Choosing competency-based,humanistic and self-directed programs: The contribution of personality and reasoning

Fifty-five college women enrolled in competency-based, humanistic or self-directed education programs completed their California Personality Inventory and listed five reasons for selecting their program. CPI results indicated that self-directed students scored lower than other students on the Femininity Scale (p.001). Using Chickering's seven vectors of change as a framework, the study found competency-based students identifying purpose and competence, humanistic students identifying inter-personal relationships and integrity, and self-directed student identifying autonomy and purpose as reasons for enrolling in their nontraditional programs. The study used these results to question the mythology that adherents to different programs are of different personality types and to argue that differences in perceptions of purpose in education distinguish students in the three programs.     

Unequal childhoods: A case study application of Lareau’s ‘accomplishment of natural growth’ in British working-class and poor families

International authors have argued that social class inequalities can influence parental engagement in education. Lareau argued that middle-class families possess the resources to actively cultivate their children to succeed academically, whereas working-class and poor families feel they lack such resources and allow their children to develop limited and passive relations with school. This article applies a core element of Lareau’s typology of child rearing to examine disadvantaged British mothers’ experience of engaging with schools. A study involving 77 parents and caregivers of secondary school children, considered disadvantaged, sought to understand the experiences of parental engagement in primary and secondary education. Selective case studies have been chosen from this larger study, using a thematic analysis, to understand how these mothers interpreted their experiences of engaging with secondary education, their feelings of frustration, powerlessness and distance from secondary school. The stories presented illustrate that the ‘accomplishment of natural growth’ provides a contemporary class analysis framework to interpret the experiences of some disadvantaged British parents. Recommendations are made advising how Lareau’s typology of child rearing can inform policy and practice in the British education system and recommendations for future research are made with the purpose of promoting equal access to educational engagement and opportunities.     

Effects of Spatial Scale on Cognitive Play in Preschool Children

This study examines the effects of a scale-reduced play environment on temporal aspects of play behavior. Specifically, it examines the amount of time required to enter complex forms of play, the length of play segments, and the percentage of total play time spent in complex play under normal environmental conditions (full-size, control) and under scale-reduced environmental conditions (experimental). Eleven subjects (mean age of 4 years 2 months) were observed during unstructured play activity with playdough in a small-n, A-B-A-B design. Subjects served as their own controls and were self-motivated relative to the activity. The play structure (scale-reduced environment) consisted of a screened wooden frame 7' (L) x 5' (W) x 5' (H) over a vinyl floor. Results indicate subjects enter complex forms of play more quickly, engage in play segments of longer duration and tend to spend a slightly greater percentage of their overall play time in complex play under experimental conditions, as hypothesized. This study suggests attention span and information processing may be affected by the scale of the play environment. : -.     

How do primary grade teachers teach handwriting? A national survey

A random sample of primary grade teachers from across the United States was surveyed about their instructional practices in handwriting. Nine out of every ten teachers indicated that they taught handwriting, averaging 70 minutes of instruction per week. Only 12% of teachers, however, indicated that the education courses taken in college adequately prepared them to teach handwriting. Despite this lack of formal preparation, the majority of teachers used a variety of recommended instructional practices for teaching handwriting. The application of such practices, though, was applied unevenly, raising concerns about the quality of handwriting instruction for all children. Preparation of this paper was supported by the Center to Accelerate Student Learning, funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs Grant H324V980001.     

Disconnect: Contradictions and Disagreements in Faculty Perspectives of Information Literacy

Broward College, an early adopter of Guided Pathways, has made efforts to incorporate information literacy throughout the curriculum by embedding librarians in pathways and through General Education learning outcomes. However, although college administrators and faculty acknowledge that the integration of information literacy instruction throughout the curriculum is crucial to student success, librarians have struggled to become true teaching partners. A survey was administered to discipline faculty to determine attitudes, perceptions, and a self-assessment of information literacy. This study includes a nuanced analysis of discipline faculty responses and reveals conflicting attitudes and behaviors related to information literacy instruction.     

Thinking in action: Some insights from cognitive sport psychology

Historically, cognitive researchers have largely ignored the domain of sport in their quest to understand how the mind works. This neglect is due, in part, to the limitations of the information processing paradigm that dominated cognitive psychology in its formative years. With the emergence of the embodiment approach to cognition, however, sport has become a dynamic natural laboratory in which to investigate the relationship between thinking and skilled action. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore some insights into the relationship between thinking and action that have emerged from recent research on exceptional performance states (e.g., ‘flow’ and ‘choking’) in athletes. The paper begins by explaining why cognitive psychologists’ traditional indifference to sport has been replaced by a more enthusiastic attitude in recent years. The next section provides some insights into the relationship between thinking and skilled action that have emerged from research on ‘flow’ (or peak performance) and ‘choking’ (or impaired performance) experiences in athletes. The third section of the paper explores some practical issues that arise when athletes seek to exert conscious control over their thoughts in competitive situations. The final part of the paper considers the implications of research on thinking in action in sport for practical attempts to improve thinking skills in domains such as business organizations and schools.     

Cross-validation of two creativity tests designed for preschool children

Two tests, designed to assess ideational fluency through different response modes, were administered to 24 middle-class preschool children. The Multidimensional Stimulus Fluency Measure (MSFM) requires verbal responses to verbal and visual-tactile stimuli. Thinking Creatively in Action and Movement (TCAM) employs a kinesthetic, nonverbal response mode to verbal and visual-tactile stimuli. Concurrent and construct validity were established for these two instruments. Significant intercorrelations among the subtests of each instrument demonstrated construct validity, and concurrent validity was established with Spearman rank-order correlations between the scores of the two tests, r=.55, p<.01. The results showed construct validity in that ideational fluency assessed via the two instruments was not related to IQ. The low correlations found between subtest D of the TCAM and all of the subtests of the MSFM were discussed with regard to differences in response modality and stimulus specificity.     

A roadmap for offering MOOC from an LMIC institution

MOOCs are massive open online courses that are globally accessible, free of charge. Given their cost-free and open accessibility, it is surprising that only a few institutions have offered MOOCs from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Pakistan recently made this short list of LMICs as the first two MOOCs were launched from the country, in 2014 and 2016. Drawing from that experience, the organizers of that course present a roadmap for LMIC institutions for developing a MOOC, focusing especially on the technological and pedagogical limitations that an LMIC institution might find deterring.