Students’ motivation and engagement in higher education: the importance of attitude to online learning

Higher Education - The emergence of online environments has changed the landscape of educational learning. Some students thrive in this learning environment, but others become amotivated and...     

Constructing a system of covariational relationships: two contrasting cases

Educational Studies in Mathematics - Although there is much research exploring students’ covariational reasoning, there is less research exploring the ways students can leverage such...     

Teachers’ Incorporation of Epistemic Practices in K-8 Engineering and Their Views About the Nature of Engineering Knowledge

Science & Education - The paper reports about a study that examines changes in teachers’ incorporation of epistemic practices in their design of engineering lessons and compares them to...     

Digital Module 13: Monte Carlo Simulation Studies in Item Response Theory

In this digital ITEMS module, Dr. Brian Leventhal and Dr. Allison Ames provide an overview of Monte Carlo simulation studies (MCSS) in item response theory (IRT). MCSS are utilized for a variety of reasons, one of the most compelling being that they can be used when analytic solutions are impractical or nonexistent because they allow researchers to specify and manipulate an array of parameter values and experimental conditions (e.g., sample size, test length, and test characteristics). Dr. Leventhal and Dr. Ames review the conceptual foundation of MCSS in IRT and walk through the processes of simulating total scores as well as item responses using the two-parameter logistic, graded response, and bifactor models. They provide guidance for how to implement MCSS using other item response models and best practices for efficient syntax and executing an MCSS. The digital module contains sample SAS code, diagnostic quiz questions, activities, curated resources, and a glossary.     

Using a Self‐Advocacy Intervention on African American College Students’ Ability to Request Academic Accommodations

Due to an increase in enrollment of African American students with disabilities in postsecondary education, there is a need to identify strategies that may lead to improved transition and self‐advocacy skills for these students. These strategies include teaching students to request academic accommodations and to have an understanding of how their disability affects their academic learning. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to provide an in‐depth explanation of a self‐advocacy strategy that was used to teach three African American male college students how to request their academic accommodations. Results indicated this strategy may be a promising intervention for African American college students with disabilities.     

Counselor educators using self as instrument in antiracist teaching

In this autoethnography inquiry, seven counselor educators from diverse intersectionalities discuss how they leverage their selfhood to promote antiracist counselor education. Based on two cycles of pattern coding, the authors identified themes of perceiving, experiencing, creating, and facilitating. Implications for future research and practice are offered.     

“Helping” Versus “Being a Helper”: Invoking the Self to Increase Helping in Young Children

Can a subtle linguistic cue that invokes the self motivate children to help? In two experiments, 3‐ to 6‐year‐old children (N = 149) were exposed to the idea of “being a helper” (noun condition) or “helping” (verb condition). Noun wording fosters the perception that a behavior reflects an identity—the kind of person one is. Both when children interacted with an adult who referenced “being a helper” or “helping” ( 2 ) and with a new adult ( 3 ), children in the noun condition helped significantly more across four tasks than children in the verb condition or a baseline control condition. The results demonstrate that children are motivated to pursue a positive identity. Moreover, this motivation can be leveraged to encourage prosocial behavior.     

Persistent discourses in physics education: gender neutrality and the gendering of competence

In her article, Karin Due presents us with a contradiction in physics: the construction of physics as a symbolically masculine discipline alongside a simultaneous discourse of the “gender-neutrality” of the discipline. Due’s article makes an important contribution to the study of the gendering of physics practices, particularly in group dynamics, and how this serves to simultaneously reinforce the two competing discourses of physics as a masculine discipline, and the discourse of physics as a gender neutral discipline. Due also suggests that an implication of this contradiction is a limited number of available positions for girls in physics compared to those available to boys. I wish to take up this observation and discuss how available positions for boys and girls in physics are related quite closely to two other concepts discussed in Due’s article: competence and recognition.