The role of fantasy figures in the regulation of young children's behavior: Santa Claus,the Easter Bunny,and donations

The present study examined the influence of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny on children's donations near the Easter season. Kindergarten and first-grade children were asked to tell stories about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or pets, for which they received nine pieces of gum. They were then encouraged to donate any amount of their gum to handicapped children. Main effects were found only for grade, with first-grade children donating significantly more than kindergarten children. In addition, a significant interaction was obtained between grade and type of story elicited from the child. This interaction revealed that for kindergarten children, the type of story failed to influence donations, whereas for first-grade children, stories referring to Santa Claus increased donations relative to stories told about the Easter Bunny or pets.     

A quiver full of arrows: recommended Web-based tutorials for PubMed,PowerPoint, Ovid MEDLINE,and FrontPage

Librarians often are responsible for instructing their patrons in the use of various databases and popular software packages. When this instruction can't be provided through face-to-face contact, Web-based tutorials can be useful tools to bridge the information gap. This article recommends Web-based tutorials for PubMed, Ovid MEDLINE, PowerPoint, and FrontPage.     

College Student Access: How Articulation Agreements Support Rural Students

Students from rural areas face additional burdens, such as affordability, academic preparation, and lack of college-going resources that make seeking, enrolling, and attending college more difficult. Community colleges offer hope to achieve a college degree for many rural students, and well-developed articulation agreements can be one way of improving access for these students.     

A Schooling in English

John Dixon's Growth Through English was a seminal text in the development of NATE and a major influence on a whole generation of teachers. In his new book A Schooling in English² , to be published later this year, he traces some of the historical developments which led up to that point, a series of ideological and institutional struggles that are still continuing. We are pleased to publish here a brief synopsis, written for the UEA Language and Literacy Convention in April, together with a review of the book itself.     

Assessment for learning: a catalyst for student self-regulation

The development of students as lifelong, self-regulating learners is a valued outcome of higher education. To this end, the current project investigated how students in an undergraduate course experienced and responded to a teaching–learning environment where they were expected to take responsibility for their learning. The pedagogic environment of this course was grounded in strategies and activities associated with assessment for learning (AfL). As such, students were expected to participate in activities that provided them with opportunities to exercise control over their learning. Data gathering comprised individual semi-structured interviews and the collection of artefacts. Findings indicated goals helped students know where they were going; exemplars provided insights into what was expected and what constituted quality work; course activities elicited evidence of learning; dialogic interactions around these generated feedback about understandings and progress; the evaluation of exemplars developed evaluative knowledge, skill and expertise; peer review and feedback provided an authentic context for evaluation and monitoring of works-in-progress. It was concluded that, while each of the AfL strategies contributed to student self-regulation, the full impact of AfL as a catalyst for self-regulated learning was realised in the cumulative and recursive effect these strategies had on students’ thinking, actions and feelings.     

Everything is illuminated: What big data can tell us about teacher commentary

What happens to writing instructors’ feedback when they use a common rubric and an online tool to respond to student papers in a first-year composition course at a large state university in the United States? To investigate this question, we analyze the 118,611 comments instructors made when responding to 17,433 student essays. Using concordance software to quantify teachers’ use of rubric terms, we found instructors were primarily concerned with global, substantive, higher-order concerns—such as responding to students’ rhetorical situations, use of reason, and organization—rather than lower-order concerns about grammar or formatting. Given past research has determined teachers overemphasize lower-order concerns such as grammar, mechanics, and punctuation (Connors and Lunsford, 1988, Lunsford and Lunsford, 2008, Moxley and Joseph, 1989, Moxley and Joseph, 1992, Schwartz, 1984, Sommers, 1982, Stern and Solomon, 2006), these results may suggest the possibility of a generational shift when it comes to response to student writing. Aggregating teacher commentary, student work, and peer review responses via digital tools and employing concordance software to identify big-data patterns illuminates a new assessment practice for Writing Program Administrators—the practice of Deep Assessment.     

A Comparative Content Analysis of Anti- and Prosocial Rap Lyrical Themes Found on Traditional and New Media Outlets

Previous studies investigated the content of rap music within the context of traditional media and found that rap often contains antisocial themes associated with negative effects. The current content analysis investigates whether rap’s lyrical themes consumed and shared online are more diverse and less anti-social than rap aired on traditional outlets. The analysis revealed that songs shared on Facebook were less antisocial and more prosocial than the songs that made the Billboard charts. Additionally, online lyrical themes were more diverse than traditionally distributed lyrics. Rap consumption and sharing behaviors will be discussed in light of the theory of selective exposure     

A Model of School Counseling Supervision: The Goals,Functions, Roles,and Systems Model

The authors outline the Goals, Functions, Roles, and Systems Model (GFRS), a school counseling—specific model for supervising school counselors‐in‐training (SCITs). The GFRS was created as a guide for assisting in supervising and preparing SCITs for the multifaceted tasks they will undertake in their internships and careers. The components of this model are described within the context of the systems influencing supervision of SCITs. The GFRS is detailed to illustrate how it meets the specific needs of school counseling supervision. Examples are included of the GFRS when applied in supervision.