Research

A new national survey of high school writing instruction finds it lacking, with 50 percent of teachers reporting they are not prepared to teach students how to write well and rarely assign complex writing tasks. Read More

Urban school districts across the country have shifted back to managing segregated schools following the recent lifting of court-ordered desegregation plans, a new book finds. Read More

A team of synthetic chemists at Vanderbilt University report in the March 18 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society that they have created an efficient way to make a naturally occurring alkaloid that could have anti-cancer properties and may combat memory loss from scratch. Read More

A time could soon come when genetic tests and neurological brain scans are introduced as evidence in criminal trials as readily as DNA evidence is today. Read More

Early data from a project evaluating the first-year impact of New York City's performance pay program, the School-Wide Performance Bonus Program (SPBP), finds no discernable impact on student achievement thus far. However, the report's authors caution that it is too soon to draw any overall conclusions about the program's impact. Read More

K-12 and higher education experts from Vanderbilt University's Peabody College of education and human development will present their latest research April 12-18 in San Diego, Calif., at the American Educational Research Association's annual conference. Read More

As parents and policymakers increasingly worry about the quality of public schools, alternatives such as charter schools, magnet schools and vouchers appear more attractive. But experts wonder: What difference do schools of choice make? Read More

Comparing different ways of solving math problems is a great way to help middle schoolers learn new math concepts, researchers from Vanderbilt and Harvard universities have found. Read More

New research from Vanderbilt University has found students benefit more from being taught the concepts behind math problems rather than the exact procedures to solve the problems. The findings offer teachers new insights on how best to shape math instruction to have the greatest impact on student learning. Read More

Jesse Peterson, assistant professor of mathematics at Vanderbilt University, has won a $50,000 research fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation aimed at encouraging promising young scholars. Read More

Churches with predominantly black congregations are thriving in urban and suburban areas, and the most successful churches employ a variety of sophisticated marketing and programming strategies to draw members, a new study by Vanderbilt University researcher Sandra Barnes finds. The research offers insights into what successful black churches have in common today, when parishioners have more choices and expect more from their churches than they have in the past. Read More

Imagine a platoon of soldiers fighting in a hazardous urban environment who carry personal digital assistants that can display the location of enemy shooters in three dimensions and accurately identify the caliber and type of weapons they are firing. Read More

The keys to fixing the U.S. health care system are to hold people accountable for their actions; treat health insurance like auto insurance and tax individual's health care benefits said Larry Van Horn, a leading expert and researcher on health care management and economics. Read More

While many people associate the word "pork" with lawmakers' wasteful spending for pet projects, new Vanderbilt research demonstrates the importance of cabinet secretaries and their political ideology in the distribution of lucrative federal grants. Read More

Working in a global economy means a lot more than where a business builds or sends its products. Today, a business owner may operate a shipping business in Florida, have the business incorporated in Delaware, maintain the company's assets in an offshore bank account in the Cayman Islands and specify that any legal disputes be litigated in the United Kingdom. And this is all perfectly legal. Read More

New research by Vanderbilt professor of law and economics Joni Hersch found that housework not only reduces the salaries of women, but also affects some men's wages. She also found that women's salaries are negatively impacted by housework regardless of profession. Read More

Ellen H. Fanning, Stevenson Professor of Biological Sciences at Vanderbilt University, has received a 2009 Humboldt Research Award. Read More

New research from Vanderbilt University's Peabody College offers guidance for teachers to help them improve writing instruction in the primary grades and develop stronger student writers. Read More

A team of Vanderbilt scientists have invented the world's smallest version of the periscope and are using it to look at cells and other micro-organisms from several sides at once. Read More

As the Obama administration begins its quest to right the economy through government spending, a counter story of recovery comes from admirers of the Reagan administration. President Reagan's admirers point out that he was also faced with a horrible economy upon his inauguration which, they assert, Reagan cured with deep tax cuts. Read More