Childbirth Education and Obstetric Interventions Among Low-Risk Canadian Women: Is There a Connection?

The objective of this study was to examine the associations between attendance at childbirth education classes and maternal characteristics (age, income, educational level, single parent status), maternal psychological states (fear of birth, anxiety), rates of obstetric interventions, and breastfeeding initiation. Between women’s 35th and 39th weeks of gestation, we collected survey data about their childbirth fear, anxiety, attendance at childbirth education classes, choice of health-care provider, and expectations for interventions; we then linked women’s responses (n = 624) to their intrapartum records obtained through Perinatal Services British Columbia. Older, more educated, and nulliparous women were more likely to attend childbirth education classes than younger, less educated, and multiparous women. Attending prenatal education classes was associated with higher rates of vaginal births among women in the study sample. Rates of labor induction and augmentation and use of epidural anesthesia were not significantly associated with attendance at childbirth education classes. Future studies might explore the effect of specialized education programs on rates of interventions during labor and mode of birth.     

School Reform and Restructuring: Does Performance Technology Have a Role?

There is now widespread agreement that America's schools are in serious trouble. However, there is little consensus regarding what should be done about it. The school reforms currently being suggested are the most radical since the elimination of the one room school. School reforms of the 1980s—personnel selection, job redesign, evaluation/ feedback, incentives, instructional technology, and organization rede-sign—are reviewed from a performance technology perspectivee Reasons for their lack of success are discussed, in particular the schools' lack of interest in instructional design and technology. The most likely future reforms, those that involve the organizational redesign of schools, are discussed along with the impact such changes would have on the potential for applying performance technology in the schools. The paper concludes with actions that performance technologists in both business and academic environments can take to encourage the application of their technologies in the schools.     

Full-day kindergarten and student literacy growth: Does a lengthened school day make a difference?

In the context of a quasi-experimental research design, literacy data obtained on students were examined to assess relationships between kindergarten program model (full- vs. half-day) and student literacy outcomes. Application of multilevel modeling techniques to the time series data collected from kindergarteners in economically disadvantaged school contexts in a large southwestern school district revealed that students exposed to a full day of instruction had greater literacy growth than their peers in half-day classrooms. Further examination of the program model results revealed that the relative efficacy of full-day kindergarten tended to be greater in smaller class size environments. These results, if replicated, suggest that full-day kindergarten initiatives targeted toward students from disadvantaged backgrounds may be more successful when implemented in classrooms with relatively small student enrollments. Implications for instructional policy and practice are discussed.     

Externalizing Behavior Problems and Low Academic Achievement: Does a Causal Relation Exist?

Educational Psychology Review - Children’s low academic skills are associated with a variety of behavior problems and maladaptive outcomes throughout childhood and adulthood. Given the...     

Gender and Performance in Mathematical Tasks: Does the Context Make a Difference?

This study investigates how the context of mathematical tasks affects the performance of young children (ages 5–11). Subjects were 523 children from age 5 to 11. Three contexts of mathematical tasks (stereotypically boys’ contexts, stereotypically girls’ contexts and neutral contexts) are examined in three age groups (young, medium, and old). Boys’ and girls’ mean scores were compared for each age group in each of the three contexts. The data show that girls’ performance is affected by the context of the task while boys’ performance is not. The comparison between boys and girls in the three different contexts showed that in neutral contexts, the scores of boys and girls are similar. In (stereotypically) boys’ contexts, however, boys score significantly higher than girls. In (stereotypically) girls’ contexts, a significant interaction is found between age and gender, showing that the way girls are affected by such contexts depends on their age. The implications of these findings for gender-fair mathematics learning are discussed.     

Curriculum of Connection: What Does Sense8 Teach us About Love,Community and Responsibility in Days of Despair?

The TV show Sense8 tells the story of eight strangers from all around the world who realize they are connected to each other in a unique way. While taking their first steps of their quest to understand what bonds them and how they relate to one another, they are challenged by powerful people who want to capture them. Their individual journeys become a collective one, and through practicing a love ethic, they grow individually and collectively—an important lesson that can be taught in our classrooms. This article discusses what a love ethic entails and how it relates to restoring a sense of community within our schools and classrooms as a counteraction to neoliberal ideology and practices that harm our schools and atomize our communities.     

Storytelling and Interactive Media: incorporating digital technology into a degree course in Time‐based Media∗

Digital technology offers new challenges for media education. One approach is to incorporate computers into courses with more established traditions. This paper describes how computers have been incorporated into an undergraduate media production course, which has grown out of an ongoing relationship between art and design and the humanities.

     

Correction to: Externalizing Behavior Problems and Low Academic Achievement: Does a Causal Relation Exist?

Educational Psychology Review -     

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.     

Teachers' Planning Processes: Does ISD Make a Difference?

Do teachers who have a formal educational background in instructional systems design (ISD) differ from those who do not in how they plan and implement instruction? This question guided this pilot study of ten volunteer teachers, five who had formal education in ISD and five who did not. An open and closed item questionnaire was sent to each subject and follow-up interviews were conducted. Teachers were asked about their general planning practices, written planning procedures, mental planning, and how they implement instruction based on their plans. Results indicated that nine of the ten teachers use general ISD skills and processes in planning. Teachers reported that they (a) analyzed learners' needs and abilities, and (b) used objectives to guide the instructional process, specifically for selecting learning activities and evaluation. While there were no major differences between the two groups in their submitted daily plans, the teachers with instructional design backgrounds were more specific in their open-ended responses about the use of instructional design for some aspects of planning (e.g., using hierarchies and taxonomies to sequence instruction), and the importance of consistency among objectives, learning activities, and evaluation. In addition, four of the five ISD teachers believed that knowledge of ISD has improved both their planning processes and their teaching. Because major differences between the two groups were not observed, much of the article focuses on teacher planning processes in general.     

Medicine as a calling among male and female medical students in Israel: Does it make a difference?

This study focused on the perception of medicine as a calling and its associations with medical training satisfaction, career certainty, career satisfaction, career commitment, and well-being among 176 Israeli medical students. Participants replied to an online questionnaire including the Brief Calling Scale (Duffy and Sedlacek in Career Dev Q 59:27–41, 2010) and measures related to medical training, a medical career, and well-being. Calling was positively associated with all outcome measures, and gender moderated these associations, which were stronger for female medical students in comparison with male medical students. The importance of taking these gender differences regarding calling under consideration for career counseling is discussed.     

Girls and Science: Does a core curriculum in primary school give cause for optimism?

The low numbers of students, particularly girls, pursuing science after the age of 16 continues to give cause for concern, despite the inclusion of science as a core subject in the curriculum of primary schools in England and Wales. This article explores the perceptions of primary pupils with regard to science since its introduction as a compulsory component of the curriculum. The findings tend to replicate those of earlier studies, indicating that primary pupils, both girls and boys, view science positively while at primary school and look forward to science at secondary school. However, results show that, within science, girls' and boys' preferences are different. Girls have greater preference for biological topics while boys demonstrate a wider range of interests. Furthermore, the introduction of the National Curriculum appears to have had negligible effect in broadening the interests of girls. It is argued that intervention strategies are needed in order to make all fields of science attractive to girls and that this should begin in the primary phase of education.     

Self-generated questions and reading recall: Does training help?

Several authors have recommended that reading teachers encourage students to ask questions while reading to improve comprehension and recall. This improvement seems to be influenced by the quality of the questions generated, and therefore it has been suggested that poor comprehenders be trained how to construct good questions before using this technique. Trained junior high school students were compared with untrained students on comprehension and recall after both were told to construct questions while reading text passages. Results indicate that training improved the question quality only for those students who had above average pretest free recall scores, although improvements in the question quality were directly related to improvements in reading recall. The implications of these results for teachers and for theories of the development of comprehension strategies are discussed.     

The Media and Educational Testing: In Pursuit of the Truth or in Pursuit of a Good Story?

The measurement community needs to better understand how to interact with the media to effectively disseminate important findings from educational testing efforts. To this end, the current paper will review media coverage of educational testing and related issues and elaborate on areas of concern and opportunities for improved communication between measurement professionals and the media. Common misinterpretations of test results and measurement concepts will be discussed and suggestions for the clearer presentation and explanation of such information will be offered. Also, practical advice and strategies for handling different types of interactions with the media will be provided. The implications of focusing on this topic in the measurement profession and the inherent public value of this focus are highlighted throughout the paper.