Relations between preschool attention span-persistence and age 25 educational outcomes

This study examined relations between children's attention span-persistence in preschool and later school achievement and college completion. Children were drawn from the Colorado Adoption Project using adopted and non-adopted children (N = 430). Results of structural equation modeling indicated that children's age 4 attention span-persistence significantly predicted math and reading achievement at age 21 after controlling for achievement levels at age 7, adopted status, child vocabulary skills, gender, and maternal education level. Relations between attention span-persistence and later achievement were not fully mediated by age 7 achievement levels. Logistic regressions also revealed that age 4 attention span-persistence skills significantly predicted the odds of completing college by age 25. The majority of this relationship was direct and was not significantly mediated by math or reading skills at age 7 or age 21. Specifically, children who were rated one standard deviation higher on attention span-persistence at age 4 had 48.7% greater odds of completing college by age 25. Discussion focuses on the importance of children's early attention span-persistence for later school achievement and educational attainment.     

A longitudinal study of the practice fidelity of a site-based school reform

In this study, four years of formal observations of classroom teaching practice were employed to ascertain the practice fidelity of a site-based school reform in a secondary school setting. Those observations were then used as a criterion variable in an examination of differences in the perspectives of administrators, teachers and teaching peers about the reform’s implementation. The results showed sustained levels of practice fidelity and statistically significant differences in the ratings of administrators, teachers and peers although those differences reduced overall as the reform progressed. The perspective of administrators was the best predictor of classroom practice in the first three years of the reform although less so in the latter year when teacher and peer responses became better predictors. The implications of the findings are discussed as they relate to the practice fidelity and evaluation of site-based school reform.     

Public Deliberation and Governance: Engaging with Science and Technology in Contemporary Europe

Whilst public engagement in decisions concerning science and technology is widely extolled, research shows that the application of deliberative democratic theory remains – at least in Europe – highly constrained. Science and technology policy requires closer attention to the wider context of governance and the compatibility of public deliberation with established modes of policy-making.