Teachers’ role and attitudes concerning ADHD medication: A qualitative analysis

The increased use of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) medication by children has led to growing concerns. In a previous study, we found that many of the teachers that were interviewed about ADHD spontaneously associated ADHD with medication. The present study is a qualitative reanalysis of what precisely these 30 primary school teachers had spontaneously said about medication in our previous semi‐structured interviews on ADHD. Almost all respondents had experience with pupils taking ADHD medication. The majority of spontaneously mentions medication as the treatment of ADHD. Attitudes towards ADHD medication use by pupils are mainly ambivalent, but more positive than negative effects of medication are reported. However, what teachers say about ADHD medication is often not based on sound information; their attitudes tend to be formed by personal experiences rather than founded on professional and scientific sources. We conclude from our analysis that it will be in the interest of reducing the number of children on ADHD medication that teachers have good access to verified and up‐to‐date information on ADHD and medication so that they are better supported in making evidence‐based pedagogical judgments.     

School psychologists’ beliefs and practices about treatment integrity in 2008 and 2017

A random sample of 1,000 Nationally Certified School Psychologists were mailed a 17‐item survey about treatment integrity. A total of 132 responded and answered questions about the importance of treatment integrity data for tiered interventions and the frequency and methods used to measure treatment integrity in one‐to‐one and problem‐solving team consultation. Ninety‐eight percent agreed that treatment integrity data were critical for tiered interventions. However, only 7% in one‐to‐one consultation and 0% in team consultation reported it was “always” collected. Respondents identified barriers of time, workload, system factors, and staff knowledge as explanations for why there was a gap between belief and practice. The participant responses were compared to those from a 2008 survey and found to be almost unchanged. Issues associated with decision‐making when treatment integrity data are lacking and recommendations for improving the assessment and reporting of treatment integrity are discussed.     

Opportunities for educational innovations in authentic project-based learning: understanding instructor perceived challenges to design for adoption

Educational technology research and development - Authentic project-based learning (APBL) is a highly effective way for instructors to help students learn disciplinary skills, modes of thinking,...     

Backward design as a mobile application development strategy

Backward design is a well-established design strategy that has been used to produce educational curriculum for decades. While traditionally used to plan and create classroom-based curriculum, in this paper we explore the use of backward design as a design strategy for the development of an educational mobile application, BiblioTech? “CityHacks: In Search of Sleep.” We discuss the process from initial conception to launch and updates, as well as plans for future research.

     

How to Support Toddlers’ Autonomy: Socialization Practices Reported by Parents

Autonomy-supportive parenting is found to foster children’s adjustment but relatively few studies have been conducted with toddlers. In the present exploratory study, parents (N = 182) reported what practices they use when asking their toddlers (M age = 26.9 months) to engage in important yet uninteresting activities. Parents rated twenty-six potentially autonomy-supportive practices, along with a well-known scale measuring the extent to which they have a positive attitude towards autonomy support. Research Findings: Using correlational and factorial analyses, eight practices were identified: various ways to communicate empathy, providing developmentally appropriate rationales, describing the problem in an informational and neutral way, and modeling the requested behavior. This subset of autonomy-supportive practices for toddlers was positively related with toddlers’ rule internalization, providing them with further validity. Practice or Policy: These preliminary findings may be useful in guiding future conceptual, empirical, and applied work on the support of toddlers’ autonomy and its assessment in an emotionally-charged and challenging context.     

Quantifying Qualitative Scholarship: A Fool’s Errand or a Methodological Necessity?

This paper describes our efforts to systematically generate knowledge from ethnographic and other qualitative scholarship as a way of bridging intellectual gaps found in quantitative research. We ground this scholarly endeavor in the study of gangs, which has a lengthy history in the field of criminology, yet lacks a coherent, coordinated, and comparative understanding of gang dynamics, behavior, and impacts. We discuss the importance of acknowledging the multiple and mixed methodologies used in gang scholarship and detail the inductive, deductive, and iterative process that helped us (1) develop a comprehensive coding instrument for coding a range of qualitative works, (2) establish the instrument’s inter-rater reliability, and (3) remain cognizant and reflexive about the strengths of both quantitative and qualitative research. Finally, we share the critical yet informative challenges we faced throughout the project and conclude with reflections on why the project was unsuccessful in the way we originally envisioned.     

“They Were There for People Who Needed Them”: Student Attitudes Toward the Use of Trigger Warnings in Victimology Classrooms

Over the last five years, vigorous debate has been waged about the purpose, use, and impact of trigger warnings in courses offered at institutions of higher education. This debate has been largely uninformed by research findings. This study fills this gap using quantitative and qualitative data collected via surveys in a large undergraduate victimology course to explore student attitudes toward trigger warnings. Findings revealed considerable, but nuanced support for trigger warning use in victimology courses. Support does not appear to differ between crime victims and non-victims; support is higher among females than males. These findings underscore that universal decisions mandating or advocating for or against the use of trigger warnings are premature. Further study is needed with a diverse range of samples to gain a fuller picture of student attitudes about trigger warnings as well as to assess any impact of trigger warnings use on student behavior and learning.     

Fostering Analogical Reasoning Through Creating Robotic Models of Biological Systems

This article considers student analogical reasoning associated with learning practice in creating bio-inspired robots. The study was in the framework of an outreach course for middle school students. Fifty eighth and ninth graders performed inquiries into behavior and locomotion of snakes and designed robotic models using the BIOLOID robot construction kit. We analyzed the interdomain analogies between biological and robotic systems elaborated by the students and evaluated the contribution of the analogies to the integrated learning of biology and robotics. The analogies expressed by the students at different stages of the course were collected and categorized, and their use in knowledge construction was traced. The study indicated that students’ reasoning evolved with learning, towards an increased share of deeper analogies at the end of the course. We found that analogical reasoning helped students to construct knowledge and guided their inquiry and design activities. In the proposed framework, the students learn to inquire into biological systems, generate analogies, and use them for developing and improving robotic systems.