The role of classroom discussions in comprehension and learning has been the focus of investigations since the early 1960s. Despite this long history, no syntheses have quantitatively reviewed the vast body of literature on classroom discussions for their effects on students' comprehension and learning. This comprehensive meta-analysis of empirical studies was conducted to examine evidence of the effects of classroom discussion on measures of teacher and student talk and on individual student comprehension and critical-thinking and reasoning outcomes. Results revealed that several discussion approaches produced strong increases in the amount of student talk and concomitant reductions in teacher talk, as well as substantial improvements in text comprehension. Few approaches to discussion were effective at increasing students' literal or inferential comprehension and critical thinking and reasoning. Effects were moderated by study design, the nature of the outcome measure, and student academic ability. While the range of ages of participants in the reviewed studies was large, a majority of studies were conducted with students in 4th through 6th grades. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

We conducted an analysis of the secondary transition qualitative and quantitative research literature to build comprehensive constructs and lists of student nonacademic behaviors associated with post–high school employment and education. From a pool of 83 initial quantitative and qualitative studies, 35 met the inclusion criteria, and the analysis of these yielded 10 constructs of student nonacademic behaviors associated with post-school education and employment for high school students with mild to moderate disabilities. The constructs are presented along with lists of representative behaviors, implications for their use are discussed, and the next steps in building a new transition assessment using these constructs and behaviors are described.

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American high schools have undergone numerous changes and reforms, morphing from a college preparatory program for a select few students to adding workforce preparation skills, and current reform has shifted the educational focus back to academics with added emphasis on testing and accountability. The goal of current reform is to ensure all students are college and career ready; however, the strong academic focus seems to concentrate on college preparation with no evidence of improving student outcomes (Balfanz, 2009). As a response to current reform efforts, more students with disabilities are being educated in the general education setting (Goodman, Hazelkorn, Bucholz, Duffy, & Kitta, 2011).Students with disabilities continue to lag behind their peers in the areas of postsecondary education and employment and are still less likely to enroll in postsecondary education than their same-age non-disabled peers. Of those who do enroll, 38% complete their prospective program versus 51% of the general population (Sanford et al., 2011). Individuals with disabilities also continue to have a lower employment rate than the general population (The National Collaborative on Workforce & Disability for Youth and Workforce Strategy Center, 2009) with 36% of non-institutionalized individuals with disabilities, aged 21 to 64 years, employed in the United States (Erickson, Lee, & von Schrader, 2014).The educational and political shift from a life-skills curriculum to more rigorous academic content standards to prepare all students for college and career should, theoretically, improve the outcomes of all students (Browder, Spooner, Wakeman, Trela, & Baker, 2006). Increased focus on academic outcomes associated with preparing students to be college and career ready has resulted in more students with disabilities placed in the general education setting to gain necessary skills for the transition from high school settings into work or higher education (

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