Component skills affecting elementary students’ informational text comprehension

This study was conducted to examine the factors that influence informational text comprehension and to determine how these vary for students with higher and lower component skills. The sample included 177 students in grades 3–5. Regression analyses were used to predict informational text comprehension with decoding efficiency, vocabulary knowledge, prior knowledge, and intrinsic motivation. This model, that also included age and grade as control variables, explained 62.5 % of the variance in informational text comprehension. Each component skill explained unique variance, and vocabulary knowledge accounted for the largest portion. Next, we examined whether the factors contributed differently to informational text comprehension for students with higher and lower component skills. Overall, the regressions were better predictors for students with higher than those with lower component skills. For students with lower component skills, motivation and vocabulary were consistent predictors, whereas vocabulary and decoding efficiency were consistent predictors for students with higher component skills. The findings indicate multiple factors are important for informational text comprehension, particularly vocabulary, and research should examine this topic for different types of readers.     

Does money matter for schools?

There is considerable disagreement in the academic literature about whether raising school expenditure improves educational outcomes. Yet changing the level of resources is one of the key policy levers open to governments. In England, school expenditure has increased by about 40% since 2000. Thus assessing whether such spending has had an impact on educational outcomes is of paramount importance. We address this issue using data of better quality than what are often available in similar studies and test our identification assumption by use of a falsification test. We find that the increase in school expenditure over recent years has had a consistently positive effect on outcomes at the end of primary school. Back-of-envelope calculations suggest that the investment may well be cost-effective. There is also some evidence of heterogeneity in the effect of expenditure, with higher effects for students who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.     

Does entrepreneurship education matter? Business students’ perspectives

The paper presents the findings of a mixed-methods study investigating the perceptions of business students in the Czech Republic towards entrepreneurship education, and examining the factors influencing their level of intention to be entrepreneurs. The results indicate that family background significantly influences the student’s entrepreneurial intention, and that participation in entrepreneurship-oriented courses positively influences the student’s level of self-efficacy. The study revealed further that business education had some effect on the student’s ability to gain the necessary knowledge for entrepreneurship. Another key finding was that entrepreneurship education specifically for business students has to equip students with entrepreneurial skills, attributes and behaviours. The results also suggest that entrepreneurship education is a contextually determined concept which requires modification of content and methods to meet the specific needs of particular target groups. The study has important implications for higher education institutions in terms of designing and managing effective entrepreneurship education.     

Computer-assisted elementary Chinese learning for American students

Despite hopes and claims about benefits of computer-assisted language learning, few studies have documented actual cases about how American students learn elementary Chinese in a computer-equipped classroom. This paper deals with how to use computer as an educational tool to＇ develop American students＇ Chinese language skills. The theoretical perspective is Interaction Theory; the three types of which, Negotiation of meaning, obtaining modified input and attending to linguistic form, offer the guidance in Computer-assisted learning. By means of observations, this study tries to answer three questions： （1） What is the best way to make use of computers？ （2） How can teachers initiate the students to apply computers？ （3） What＇s the relationship between the teacher and the students in a computer-equipped classroom？     

One year of preschool intervention or two: Does it matter?

This study investigated the effects of the federally funded Child Parent Center preschool program on several cognitive and social outcomes through sixth grade. Seven hundred fifty-seven low-income Black children in the inner city enrolled in 1 or 2 years of a Head Start-type program at age 3 or 4. One hundred thirty Black children from similar neighborhoods entered the centers in kindergarten and served as a no-preschool comparison group. Results indicated that while 2-year participants began and ended kindergarten more academically competent than 1-year participants, through the elementary grades these children did not significantly or meaningfully differ from one another in reading comprehension, mathematics achievement, teacher ratings of social adjustment, rates of grade retention and special education placement, and teacher-rated parental school involvement. The overall effect size for Grades 1 to 6 was .15 standard deviations and values consistently favored the 2-year group. Both 1- and 2-year preschool participants were consistently and significantly better adjusted than no-preschool participants. The mean effect size of 1 or 2 years of preschool participation from Grades 1 to 6 across all outcomes was .34 standard deviations. Given limited enrollment and funding, findings lend support to enrolling as many children as possible in 1 year of quality Head Start-type programs. If the level of funding is not a major consideration or if the main criterion of success is school readiness at kindergarten entry, 2 years is preferable to 1 year.     

Expository text comprehension in secondary school: for which readers does knowledge of connectives contribute the most?

The present study examined whether knowledge of connectives contributes uniquely to expository text comprehension above and beyond reading fluency, general vocabulary knowledge and metacognitive knowledge. Furthermore, it was examined whether this contribution differs for readers with different language backgrounds or readers who vary in reading fluency, general vocabulary knowledge or metacognitive knowledge levels. Multilevel regression analyses revealed that knowledge of connectives explained individual differences in eighth graders' text comprehension (n = 171) on top of the variance accounted for by the control variables. Moreover, the contribution of knowledge of connectives to text comprehension depended on a reader's level of metacognitive knowledge: more metacognitive knowledge resulted in a larger association between knowledge of connectives and text comprehension. Reading fluency, vocabulary knowledge and language background did not interact with knowledge of connectives. Findings are interpreted in the context of the strategic use of connectives during expository text reading.

What is already known about this topic?

• Connectives (words such as moreover, because and although) help the reader in establishing coherence between text parts.
• In primary school, for fifth graders, knowledge of connectives has been shown to be uniquely related to English text comprehension controlling for reading fluency and general vocabulary knowledge.
• For fifth graders, the relationship between knowledge of connectives and English text comprehension was higher for English‐only students than for their peers who learned English as a second language.

What this paper adds:

• The present study found that knowledge of connectives also has a unique relation with Dutch expository text comprehension for eighth graders above and beyond reading fluency, general vocabulary knowledge and metacognitive knowledge (about text structure and reading and writing strategies).
• The relationship between knowledge of connectives and text comprehension was not moderated by reading fluency, general vocabulary knowledge and language background (monolingual versus bilingual Dutch).
• Metacognitive knowledge did impact the relationship between knowledge of connectives and text comprehension: the higher the metacognitive knowledge, the higher the association between knowledge of connectives and text comprehension.

Implications for theory, policy or practice

• Secondary school readers are assumed to benefit from knowing connectives because these words are frequent in expository texts and signal relationships that students may often not infer without the help of these devices (i.e., with the use of background knowledge). This seems to apply in particular for expository texts that are intended to convey new information and relationships to students (see also Singer & O'Connell, 2003 ).
• We found a significant interaction between knowledge of connectives and metacognitive knowledge, which seems to indicate that knowing more connectives does not help much in improving expository text comprehension when metacognitive knowledge about text structure and reading strategies is low. This result suggests that it may be wise to couple instruction on the meaning of connectives with instruction about the structure of expository texts and ways to strategically deal with these texts.
• More specifically, besides instruction on the meaning of connectives, we advise teachers in secondary school to get students to understand the importance of connectives as markers of local and global coherence in texts, and to teach them how to strategically use connectives during reading.

     

Benefits for coteachers of students with disabilities: Do contextual factors matter?

Drawing on Bandura’s social learning and social cognitive theory, we empirically investigate contextual factors that may influence perceived benefits of coteaching for teachers. Special and general education coteachers have reported that necessary contextual factors for them to be effective include: sufficient coplanning time, relationship quality, and parity. In this study, 147 special and general education coteachers from suburban and rural schools across the United States responded to the Co‐teacher Questionnaire to determine what contributes to their perceived benefits of coteaching students with disabilities. Hierarchical linear regression analyses indicated that coplanning ( β = 0.22; p ≤ 0.01) and relationship quality ( β = 0.30; p ≤ 0.01) positively influenced the coteachers’ perceived benefits of coteaching (Cohen’s f ² = 0.47), whereas parity was not corroborated to have a significant impact. These not previously empirically studied relationships inform the field by clarifying the importance of the contextual factors for coteachers. Implications for the practitioners and researchers are offered.     

Does the design of learning outcomes matter from students’ perspective?

Learning outcomes have gained more attention in the development of higher education course unit programmes. This study sought to understand how the design of learning outcomes relates to students’ perceptions of their motivation, satisfaction, engagement and achievement of the learning outcomes. The learning outcomes from 78 course units were coded to reflect the level of cognitive demand according to Bloom’s Taxonomy and the attended students (n = 1329) were surveyed regarding their perceptions of their achievement of the learning outcomes. The results indicated that the lowest four levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy were most commonly used in the design of learning outcomes, the highest level was not used at all. The levels of learning outcomes related to students’ perceptions of their achievement of learning outcomes, motivation, satisfaction and engagement. The results demonstrated that students were more likely motivated, satisfied, engaged to achieving learning outcomes, which were designed at higher levels of cognitive demand.     

Self-determination for students with learning disabilities: Is it a universal value?

Teaching students with learning disabilities to be self-determining during postsecondary transition planning is considered beneficial for students. Few self-determination studies, however, have focused on the impact students' cultural identities may have on the practice of self-determination during transition planning. A review of self-determination literature is presented and includes concept definition, characteristics, and example components of model programs. Additionally, multicultural special education literature helps frame the need to consider the interplay between programs that promote self-determination and culturally and linguistically diverse learners. Qualitative research methods, used with student participants, have the potential to inform preferred practices as well as research gaps in special education by capturing how diverse students respond to self-determination during postsecondary transition planning.     

Does educational development matter?

This essay provides reflections on the growth and influence of educational development, and the changes in approaches to teaching in universities. It also identifies some areas in which educational development and developers face challenges for the future, including educational technology, leadership and resistance to change.     

Does it matter how Molly does it? Person-presentation of strategies and transfer in mathematics

Educational materials often present general concepts or strategies via specific people. Although this practice may enhance interest, it may also have costs for learning and transfer. Linking a strategy to a person (e.g., “Molly’s strategy”) could result in narrower transfer because students infer that the strategy is specific to the person, rather than a general strategy they should adopt. The present study tested this hypothesis among middle school students (N = 191) who learned a novel strategy for solving a mathematics story problem. For some students, the strategy example was presented via a specific person, and for others it was not. Students then solved posttest problems and rated the generality of the strategy. Students who saw the example without the person were more likely to transfer the strategy to new problems, and this effect was mediated by students’ perceptions of the strategy’s generality. Thus, associating information with a person substantially limits the extent to which students transfer their knowledge.     

Learning a third language: what learner strategies do bilingual students bring?

This article seeks to develop the research agenda of multilingualism and multicompetence by bringing together three research fields and their related methodologies: bilingualism, third language acquisition and language learner strategies. After a brief introduction to each area, it describes a study to explore whether bilingual adolescent students learning French in two London schools outperform their monolingual peers in reading and listening comprehension. The significant difference in bilinguals students’ listening comprehension test scores leads to in-depth analysis of qualitative data of three case study students in order to identify the differential features involved in the interaction of the languages. It appears that their greater use of oral/aural strategies is developed through the home environment; code-switching in the parental input fostering the development of the strategies. The article concludes with implications for pedagogy and for research.     

Electronic scoring of essays: Does topic matter?

The scoring of student essays by computer has generated much debate and subsequent research. The majority of the research thus far has focused on validating the automated scoring tools by comparing the electronic scores to human scores of writing or other measures of writing skills, and exploring the predictive validity of the automated scores. However, very little research has investigated possible effects of the essay prompts. This study endeavoured to do so by exploring test scores for three different prompts for the ACCUPLACER^® WritePlacer^® Plus test which is scored by the IntelliMetric^® automated scoring system. The results indicated that there was no significant difference among the prompts overall; among males, between males and females, by native language or in comparison to scores generated by human raters. However, there was a significant difference in mean scores by topic for females.     

Enhancing arithmetic in pre-schoolers with comparison or number line estimation training: Does it matter?

Children's intuitive understanding of number, i.e. number sense, is associated with individual differences in mathematics achievement. To investigate the causal association between number sense, traditionally assessed with comparison or number line estimation tasks, and mathematics achievement, often assessed with an arithmetic test, an intervention study was conducted that aimed at training either comparison or number line estimation skills. We contrasted a comparison and number line estimation training. By doing so, we wanted to address the question which intervention had the largest effect on arithmetic. In addition, such a direct comparison between comparison and number line estimation trainings would allow us to get more insight in the association between both tasks. Participants were 151 five-year-olds that were randomly allocated to either an experimental condition (i.e. comparison or number line estimation) or one of the two control conditions (i.e., active control condition and empty control condition) in a pretest-posttest design measuring number knowledge, (non-)symbolic comparison and number line estimation and arithmetic. The results showed that both comparison and number line estimation trainings had a positive effect on arithmetic. However, the absence of transfer effects from one task to another, also suggested that comparison and number line estimation rely on different mechanisms and probably influence arithmetic through different mechanisms.     

Socialization of new teachers: Does induction matter?

The present paper focuses on new teachers’ satisfaction with their first year of teaching from the perspective of socialization. The relationship between satisfaction with socialization and teacher background, school environment, placement, and induction variables was examined. Data were collected from 243 Israeli beginning teachers by means of questionnaire. Results indicated that satisfaction during the induction year was moderately high. Hierarchical regression analysis showed five significant predictor variables: ecological support from mentor, help from the principal, assistance from other colleagues, workload, and having already completed teaching training. Support from mentors and school colleagues had the greatest impact on new teachers’ assimilation.     

Maltreatment type and behaviors: Does listening matter?

This article presents an exploratory assessment of whether children's perceptions of caseworker support (e.g. feeling listened to) moderates the relationship between the type of maltreatment and problematic behaviors. Relying on data collected for the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW I), this research measures how often children felt listened to by their caseworkers and the effect on the relationship between two types of maltreatment (e.g. physical abuse and neglect) and problematic child behaviors. Results indicate that whereas children reported feeling listened to most of the time, there are significant differences in the probabilities of problematic behavior scores between physically abused and neglected children according to how often they felt listened to. With the exception of those children who felt listened to all of the time, physically abused children have a higher probability of problematic behaviors than neglected children. Comparisons between the two maltreatment types indicate a greater impact of listening on physically abused children across the continuum of feeling listened to (e.g. never to all of the time), than for neglected children, except for at the highest level of listening, as results indicate a small, but significant difference indicating neglected children are more positively impacted by listening than physically abused kids. Implications for practice are that children's perceptions of support from caseworkers may influence behavioral outcomes differently according to maltreatment type. Additionally, these findings encourage the inclusion of children's perspectives regarding the relationships they have with caseworkers.     

Elementary school students’ strategic learning: does task-type matter?

This study investigated what types of learning patterns and strategies elementary school students use to carry out ill- and- well-structured tasks. Specifically, it was investigated which and when learning patterns actually emerge with respect to students’ task solutions. The present study uses computer log file traces to investigate how conditions of task types that might affect strategic learning. Elementary school students (N = 12) participated in two science study lessons. During these lessons the students were asked to solve well- and ill-structured tasks. For both of these tasks, the students used the gStudy learning environment designed to support strategic learning. In addition, gStudy records traces of each student’s strategic actions as they proceed with tasks. First, the students’ task solutions was rated according to three categories, namely “on track”, “off track” and “partial solution”. Second, learning patterns in terms of learning strategies that emerged throughout these tasks were investigated. Third, detailed cross case analysis was used to explore in depth how and when these learning patterns were used with respect to the students’ task solutions. The results show that young students’ can provide in-depth task solutions, but also adapt to the task complexity. However, despite the task types being different, the students had same types of learning patterns. The detailed cross-case comparison of the students’ task solutions with respect to learning patterns indicates that there are intra individual differences concerning how students allocate their learning strategy use. Especially if the task is ill-structured, it can also mislead the students to focus on irrelevant aspects and hinder strategic learning.