Parental involvement in schooling, classroom environment and student outcomes

We investigated relationships between students’ perceptions of parental involvement in schooling, their Spanish classroom environment and student outcomes (attitudes and achievement). Modified Spanish versions of the What Is Happening In this Class?, Test of Spanish-Related Attitudes-L₁, a parental involvement questionnaire and a Spanish achievement test were administered to 223 Hispanic Grade 4–6 students in South Florida. The factor structure and internal consistency reliability of the questionnaires was supported. Strong associations were found for parental involvement with students’ learning environment perceptions and student outcomes, and for Spanish classroom environment with student outcomes. When the unique and common variances in student outcomes explained by the classroom environment and the home environment were examined, the home environment was more influential than the classroom environment in terms of students’ attitudes, but the classroom environment was more influential than the home environment in terms of achievement.     

Social involvement and development as a response to the campus student culture

Given the widely accepted notion of whole person education in Confucian societies such as Hong Kong, Mainland China and Singapore, it is surprising that research literature originated in these societies pays little attention to how students learn and develop through out-of-class experiences at university. There is little research evidence on how the prevailing culture among student social communities (residential halls and student societies/clubs) influences students’ social involvement and development. This paper examines 42 Chinese students’ social experiences and development during their freshman year at a Hong Kong university. The majority of them were intensively involved in out-of-class activities. Their active social involvement was both a response to the culture of student communities and a conscious choice about social experiences at university. As a result, the students attained development in four dimensions: (1) the social competences of interpersonal and collaboration skills and new friendships; (2) the practical competences of time management, organisation, negotiation, decision making and leadership; (3) the intellectual competences of open-mindedness and independent judgment; and (4) the personal competences of self- responsibility and self-confidence. Educational implications are discussed towards the end of the paper on supporting and advising students regarding social involvement, particularly during the first year of university.     

Biological nonoptimality and quality of postnatal environment as codeterminants of intellectual development

The relation of nonoptimal condition at birth to the intellectual development of children reared in 2 different environments was investigated in a 4 1/2-year longitudinal experiment. Subjects were 80 disadvantaged children, half of whom were randomly assigned at birth to a day-care program designed to prevent mild mental retardation and half to an educationally untreated control group. All subjects for this report were full-term and weighed over 2,500 grams at birth; condition at birth was considered nonoptimal if the 1-min Apgar score was less than or equal to 8. Results indicated that nonoptimal perinatal status had significant adverse effects on 4 1/2-year scores on the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities in the control group (p less than .01); however, test scores of children with optimal or nonoptimal Apgars did not differ within the group that received educational treatment. The results provide support for a framework stressing initial biological vulnerability and subsequent environmental insufficiency as cumulative risk factors in the development of children from low SES families.     

School built environment,gender, and student achievement in Pakistan

We investigate the relationship between school built environment factors including available water, toilet facilities, and electricity access, and Pakistani students’ achievement. Data from a representative sample of 72,843 students attending 5296 schools are analyzed using multilevel modeling. The findings suggest that ceteris paribus, built environment factors have statistically significant effects on achievement. The effects of several of these factors are moderated by student gender such that female students’ achievement is more likely to be affected by the of lack of water and sanitation facilities while male students’ achievement is more likely to be affected by access to electricity. Implications of the findings regarding built environmental effects on educational achievement are discussed.     

Teaching for developmental growth: learning partnerships and student development in graduate education in China

Teaching and learning in higher education can integrate and accomplish student developmental goals in addition to promoting student learning of subject matter knowledge and transferrable skills. Drawn from the theoretical concept of self-authorship, the Learning Partnerships Model was implemented in teaching a graduate-level course on social research methodology. This paper describes the conceptualization and implementation of the developmentally attuned course, and reports a qualitative study that examined student development as its result. Qualitative data were collected from five cohorts of course participants, in the forms of reflective essays, student interviews, and the instructor’s teaching journal. Seven themes were identified that reflected student development throughout the course. The seven themes fall into three dimensions of epistemological, intrapersonal, and interpersonal development that are interconnected, and the epistemological dimension stands out as a strong partner among the three. These findings may help university faculty understand and integrate student development into their teaching practices.     

Relationships among gender,age, and intellectual development

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among gender, age, and intellectual development. Random samples of 70 females and 70 males were selected with each sex group equally divided into a low-age and a high-age group. The low-age group ranged in age from 16.25 years to 16.75 years and the high-age group from 16.76 years to 17.25 years. The Piaget tasks selected to measure cognitive development were: Conservation of Volume, Separation of Variables, and Equilibrium in the Balance and Combination of Colorless Chemical Liquids. Data from this research produced these findings: (1) males demonstrate a higher level of intellectual development than females, (2) males mature intellectually earlier than females, (3) the value of the conservation of volume task as a component of a battery of formal tasks depends upon whether the decisions are to be made on the basis of the total-task results or on individual task performance, and (4) there appear to be factors other than age and gender that are related to the development of formal operational reasoning. These investigators hypothesize that experiences is another important factor.     

A student with mild intellectual disability and two-step equations

The authors of this study conducted an exploratory study of the teaching and learning processes of a tutor and a student with a mild intellectual disability (MID) while working on two-step equations. The researchers focused on situations in which the participant was likely to struggle with memory and processing as well as the challenges of the mathematics tasks with which he was presented. The student benefitted from his own use of strategically organised work on pencil and paper as well as the teacher's use of gestures and strategically asked questions designed to promote his progress, yet not interfere with his critical thinking. While the student did experience some challenges, this study demonstrated a case in which a student with a MID solved and discussed two-step equations successfully.     

Enhancing student outcomes through mentoring, peer counselling and parental involvement

The government of Ghana has designed various initiatives to achieve the Millennium Development Goals on education and the Education for All goals. Despite these initiatives, student outcomes continue to be poorer than desired. Although access to education has improved, student dropout remains a problem and student scores on achievement tests remain low, along with their rates of progression to higher grades. The authors propose a program of mentoring, peer counseling, and parent involvement for children from first through ninth grade. They believe this program is essential to sustain the government’s initiatives on education, and has the potential to achieve the educational outcomes that Ghana and many developing countries require to meet the goals of the EFA agenda.     

Parental involvement on student academic achievement: A meta-analysis

This paper is a quantitative synthesis of research into parental involvement and academic achievement through a meta-analysis of 37 studies in kindergarten, primary and secondary schools carried out between 2000 and 2013. Effect size estimations were obtained by transforming Fisher's correlation coefficient. An analysis has also been conducted of the heterogeneity of the magnitudes grouped according to different moderator variables, and a study of the publication bias affecting meta-analytical studies. The results show that the parental models most linked to high achievement are those focusing on general supervision of the children's learning activities. The strongest associations are found when the families have high academic expectations for their children, develop and maintain communication with them about school activities, and help them to develop reading habits.     

Science identity development: how multimodal composition mediates student role-taking as scientist in a media-rich learning environment

Educational technology research and development - Science identity has been widely discussed in recent years; however, research on its development in multimodal composing environments, especially...     

Teacher questioning in an open-inquiry learning environment: Interactions of context,content, and student responses

This article describes a case study of an expert teacher's questioning strategies during an open-inquiry engineering curriculum in a Grade 4/5 classroom. The data sources collected over a 13-week period included videotaped whole-class and small-group teacher-student interactions, debriefing meetings after each lesson, interviews with observing elementary teachers, and stimulated recall sessions with both teachers present in the class. A holistic, sociolinguistic framework was used to analyze the transcribed videotapes. The analysis provides evidence for the complexity of questioning that is characterized by the interactions of context and content of, and response and reactions to questions. The teacher's competence in questioning was related to her discursive competence in the subject-matter domain; but question content was always mediated by the contingencies of discourse context and response and reaction patterns. The study also provides evidence that questioning is a complex practice which cannot be appropriated easily, a finding which implies a fundamental change in the professional preparation and development of science teachers. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Pupil involvement in planning topics using KWL grids: opinions of teachers,student teachers and pupils

Pupil involvement in planning is one way in which teachers listen to the “pupil voice”. This paper focuses on pupil involvement in planning class topics using KWL grids. The opinions of teachers, teacher education students and primary school pupils in Northern Ireland were sought on this using questionnaires and interviews. The vast majority of teachers and student teachers responded positively, many commenting that the pupils had reacted favourably, enthusiastically or with enjoyment, and that they seemed to be more motivated, responsive and interested in topics in which they had some “ownership”. Negative opinions expressed by teachers included arguments about difficulties in incorporating pupil ideas into their planning as well as practical concerns about using a KWL grid with younger or less able pupils. More fundamental were fears about loss of teacher control, teacher authority being undermined, and “interference” in teacher planning. One of the outcomes of the study is a list of recommendations for good practice when using KWL grids.     

Experienced emotions,emotion regulation and student activity in a web-based learning environment

We examined what events cause emotional reactions when students use a web-based learning environment (WBLE) in their studies, and how the emotions experienced while using the WBLE, emotion regulation strategies and computer self-efficacy are related to collaborative activities in the environment. Lability of emotional reactions and their regulation in advance directed and maintained effective collaborative activities in the web-based learning environment. Further, students experienced a wide range of emotions while using the WBLE and especially the nature of interaction during the activities was important antecedent of the affective reactions. This result underlines that although the presence of technology is very obvious in web-based learning environments, it is not, however, prevailing antecedent of the affective reactions experienced while using such learning environments.     

College students' ratings of student effort,student ability and teacher input as correlates of student performance on multiple-choice exams

In the class session following feedback regarding their scores on multiple-choice exams, undergraduate students in a large human development course rated the strength of possible contributors to their exam performance. Students rated items related to their personal effort in preparing for the exam (identified as student effort in the paper), their ability to perform well on the exams (identified as student ability), and teacher input that might have affected their exam performance. Students rated most student effort items higher than teacher input and student ability items. Notwithstanding, across all exams, ratings of student ability and teacher input correlated more strongly with exam performance than did student effort ratings. High and low performers on the exams differed significantly on ratings of student ability and teacher input, but were more similar on ratings of student effort.     

Learning to learn: Research and development in student learning

This paper is concerned with systematic attempts to help students to learn more effectively. Current approaches to learning-to-learn, chiefly in Britain and involving groups rather than individuals, are reviewed against the background of recent research findings on student learning. Four issues are identified and discussed: contrasting conceptions of learning-to-learn; responses to the problems posed by subject and contextual varations in learning demands; the implications of autonomy, change and the individual learner; and the relationship between research on learning and the development of approaches to learning-to-learn.