A Grandmothers’ Tea: Evaluation of a Breastfeeding Support Intervention

This study’s purpose was to evaluate an intervention to facilitate grandmothers’ knowledge and support of breastfeeding. A pilot study with a quasi-experimental two-group posttest design was used to evaluate whether the intervention made a difference in grandmothers’ knowledge, attitudes, and intent to recommend breastfeeding. The 26 grandmothers in the intervention group attended A Grandmothers’ Tea program; the 23 grandmothers in the control group received written information. The intervention group had greater posttest knowledge scores than the control group but had no significant differences in attitudes or intent. However, a significant difference was evident between the attitude scores of grandmothers who breastfed their infants and of grandmothers who did not breastfeed their infants regardless of receiving the intervention.     

Investigating the influence of question type and cognitive process on academic performance in VCE Physical Education: a secondary data analysis

External written examinations are commonly used for determining student academic achievement. The influence of question type and cognitive process on examination performance in senior-secondary physical education is unclear. A secondary data analysis of Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) Physical Education examination data (2011; n?=?9,323, 2012; n?=?8,781) was conducted. Question type (multiple choice and short answer) and overall examination performance were compared and the predictive value of question type, cognitive process (based on Bloom’s revised taxonomy), and overall examination scores determined. In 2011 and 2012, students performed significantly better on multiple-choice questions; however, short-answer performance better predicted overall exam performance. A significant difference between marks achieved by cognitive level and grade (Ungraded [UG] – A+) was found. Low-achieving students (UG – D) were performing well below the examination mean across all questions. Developing higher order thinking skills for all students may lead to improved overall examination performance in VCE Physical Education.     

Student Communities and Individualism in American Cinema

Hollywood films partially construct how Americans think about education. Recent work on the representation of schools in American cinema has highlighted the role of class difference in shaping school film genres. It has also advanced the idea that a nuanced understanding of American individualism helps to explain why the different class genres are shaped as they are. This article attempts to refine this theoretical approach by focusing on the paradox of individualism, which suggests that individualism must always be dependent on community. We examine 5 films (Rushmore 1988, The Breakfast Club 1985, Mona Lisa Smile 2003, School of Rock 2003, and Stand and Deliver 1988) and argue that, although the values of individualism are certainly celebrated, these films also show, perhaps unwittingly, that the achievements of individualism require robust student communities. We describe how student communities function in these films, what achievements they make possible, and what obstacles they face.     

Evaluating intelligent interfaces for post-editing automatic transcriptions of online video lectures

Video lectures are fast becoming an everyday educational resource in higher education. They are being incorporated into existing university curricula around the world, while also emerging as a key component of the open education movement. In 2007, the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) implemented its poliMedia lecture capture system for the creation and publication of quality educational video content and now has a collection of over 10,000 video objects. In 2011, it embarked on the EU-subsidised transLectures project to add automatic subtitles to these videos in both Spanish and other languages. By doing so, it allows access to their educational content by non-native speakers and the deaf and hard-of-hearing, as well as enabling advanced repository management functions. In this paper, following a short introduction to poliMedia, transLectures and Docència en Xarxa (Teaching Online), the UPV’s action plan to boost the use of digital resources at the university, we will discuss the three-stage evaluation process carried out with the collaboration of UPV lecturers to find the best interaction protocol for the task of post-editing automatic subtitles.     

Girls at risk. Early school‐leaving and early marriage in the 1950s

Britain in the 1950s offered increased opportunities for secondary education leading to better career prospects at a time of full employment. A government report into early leaving in 1954 noted that it was girls of all social classes who were most ‘at risk’ of not staying the course. The following article discusses first the nature of risk and suggests that for girls perhaps, staying at school and delaying marriage, at a time when unequal pay and opportunities were the norm, was perceived as more of a risk than the safety of marriage and dependent domesticity. It then considers the concerns of the Early Leaving Report in more detail. Despite the attempts by policy makers to encourage girls into education, there were rival discourses which persuaded girls into domesticity and the article concludes by indicating the varied and pervasive nature of some of this rhetoric.     

Word-learning abilities in deaf and hard-of-hearing preschoolers: effect of lexicon size and language modality

Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children's ability to rapidly learn novel words through direct reference and through novel mapping (i.e., inferring that a novel word refers to a novel object) was examined. Ninety-eight DHH children, ranging from 27 to 82 months old, drawn from 12 schools in five states participated. In two tasks that differed in how reference was established, word-learning abilities were measured by children's ability to learn novel words after only three exposures. Three levels of word-learning abilities were identified. Twelve children did not rapidly learn novel words. Thirty-six children learned novel words rapidly but only in the direct reference task. Forty-nine children learned novel words rapidly in both direct reference and novel mapping tasks. These levels of word-learning abilities were evident in children who were in oral-only and in signing environments, in children with cochlear implants, and in deaf children of deaf parents. Children's word-learning abilities were more strongly correlated to lexicon size than age, and this relation was similar for children in these different language-learning environments. Acquisition of these word-learning abilities seems based on linguistic mechanisms that are available to children in a wide range of linguistic environments. In addition, the word-learning tasks offer a promising dynamic assessment tool.     

Attitudes of Early Childhood Teachers Toward Family and Community Involvement

This investigation examined early childhood teachers' attitudes towards families and their involvement with schools, and specific variables that influence these attitudes. Teachers' perspectives about school and family partnerships were assessed using the School and Family Partnerships: Questionnaires for Teachers and Parents in the Elementary and Middle Grades (Epstein & Salinas, 1993). This survey was administered to 92 elementary school teachers in Follow Through classrooms in the southeastern and pacific northwestern United States. Results indicated that teachers' attitudes about family and community involvement were highly positive. Additionally, African American teachers had a more positive attitude than European American teachers. Furthermore, teachers who taught large proportions of low ability students had less positive views of family strengths.