From my inbox, AERA Most Read Education Research Articles of 2017


1. Understanding Loan Aversion in Education: Evidence From High School Seniors, Community College Students, and Adults

This study provides the first large-scale quantitative evidence of levels of student loan aversion in the United States. Between 20 percent and 40 percent of high school seniors are loan-averse. Women are less likely to be loan-averse than men, and Hispanics are more likely to be loan-averse than whites.

AERA Open, January 2017

Angela Boatman, Brent J. Evans, Adela Soliz

2. Educating for Democracy in a Partisan Age: Confronting the Challenges of Motivated Reasoning and Misinformation

This study investigates youth judgments of the accuracy of truth claims tied to controversial public issues and the influence of political knowledge and exposure to media literacy education. It finds that political knowledge does not improve judgments of accuracy but that media literacy education does.


American Educational Research Journal
, February 2017

Joseph Kahne, Benjamin Bowyer

3. Student Enrollment Patterns and Achievement in Ohio’s Online Charter Schools

Researchers find that low-income, lower achieving white students in Ohio are more likely to choose online charter schools, while low-income, lower achieving minority students are more likely to opt into the traditional charter school sector. They also find that students in e-schools perform worse on standardized assessments than their peers in traditional charter and traditional public schools.

Educational Researcher, January 2017

June Ahn, Andrew McEachin

4. Kids Today: The Rise in Children’s Academic Skills at Kindergarten Entry

This study documents how students entering kindergarten in 2010 compare to those who entered in 1998 in terms of their teacher-reported math, literacy, and behavioral skills. While children—particularly black children—in 2010 entered kindergarten with stronger math and literacy skills, results for behavioral outcomes were mixed.


Educational Researcher
, January 2017

Daphna Bassok, Scott Latham

5. Is Common Core “Working”? And Where Does Common Core Research Go From Here?
Five years into the Common Core initiative, researchers and the general public are interested in whether and how the standards are “working.” This special topic introduction examines the state of the literature on these questions and offers suggestions for important work moving forward.

AERA Open, January 2017

Morgan S. Polikoff

6. The Gap Within the Gap: Using Longitudinal Data to Understand Income Differences in Educational Outcomes
Researchers leverage the longitudinal structure of state and district administrative data sets in Michigan to develop a new measure of economic disadvantage based on student eligibility for subsidized school meals, which can be used to estimate effects in program evaluations, improve value-added calculations, and better target resources.


AERA Open
, February 2017

Katherine Michelmore, Susan Dynarski

7. Academic Interventions for Elementary and Middle School Students With Low Socioeconomic Status: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
This review of academic interventions for elementary and middle school students with low socioeconomic status finds that tutoring, feedback and progress monitoring, and cooperative learning have effect sizes that are educationally important, statistically significant, and robust.

Review of Educational Research, January 2017

Jens Dietrichson, Martin Bøg, Trine Filges, Anne-Marie Klint Jørgensen

8. Impacts of Early Childhood Education on Medium- and Long-Term Educational Outcomes
This research review finds that children who participate in high-quality early childhood education programs before entering kindergarten later experience fewer special education placements, decreased grade retention, and improved high school graduation rates compared with peers who do not participate.


Educational Researcher
, November 2017

Dana Charles McCoy, Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Kathleen M. Ziol-Guest, Greg J. Duncan, Holly S. Schindler, Katherine Magnuson, Rui Yang, Andrew Koepp, Jack P. Shonkoff

9. Team-Based Professional Development Interventions in Higher Education: A Systematic Review
This review study provides an overview of the effects of team-based professional development on higher education teacher attitudes and teacher learning. Researchers identify several factors that can either hinder or support professional development at the individual teacher, team, and organizational levels.


Review of Educational Researc
h, April 2017

Inken Gast, Kim Schildkamp, Jan T. van der Veen

10. Rethinking the Use of Tests: A Meta-Analysis of Practice Testing
This meta-analysis examines the effects of practice tests versus nontesting learning conditions such as restudying, practice, filler activities, or no presentation of the material. Results reveal that practice tests are more beneficial for learning than are restudying and all the other comparison conditions that were included in the meta-analysis.


Review of Educational Research
, February 2017

Olusola O. Adesope, Dominic A. Trevisan, Narayankripa Sundararajan