What would make children read for pleasure more frequently?

Regular recreational reading offers benefits across a range of literacy outcomes, as well as supporting learning in other subject areas, offering cognitive benefits, and potentially fostering empathy. Therefore, increasing frequency of engagement in recreational reading can play an important role in addressing inequity in literacy outcomes once independent reading skill has been achieved. While previous studies address how to increase children's engagement in reading for recreation, few allow children's viewpoints to take primacy. The 2016 Western Australian Study in Children's Book Reading collected data from respondents across 24 schools, seeking to determine how educators and parents may best support young people to read with greater frequency. Interview participants from Years 4 and 6 were asked what would make them read more. The five recurring themes of finding engaging books, series adherence, challenge seeking, skill deficit, and time availability indicate optimal avenues for future research and educational intervention to foster increased engagement in reading.     

A successful professional development program in history: What matters?

This study focuses on a successful Professional Development Program for improving students’ understanding of historical time, consisting of a training and the implementation of Timewise, a teaching approach in which timelines were used consistently. The PDP was carried out with 16 elementary school teachers in grades 2 (ages 7-8) and 5 (ages 10-11). Results indicate that the highest student learning gains were reached by teachers who successfully implemented the instructional behavior aimed at, while using educative curriculum materials. The clear structure of Timewise and the user-friendly materials, which included room for autonomy, supported teachers in their learning and teaching.     

What should Educational Institutions be for?

In this article, I respond to the work of Gert Biesta regarding the question of what education should be for. He maintains education ought to be oriented towards the ‘good’ rather than measurement, accountability and efficiency. While sympathetic to such claims, I nonetheless question his avowal that discussion of the purposes of education needs to entail reflection upon tripartite processes of qualification, socialisation and subjectification. I also argue that the concept of subjectification presented by Biesta is elusive. He says educators cannot plan to produce it in students. He also suggests there is an unhelpful surplus of reason in education that constrains possibilities for subjectification. According to Biesta, education partly reproduces ‘rational communities’ that stifle the emergence of human uniqueness and inhibit persons from challenging accepted social orders. In response to this, I argue there is currently a deficit rather than a surplus of reason in education concerning the common good. Following MacIntyre, I claim that educational institutions should support students to learn how to think for themselves and act for the common good. I conclude that such utopian thinking about the purposes of education may be needed, now, more than ever.     

What develops in children's development of altruism?

Abstract

Cognitive-developmental theorists have maintained that children's development of altruism does really mean a movement from centration to decentration. In this paper we make a different claim. Borrowing from the two micromodels Piaget used, in succession, to account for the child's transition from preoperational to operational throught (i.e., a cost-gain model guided by game theory, and an affirmation-negation model based on equilibration theory), we suggest that children's development of altruism represents a movement from centration or cost-perception to compensation or gain-construction. Ninety children from three age levels (30 5-year-olds, 30 7-year-olds, and 30 10-year-olds) were presented with four prosocial dilemmas appealing to sharing, donating, helping, and conforming. Children's cost-perception/gain-construction competence was first assessed and then related to their level of altruism in an opportunity-to-donate situation. Consistent with our cost-perception/gain-construction approach, children became more likely with age to think of prosocial acts in terms of gain than in terms of cost. Positive associations between gain-construction competence and observed altruism were also found. These results strengthen our Piagetian approach to children's development of altruism     

What would make them read more? Insights from Western Australian adolescents

The link between recreational book reading and improved literacy performance is consistently supported by educational research. Increasing engagement in recreational book reading remains imperative for English teachers, though how to best facilitate this in a secondary context is an object of contention, with limited research in this field. The West Australian Study in Adolescent Book Reading explored attitudes and engagement in recreational book reading. Student responses provide valuable insight directly from the target group that can help to shape best practice for adolescent literacy educators. Findings are presented around six key themes, and include strategies for choice, access to attractive and diverse books, time availability, time allocation, concentration and encouragement.     

What about African American older women and depressive symptoms?

ABSTRACT

Depression is a major problem among African American older women; however, they also tend to be understudied as members of a multiple minority and oppressed group. As matriarchs and grandmothers in their families and communities, depression often emerges and becomes a detrimental problem for these older African American women. This study, a secondary data analysis, utilized the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) 2010 database to examine depression among older African American women. This article discusses the joint impact of age, social support, religion, caregiving, and physical health on depression among older community dwelling African American women. Findings indicate that age, physical health, and marital status as an aspect of social support were significant predictors of whether or not an older African American woman had ever had depression and whether or not she felt depressed in the past year. Receiving help from relatives as an aspect of social support also remained significant for participants who were feeling depressed in the past year. Implications for research, theory, and policy are offered.     

Do you read this the way I read this?

Two studies were carried out which investigated students' perceptions of, and reactions to, a tutor's comments on written assignments. The method used was based on the Kelly Construct Repertory Grid technique and is referred to as the Kelly Analysis. Study 1 involved the use of a facilitator who helped the students in carrying out the Kelly Analysis. Study 1 demonstrated that this technique was effective in eliciting both the students' and the tutor's perceptions of the comments, and that an examination of matches and mismatches between the two could be carried out. Study 2 focused on the development of a self-administered Kelly Analysis to remove the need for a facilitator. Students had few problems in using the self-administered Kelly Analysis and, again, an examination of matches and mismatches in perception of comments was feasible and useful. The potential value of open-ended questions in exploring students' perceptions was also investigated. It is suggested that the Kelly Analysis coupled with the use of open-ended questions could provide a valuable tool to tutors and students who wish to explore understanding of comments, and one that might aid in creating more reflective practitioners and students. Two relevant theoretical perspectives are also outlined: schema theory within cognitive psychology, and social constructivist theory especially the role of scaffolding learning.     

What can academic development learn from the health humanities?

The health humanities is a movement seeking to promote engagement with arts and humanities disciplines as a way of helping professionals, patients, informal carers, and members of the public to understand healthcare. Here, I draw parallels between health and learning and suggest a similar approach for academic developers. I indicate the potential scope for the learning arts and humanities, providing examples of existing practice in which the methods and sensibilities of literary studies are shedding light on learning and teaching in higher education.     

What influences transfer of training in an African agricultural research network?

Purpose: This study determined the extent to which transfer of training among trainees from national partners of an international bean research network in Africa was perceived to have taken place; including determining the factors that predicted transfer of training back to the job. Methodology/approach: Online data collection using the Learning Transfer Systems Inventory (LTSI) from 139 respondents was made and analyzed using bivariate correlations and hierarchical multiple regression. Findings: An average of 75% of the training skills were perceived as transferred. ‘Personal capacity’ significantly predicted transfer, while ‘motivation to transfer’, ‘transfer design’, ‘supervisor’, and ‘peer support’ positively correlated with training transfer. Theoretical implications: The LTSI factors remain relevant explanations for training transfer with in African agricultural research and development organizations. Certain work environments are likely to have new factors such as ‘Supervisor and peer’ support which operated as one explanatory factor for training transfer, revealed the closeness of supervisors and peers in agricultural research and development settings. Practical implications: The international agricultural research network needs to consider the trainees’ ability to transfer new training given workload-related hindrances. Originality/value: The applicability of the LTSI for international agencies that conduct training for agricultural research and development in Africa has been tested. Such institutions need policies that enhance trainee capacity to transfer training to the work place.     

What should reading instructional research be the research of?

There have been recent arguments for expanding research on some basic beginning reading skills (i.e, phonemic awareness, word recognition) to the exclusion of other literacy competencies. Moreover, there have also been arguments that certain methodologies should be favored in reading research to the exclusion of others. The case is made in this article that these conceptualizations of reading research are too narrow. Rather, the case made here is that a number of issues in literacy development deserve support, issues that can be addressed well with diverse methodologies.     

Emotional development in adolescence: what can be learned from a high school theater program?

Grounded-theory analyses were used to formulate propositions regarding the processes of adolescent emotional development. Progress in understanding this difficult topic requires close examination of emotional experience in context, and to do this the authors drew on qualitative data collected over the course of a high school theater production. Participants' (ages 14-17) accounts of experiences in this setting demonstrated their capacity to actively extract emotional knowledge and to develop strategies for managing emotions. These accounts suggested that youth's repeated "hot" experience of unfolding emotional episodes in the setting provided material for this active process of learning. Youth also learned by drawing on and internalizing the emotion culture of the setting, which provided concepts, strategies, and tools for managing emotional episodes.     

What do final year engineering students know about sustainable development?

This paper presents data from a project that aims to determine the level of knowledge and understanding of engineering students about sustainable development (SD). The data derive from a survey completed by final year engineering students in three Irish Higher Education Institutions. This paper is part of a larger study that examines the relationship between students’ and teachers’ understanding of SD. The results from the survey show that final year engineering students’ knowledge is deficient. The majority of the participants fail to acknowledge the complexity of the concept and focus on environmental protection. Their knowledge of legislation relevant to SD and the social aspect of sustainability is particularly deficient.     

Missed Opportunities: What can be learnt from EPs’ experiences at SEN tribunals?

This article explores the experiences of eight Educational Psychologists (EPs) in the UK who acted as expert witnesses at Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunals (SENDIST) hearings in the last 12 months on behalf of their employing Local Authority (LA). A thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with all eight EPs indicated two super-ordinate themes related to process and professional role. This included challenges with the quality of instructions, information sharing and a failure of mediation. An overarching theme suggested a sense of dissonance related to EPs’ perceived professional role as co-constructors of solutions, and the demands placed upon them by the adversarial appeals process. This paper explores possible ways in which to refocus the EP role in tribunals in order to support LAs to manage the appeals process more effectively. Furthermore, it is suggested that Educational Psychology Services should consider developing a formal commissioned role with LAs that positions mediation at the heart of EP tribunal work.