Participation Structure Impacts on Parent Engagement in Family Literacy Programs

Intervention programs to improve the educational outcomes of young children have become increasingly popular. Studies suggest that family literacy programs involving parents can result in positive effects on children’s language and literacy development. Issues continue to arise, however, regarding the recruitment and retention of families. One component of program design—participation structure—focuses on who is intended to be the direct or indirect recipient of programming. The relationships between participation structure and the recruitment/retention of families, however, has not been well understood. In this study, parents participated in one of two family literacy program models with varying participation structures—one in which parents attended with their children, the other in which parents attended alone. The purpose of this study was to identify parents’ motivations for participating the program, their expectations of what the program would entail, and their reasons for remaining in the program. Focus groups and written questionnaires were used to gather the data. The findings of the study and implications for practice are discussed.     

Hypothetico-deductive reasoning skill and concept acquisition: Testing a constructivist hypothesis

This study tested the constructivist hypothesis that the acquisition of domain-specific conceptual knowledge (declarative knowledge) requires use of general procedural knowledge. More specifically, it was hypothesized that use of a general pattern of hypothetico-deductive reasoning is necessary for the acquisition of novel domain-specific concepts. To test this hypothesis 314 high school biology and chemistry students were first tested to determine whether or not they were skilled in the use of hypothetico-deductive reasoning. Based on this test, students were classified as reflective, transitional, or intuitive thinkers. All students were then presented with a series of four concept-acquisition tasks. It was predicted that reflective (hypothetico-deductive) thinkers would acquire the concepts while intuitive (empirico-inductive) thinkers would not. Transitional thinkers were expected to be partially successful. These predictions were confirmed as skill in hypothetico-deductive reasoning (developmental level), but not age, was highly correlated with performance on the concept acquisition tasks (X² = 71.14, p < 0.00001). This result was interpreted to be supportive of the constructivist hypothesis.     

Discourses of Employability and Empowerment: Foundation Degrees and ‘Third Way’ discursive repertoires

This paper contextualises the UK Foundation Degree within competing economic and democratic agendas. In tracing the development within these ideological and discursive priorities it analyses how they are textually represented in policy speeches, and in particular in ‘New Labour’ consultation documents. The purpose of this is to critically evaluate New Labour's attempt to offer, through the Foundation Degree, a ‘Third Way’ synthesis of these traditionally competing agendas, facilitating a neat discursive synchronisation of utilitarian and progressive objectives—democratising access to higher education and empowering the individual, while tooling up ‘UK PLC’ (public limited company) to compete in a global economy. The paper, however, sees significant potential, provided by the discourses of the Foundation Degree experience, for further democratisation of higher education. It is argued that this provides opportunities to facilitate diversity and differentiation by involving the further education sector through partnerships with higher education, and providing opportunities to stem and reverse academic drift.     

Using three levels in design of effective teacher-education tasks: The case of promoting conflicts with intuitive understandings in probability

This paper describes a three-level framework (technical, domain, and generic) which enables some generalisability across mathematics topics for effective teacher–education (TE) task design. It argues that TE tasks which encompass these levels increase preservice and inservice teachers’ interest because they transcend the particular mathematical focus and pedagogical activity within the TE tasks and enable translation to classrooms (technical), enhance the success of student learning (domain), and facilitate transfer to other topics (generic). The paper then uses the levels to analyse an effective probability task (based on circular spinners) which involves cognitive conflict between formal and intuitive probability at all three levels, namely, with regard to facilitating non-random results (technical), differences between probabilistic and deterministic mathematics and area and set models (domain), and non-prototypic exemplars and validation in probability experiments (generic). The paper concludes with reference to the power of effective TE tasks in showing how connectivity of mathematics (e.g., fractions and probability) requires similar connectivity in pedagogy.     

Item type and gender differences on the Mental Rotations Test

This study investigated gender differences on the Mental Rotations Test (MRT) as a function of item and response types. Accordingly, 86 male and 109 female undergraduate students completed the MRT without time limits. Responses were coded as reflecting two correct (CC), one correct and one wrong (CW), two wrong (WW), one correct and one blank (CB), one wrong and one blank (WB), or two blank (BB) answers and were analyzed as a function of distractor type (structural or mirror) and occlusion (occluded, non-occluded). The results showed a men advantage on CC, whereas women obtained more BB, CB, and WB outcomes than men did. Gender differences in favor of men were larger for occluded than for non-occluded items on CC. This gender by occlusion interaction was also found for CW and WB. Implications of the results for possible explanation of gender differences on the MRT are discussed.     

Evaluation of a Practice-Development Initiative to Improve Breastfeeding Rates

The benefits of breastfeeding for infant, mother, family, and community are well recognized, and increasing breastfeeding rates is considered an important health-promotion strategy. Improving breastfeeding knowledge and practice among individuals caring for breastfeeding women is considered an important aspect of this strategy. The practice-development initiative described in this article aimed to improve hospital-based breastfeeding rates through the implementation of The Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding. The initiative included the development and implementation of an education program aimed at changing and improving breastfeeding practices. The program was evaluated in three ways: changes in breastfeeding rates at hospital discharge; client preparation for breastfeeding and satisfaction during the postnatal period; and staff knowledge and skills.     

Action learning: developing leaders and supporting change in a healthcare context

This account of practice outlines how action learning was used as the key component of a leadership development initiative for managers in an acute hospital setting. It explains how the initiative was conceived, why action learning was chosen and how action learning principles were incorporated. Insights into the outcomes and considerations for the future are also included.