Credible Phenomenological Research: A Mixed‐Methods Study

The authors conducted a 3‐phase investigation into the credible standards for phenomenological research practices identified in the literature and endorsed by a sample of counselor education qualitative research experts. Utilizing a mixed‐methods approach, the findings offer evidence that professional counseling has a distinctive format in which phenomenological research is produced.     

“We’re More Than a Daycare”: Reported Roles and Settings for Early Childhood Professionals and Implications for Professionalizing the Field

Early Childhood Education Journal - In the US, recent efforts have focused on professionalizing the field of early childhood. One way to indicate professionalism is through the terms used to...     

Elementary teachers’ use of content knowledge to evaluate students’ thinking in the life sciences

Science learning environments should provide opportunities for students to make sense of and enhance their understanding of disciplinary concepts. Teachers can support students’ sense-making by engaging and responding to their ideas through high-leverage instructional practices such as formative assessment (FA). However, past research has shown that teachers may not understand FA, how to implement it, or have sufficient content knowledge to use it effectively. Few studies have investigated how teachers gather information to evaluate students’ ideas or how content knowledge factors into those decisions, particularly within the life science discipline. We designed a study embedded in a multi-year professional development program that supported elementary teachers’ development of disciplinary knowledge and FA practices within science instruction. Study findings illustrate how elementary teachers’ life science content knowledge influences their evaluation of students’ ideas. Teachers with higher levels of life science content knowledge more effectively evaluated students’ ideas than teachers with lower levels of content knowledge. Teachers with higher content exam scores discussed both content and student understanding to a greater extent, and their analyses of students’ ideas were more scientifically accurate compared to teachers with lower scores. These findings contribute to theory and practice around science teacher education, professional development, and curriculum development.     

Applying Performance Measures and Process Improvements in the Classroom: The Loch Dots Company Simulation

The article describes a multi‐phase, in‐class simulation that employs problem‐based learning to teach operations and process‐improvement concepts as part of an undergraduate or graduate business course. The simulation is derived from a corporate Lean Six Sigma training activity and has been modified to introduce, demonstrate, and apply a wide range of business concepts relevant to operations and supply chain management, including the use of operational and financial performance measures in decision making. The activity is scalable for small‐ to medium‐size classes with multiple student groups and may be deployed as a stand‐alone, in‐class exercise spread over several class meetings or incorporated into a larger, semester‐long process‐improvement project for multiple student groups. The simulation emphasizes problem‐solving, teamwork, and intra‐firm cooperation in addition to 20–30 other business concepts, tools, and measures that may be incorporated.     

Special Education in a 4‐Year Response to Intervention (RtI) Environment: Characteristics of Students with Learning Disability and Grade of Identification

This 4‐year longitudinal research was designed to study special education determinations of students who participated in Tier 2 intervention in a Response to Intervention (RtI) model focused on reading across Grades 1–4. We compared identification rates for learning disabilities (LD) and student characteristics of 381 students the year prior to implementation with 377 students in the RtI environment. Across schools, 38–60 percent of students were English language learners (ELL). Key outcomes by Grade 4 for students with LD who had participated in a model of RtI were relatively greater reading impairment with effect sizes ranging from 0.64 to 0.82, and more equitable representation across ELL and native English speakers than in the cohort prior to RtI implementation. Notably, one‐third of the students identified for special services as LD in these schools were not identified until 4th grade.     

Experimental "microcultures" in young children: identifying biographic, cognitive, and social predictors of information transmission

In one of the first open diffusion experiments with young children, a tool-use task that afforded multiple methods to extract an enclosed reward and a child model habitually using one of these methods were introduced into different playgroups. Eighty-eight children, ranging in age from 2 years 8 months to 4 years 5 months, participated. Measures were taken of how alternative methods and success in extracting rewards spread across the different groups. Additionally, the biographic, social, cognitive, and temperamental predictors of social learning were investigated. Variations in social learning were related to age, popularity, dominance, impulsivity, and shyness, while other factors such as sex, theory of mind, verbal ability, and even imitativeness showed little association with variance in children's information acquisition.     

A Qualitative Inquiry of the Counseling Dissertation Process

The authors in this consensual qualitative research study explored the dissertation experiences of 42 graduates (27 counselor educators, 13 counselors, 2 administrators) from 4 midwestern states. Identified domains included impact of environment, competing influences, personality traits, chair influence, committee function, and barriers to completion. An emergent theory reflected the interconnectedness of the dissertation process across internal, relational, and professional factors. Implications related to motivation, personal traits, and identification of barriers in the dissertation process are provided.