressions and extended microaffirmations to her peers. At the same time, she contested and critiqued societal power imbalances associated with whiteness. This study widens the corpus of scholarship that has primarily examined children’s sociodramatic play and literacy development in preschool settings. It also broadens the body of research that has predominantly focused on students’ linguistic dexterity and metalinguistic awareness in middle and high school contexts.

Developing middle school students’ understanding of machine learning in an African school

Researchers' efforts to build a knowledge base of how middle school students learn about machine learning (ML) is limited, particularly, considering the African context. Hence, we conducted an experimental classroom study (N = 32) within the context of extracurricular activities in a Nigerian middle school to discern how students engaged with ML activities. Furthermore, we explored whether participation in our intervention program elicit changes in students' ML comprehension, and perceptions. Using multiple qualitative data collection techniques including interviews, pre-post open-ended surveys and written assessments, we uncover evidence that indicated evolution of students’ ML understanding, ethical awareness, and societal implication of ML. In addition, our findings showed that a middle school student can learn and understand ML, even when one had no prior knowledge or interest in science related careers. The findings have implication for pedagogical design of AI instruction in middle school context. We discuss the implication of our results for researchers and relevant stakeholders, highlight the limitations and chart future work paths.

“They Don’t Have the Right to Be Touching Girls”: Understanding Middle School Students’ Consent Scripts

Background/Context: Research suggests that sexual harassment and assault are distressingly common occurrences in middle school settings. However, prevention efforts have largely focused on secondary and post-secondary settings. While research-based initiatives to discuss consent could be effective, currently there is a dearth of literature on middle school students’ beliefs or attitudes on consent and sexual assault, which could inform such initiatives. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: Using the concept of “consent scripts,” this study asks: How do seventh- and eighth-grade students define, proscribe, understand, and operationalize consent as a concept? Research Design: We surveyed 177 middle school students about their ideas regarding consent and their analysis of scenarios of dubious consent, and conducted follow-up in-depth semi-structured interviews with 66 of the participants. Conclusions/Recommendations: We identify four consent scripts prevalent among middle school students 1) consent works differently within relationships; 2) seeking consent is a form of empathy; 3) acts of seeking or violating consent are informed by norms of masculinity; and 4) close friends will respect norms of consent. These findings can inform sexual assault prevention and intervention efforts in the middle school context.

Diversity and complexity in the theoretical and empirical study of parental involvement during adolescence and emerging adulthood

Trends in past research note parental involvement in education tends to decline as students get older. This targeted review draws on the bioecological model of human development and parental role construction to understand how parent involvement changes across developmental periods. Three distinct issues were identified from research on the effectiveness of parental involvement in secondary and higher education. First, in early adolescence and the middle school context, we explore whether too much involvement is possibly harmful rather than beneficial. Second, in mid- to late adolescence and the high school context, we explore racial/ethnic differences in level of involvement and the longitudinal effects of involvement on academic achievement. Third, in emerging adulthood, we reexamine the definition of parental involvement as it relates to the college context. Implications for the consideration of parental role construction in relation to these three issues and developmental periods are discussed.

Correction to: The influence of instructional rounds on teacher metacognition in a middle school context

Correction to: The influence of instructional rounds on teacher metacognition in a middle school context

The influence of instructional rounds on teacher metacognition in a middle school context

The influence of instructional rounds on teacher metacognition in a middle school context

Creativity Development With Problem-Based Digital Making and Block-Based Programming for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics Learning in Middle School Contexts

Creativity, one of the cornerstones of students’ 21st-century skills, is regarded as an important learning outcome of science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) education. Meanwhile, problem-based digital making (DM), which combines the child-friendly programming activities of DM with problem-solving elements, is an emerging instructional design to facilitate STEAM learning. This qualitative case study examines the implementation of a problem-based DM instructional program that used the block-based programming tool Scratch to cultivate the participants’ creativity. Fifty-four middle school students (aged 10–14 years) in Hong Kong participated in the program, which totaled 10 contact hours over five consecutive weeks. Through triangulating students’ DM artifacts, video recordings, field notes, and interviews, the researchers characterized the students’ creative expression, examined the role of problem-based DM in encouraging creative work, and investigated the use of Scratch for mediating student creativity. The results showed that problem-based DM activities fostered students’ creative expressions in the dimensions of novelty, utility, aesthetics, and authenticity. While Scratch mediated the way the students presented their solutions, it had limitations that hindered the students’ digital artifact construction. The findings provide theoretical insights for framing creativity and offer practical implications for the implementation of problem-based DM in K–12 contexts.

“How Else Could You Do that?” The effects of generating multiple means of goal attainment on female students’ perceived goal attainability

Perceived goal attainability (PGA) is a crucial variable in education, influencing students’ goal commitment, goal pursuit and psychological wellbeing. Asking students to generate multiple means of goal attainment is thought to have a positive effect on PGA. And yet research on the “availability” heuristic suggests that difficulty in generating means of goal attainment may have a negative effect on PGA. The present study is the first to examine the matter in a real-world middle and high school context. In three experiments female students aged 11–15 were asked to generate many/few means of goal attainment. An inconsistent mediation model was hypothesised in which the “many means” condition has a negative indirect effect on perceived goal attainability through difficulty-in-generation (DIG) but a positive direct effect on the same variable. It was also hypothesised that these effects are greater in students with low baseline PGA. This moderated mediation hypothesis was supported statistically by tests of interaction in Experiments 1 and 2. In Experiment 3, which involved the youngest students with the highest baseline PGA, difficulty-in-generation and the “Think of many” manipulation appeared to have much less effect, again suggesting that DIG (and “Think of many”) exert less of an influence when students’ baseline PGA is high. Results have important implications for schools, students and educators alike.

Multi-Tiered Classroom Management Intervention in a Middle School Classroom: Initial Investigation of CW-FIT-Middle School Tier 1 and Self-Management

Middle school students with social and behavioral concerns need additional support. The current study investigated the effects of Class-Wide Function-related intervention teams adapted for middle school contexts (CW-FIT MS) and self-management (SM) in a sixth-grade reading class. CW-FIT MS was implemented, subsequently, for students with data indicating additional support was needed, and a self-management component was added to intensify the intervention (CW-FIT MS w/ SM). A single-subject multiple baseline design was implemented across four student participants, and the on-task student behavior as well as the teacher-student relationship were examined to assess the effects of the intervention. Results indicated improved on-task behavior for three of four students with the implementation of the self-management intervention, demonstrating promising maintenance effects. Preliminary data showed an overall improvement in the teacher-student relationship. Both teachers and students reported positive perceptions about the intervention, consistent with earlier findings in CW-FIT MS studies. Limitations and areas for future research are addressed.

Effects of a Behavior Management Strategy, CW-FIT, on High School Student and Teacher Behavior

AbstractChallenging classroom behavior can interfere with learning. Fortunately known, positive, and proactive approaches to behavior management can improve student responding. Class-Wide Function-related Intervention Teams (CW-FIT) have led to improvement in student behavior across elementary and middle school contexts. However, little is known of the impact of the intervention on high school student behavior. This study evaluated CW-FIT’s utility in improving high school student and high school teacher behavior in a co-taught learning environment. A single-subject withdrawal design was used to evaluate improvements in on-task behavior for 14 high school students in one co-taught classroom. The impact on praise and reprimand statements of two high school teachers was also assessed. The findings showed improvement to student and teacher behavior and sustainability of the intervention. Further, teachers and students expressed satisfaction with the intervention and teachers maintained high levels of implementation fidelity. Limitations of the evaluation and areas for future research are presented.

Longitudinal Associations Linking Elementary and Middle School Contexts with Student Aggression in Early Adolescence.

Growing up in poverty increases youth risk for developing aggressive behavior problems, which, in turn, are associated with a host of problematic outcomes, including school drop-out, substance use, mental health problems, and delinquency. In part, this may be due to exposure to adverse school contexts that create socialization influences supporting aggression. In the current study, 356 children from low-income families (58% White, 17% Latinx, 25% Black; 54% girls) were followed from preschool through seventh grade. Longitudinal data included measures of the school-level contexts experienced by study participants during their elementary and middle school years, including school levels of poverty (percentage of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch) and academic achievement (percentage of students scoring below the basic proficiency level on state achievement tests). Regression analyses suggested little impact of these school-level contexts on teacher or parent ratings of aggression in fifth grade, controlling for child baseline aggression and demographics. In contrast, school-level contexts had significant effects on child aggression in seventh grade with unique contributions by school-level achievement, controlling for child fifth grade aggression and elementary school contexts along with baseline covariates. These effects were robust across teacher and parent ratings. Findings are discussed in terms of understanding the school-based socialization of aggressive behavior and implications for educational policy and prevention programming.

The virtual field trip: Investigating how to optimize immersive virtual learning in climate change education

AbstractImmersive Virtual Reality (IVR) is being used for educational virtual field trips (VFTs) involving scenarios that may be too difficult, dangerous or expensive to experience in real life. We implemented an immersive VFT within the investigation phase of an inquiry‐based learning (IBL) climate change intervention. Students investigated the consequences of climate change by virtually traveling to Greenland and exploring albedo and greenhouse effects first hand. A total of 102 seventh and eighth grade students were randomly assigned to one of two instructional conditions: (1) narrated pretraining followed by IVR exploration or (2) the same narrated training material integrated within the IVR exploration. Students in both conditions showed significant increases in declarative knowledge, self‐efficacy, interest, STEM intentions, outcome expectations and intentions to change behavior from the pre‐ to post‐assessment. However, there was a significant difference between conditions favoring the pretraining group on a transfer test consisting of an oral presentation to a fictitious UN panel. The findings suggest that educators can choose to present important prerequisite learning content before or during a VFT. However, adding pretraining may lead to better transfer test performance, presumably because it helps reduce cognitive load while learning in IVR. Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topic? Immersive virtual reality (IVR) simulations lead to higher presence but may lead to less learning when the content is not designed based on the affordances of the technology. One explanation for this finding is that cognitive load may be higher in IVR. The pretraining principle (ie, individuals learn more deeply from interactive multimodal learning environments when they receive pretraining on relevant prior knowledge) can be particularly effective in IVR‐based learning compared to learning through a video. Evidence shows that instructional design principles such as segmentation and generative learning strategies such as summarization can improve learning in IVR simulations. What this paper adds An investigation of the value of two different approaches to designing immersive virtual field trips (VFTs) within a real educational middle school context. Evidence that VFTs featuring IVR climate change simulations, in the context of inquiry‐based learning (IBL), can increase important variables such as declarative knowledge, interest in science and intentions to take climate action in seventh and eighth grade students. Evidence that presenting important learning content before a VFT leads to higher transfer scores. Implications for practice and/or policy Implementing an immersive VFT within the context of an IBL intervention provides students with relevant and engaging learning experiences and results in increased knowledge and interest in science. In the design of instruction using VFTs, educators can choose to either present prerequisite learning content prior to a VFT or during a VFT. However, adding pretraining has an advantage in terms of higher transfer scores.