As this issue of Middle Grades Research Journal goes to press, the general public has been flocking to see the animated film, Inside Out, a tale that captures the emotional turmoil experienced by an 11-year-old girl for whom a geographical move by her family results in her attending a new school. This is indeed a common experience for many middle grades youngsters, even if the family does not move their home. Transition into the middle grades very often involves change of location and school organization, and with those changes, stresses related to a sense of belonging and comfort with new instructional routines and expectations. At the same time, the middle grades youngsters are experiencing internal emotional and cognitive changes that, coupled with obvious physical growth, often result in confusion and discontent.
Researchers and practitioners deal with these realities when attempting to understand and address the lived experiences of middle grades students. This open call issue contains an array of interesting and uniquely focused articles that address the varied experiences and perceptions of middle grades students and their teachers. The tendency to problematize the experiences of middle grades students often leads both researchers and practitioners to attempt to attack the problem externally, when in many cases, the problem is best addressed from the inside out. The articles in this issue present research that has attempted to do just that.
In the first article, Beck, Buehl, and Barber explored middle grades students’ perceptions of reading and learning in social studies in two separate but related studies funded by the Institute for Educational Sciences. In both studies, the researchers focused on how students, particularly English learners with Latino or Hispanic background, responded to variations in text types and in instructional models. Their results suggest that student responses are complexly related to the diverse composition of student groups. Student preferences for group work versus independent study varied by student, as did their text preferences. The authors assert that their results encourage teachers to strive to know their students well before implementing any strategy and to use formative assessment techniques to assist in that knowledge.
Teacher beliefs about their students’ capacity to master content can affect the ways in which students view their own success. In the second article in this issue, Schmidt, Shumow, and Kackar-Cam address the effect of mindset theory (Dweck, 1999) on seventh graders’ beliefs about the nature of ability in science as either fixed or malleable. These researchers analyzed data from seven science classrooms taught by two teachers, focusing on both performance data and classroom observations. Their results suggest teacher mindset affects the extent to which students’ beliefs about mindset, students’ mastery oriented learning goals, and students’ achievement were sustained several months following the intervention. The students had better outcomes in the situation in which the teacher placed more emphasis on mastery goals, growth mindset, conceptual development, and use of learning strategies.
Student perceptions of the ways in which their classes are organized can also affect their attitudes and satisfaction with school. Single sex education is controversial at best (Spielhagen, 2013). Indeed, in the third article in this issue, Hart asserts that although the effectiveness of single-sex education regarding academic achievement may be regarded “inconclusive”, her research suggests that student satisfaction with school is greater for girls in single-sex arrangements. Her study investigated sixth-grade girls, exploring a convenience sample of 109 participants, arrayed in either single-sex or coeducational classes, over three separate academic years. She suggests that single-sex classes may be a good solution for girls in middle grades who may experience high social anxiety and fear transition into middle school. She concludes that single-sex education may be a real and viable option, particularly in sixth grade.
Specific teacher strategies and use of resources inevitably affect the ways in which students experience curriculum. In a wellcrafted analysis, Webel, Krupa, and McManus examined patterns in how a group of fifth- and sixth-grade teachers evaluated and reported using different types of curriculum resources to support their teaching in relation to the mathematical concepts outlined in the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. The results suggest that resource use varied widely from teacher to teacher, but also that Internet resources were often used as much as or more than other resources like textbooks. They further suggest that teachers need increased opportunities to develop the ability to filter the many curricular options that are available online.
Finally, Sokal and Katz turn the reader’s attention to student engagement as evidenced through use of the three-block model of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). They explored the use of this model in a quasiexperimental study that included students in 10 schools across three school divisions in a midsized, central Canadian city. Middle grades students in the sample included 22 Grade 5 students, 19 Grade 6 students, 56 Grade 7 students, and 35 Grade 8 students. Results suggested that, when compared to a control group, students learning through the TBM treatment exhibited higher engagement outcomes than those in the control group. Furthermore, students who traditionally are underserved in schools—Aboriginal students, and males—demonstrated the same positive effects.
Over the last 3 years, as editor-in-chief of this journal, I have been consistently impressed by the integrity and serious sense of purpose of the scholars who submit their manuscripts for review. The manuscripts selected for this issue are securely in the same tradition of excellence and have yielded interesting and cogent studies worthy of the reader’s attention. I have also been grateful for the support and edified by the diligence of the reviewers who have assessed these manuscripts and deemed them worthy of the reader’s time. It is with great pride and satisfaction that I offer to you this penultimate issue under my editorial purview. The research topics are pertinent to our understanding of current dynamics in the middle grades. The articles are accessible and relevant to our ongoing quest to understand the variables that affect the lives of students and teachers in the middle grades.
