Early robotics education has been sparsely researched, especially for children in elementary education. This research pertains to an early education study that introduced robotics design and programming to children in early education with the purpose of increasing their robotics design knowledge, improving their coding skills, and inspiring their aspirations for future careers. It represents a seven-year study of students ages seven through ten years in a large urban school district. The study engaged a pre–post program comparison of the robotics and coding intervention that focused on children’s improved understanding of robotics in addition to their career aspirations. The study resulted in increases in the participating students’ understanding of robotics design as well as improved coding skills in robotics contexts. Furthermore, the study also led to increases in the students’ career aspirations toward computing fields.

Teacher professional development is often proposed as a means for improving students' achievement; however, few studies have been successful in empirically connecting teacher inservice interventions to their students' achievement gains, and especially in mathematics. The research presents results of a longitudinal study of an inservice teacher professional development that had as its primary purpose to improve middle school students' mathematics achievement. The study utilized a cross-school comparative research approach for the purpose of examining students' math achievement trajectories Hierarchical linear modeling was used for the study's data analyses. Results of the study revealed that the teacher professional development intervention had positive impacts on both the participating teachers and their middle school students. The participating students' achievement improved significantly for those whose teachers participated in the teacher professional development intervention.

This study documents the home literacy experiences of children born with very low birth weight (VLBW). The study’s design was modelled after Purcell‐Gates’ study of social domains mediated by print as home literacy experiences. A design combining purposeful sampling, semi‐structured data collection and descriptive case study analysis was employed to create a comprehensive picture of the qualitative indices that document home literacy experiences of VLBW children. Results suggest complex interrelationships between literacy practices and social–emotional factors associated with having a VLBW child. Specifically, these results indicate that increased stress associated with having a child with low birth weight may lead to lower frequencies and variations of home literacy practices. Furthermore, results suggest that stress in the home associated with medical fragility may contribute to low academic outcomes for children with VLBW.