Further Progress Towards a Standardised Curriculum-based Measure of Reading: Calibrating a new passage reading test against the New South Wales Basic Skills Test

Results are presented from a pilot study and a larger scale study aligning a curriculum-based passage reading test, the Wheldall Assessment of Reading Passages (WARP), with the literacy components of the New South Wales Basic Skills Test (BST). A strong relationship between the WARP and BST Literacy is demonstrated, particularly for Year Three students. Representative (approximate) norms for students in Years One to Five on the WARP are reported, based on the results from a school with a BST literacy profile that is very similar to that for the state of New South Wales as a whole.     

A Two-State Study of Family Child Care Engagement in Quality Rating and Improvement Systems: A Mixed-Methods Analysis

ABSTRACT

Research Findings. The current study is a mixed-methods investigation of family child care provider participation in voluntary Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) in 2 states. Study 1 is an analysis of matched QRIS and child care licensing administrative data extracted from both states in May, 2014. Poverty and population density variables were added to the dataset by aligning U.S. Census data and Rural Urban Commuting Area codes (RUCA) to the matched state child care data. Participation patterns differed in the 2 states relative to provider characteristics (subsidy receipt, years licensed, and location). Study 2 consists of focus groups with participating (n = 22) and non-participating (n = 19) providers. Professionalism and financial incentives emerged as significant in attracting family child care providers to QRIS. Although family child care providers identified several clear benefits to QRIS, many more challenges emerged that negatively impact their participation. Practice or Policy. As most states are employing a QRIS framework to integrate quality improvement efforts, perspectives from this sector of early care and education are often overlooked. Study findings suggest that QRIS can be more responsive and effective with family child care providers if more consideration of their unique features are considered in systems design and implementation.     

Professional storytelling in clinical dental anatomy teaching

The aim of the present work was to see if storytelling in a clinical dental anatomy course would increase student satisfaction. We enhanced teaching by spontaneous storytelling in problem‐based learning, in half of the third‐year dentistry class. At the end of the course, we administered an anonymous questionnaire to the students in the class, consisting of 12 questions that students had to answer on a Likert scale of 1–5. An overall satisfaction score was obtained and we used a linear mixed model to compare differences in satisfaction between the two groups, with “group” as the fixed effect. We also conducted an exploratory factor analysis of the responses to investigate whether there were distinct constructs within the data. Overall satisfaction is high, with students “with stories” having higher satisfaction than those “without stories.” The former group consistently gives higher satisfaction scores, regardless of which question is being asked. Factor analysis provides evidence that storytelling nurtures reflective learning, while students work on their clinical anatomy problems. Anat Sci Ed 1:84–89, 2008. © 2008 American Association of Anatomists.     

The activation,appropriation and practices of student-equity policy in Australian higher education

Current national reforms in Australian higher education have prioritised efforts to reduce educational disadvantage within a vernacular expression of neoliberal education policy. Student-equity policy in universities is enmeshed in a set of competitive student recruitment relations. This raises practice-based tensions as universities strive to meet specific institutional targets for low-socio-economic status (SES) and Indigenous student participation, whilst broadening participation more generally within the sector. This paper seeks empirically to trace the activation and appropriation of federal policy through two sites of higher education policy practices: a state government-sponsored equity practitioner body and two differently positioned universities, Dawson and McIllwraith, as they engage with low-SES schools. Working together Dorothy Smith’s insights into the textually mediated activation of local practices, Levinson and colleagues’ concept of the local appropriation of authorised policy, and Bourdieu’s notion of the contested field, we demonstrate that the generation of state level and institutionally specific policies for student-equity practices not only articulates to federal policy, but also appropriates the ruling relations of mandated policy. Further, the scope of these creative local appropriations is organised within a hierarchical academic field through which particular institutional imperatives, as well as the needs of low-SES students, are negotiated. The analysis demonstrates the vernacularisation of policy in the national rearticulation of global discourses, in appropriation at the level of the state body and in the practices of equity workers.     

1990 editor's annual report

A variety of viewing measures were constructed to tap the ways people moved through an evening of television viewing, with particular focus on transitions between programs and channels. Based on these behaviors, five different styles of viewing were identified in a sample of adolescents. Of these, only one appeared to correspond to stereotypes of viewers as exercising little choice and just watching what was available. The viewing behaviors of the other four groups all indicate different ways of being active viewers.     

Capturing Citation Activity in Three Health Sciences Departments: A Comparison Study of Scopus and Web of Science

Scopus and Web of Science are the two major citation databases that collect and disseminate bibliometric statistics about research articles, journals, institutions, and individual authors. Liaison librarians are now regularly called upon to utilize these databases to assist faculty in finding citation activity on their published works for tenure and promotion, grant applications, and more. But questions about the accuracy, scope, and coverage of these tools deserve closer scrutiny. Discrepancies in citation capture led to a systematic study on how Scopus and Web of Science compared in a real-life situation encountered by liaisons: comparing three different disciplines at a medical school and nursing program. How many articles would each database retrieve for each faculty member using the author-searching tools provided? How many cited references for each faculty member would each tool generate? Results demonstrated troubling differences in publication and citation activity capture between Scopus and Web of Science. Implications for librarians are discussed.