‘Take more time to actually listen’: students' reflections on participation and negotiation in school

Behaviour in schools is an emotive topic and one of enduring political interest and sensitivity. The media often portrays schools as violent and dangerous places and young people as ever more unruly. This paper explores findings from a recent large‐scale national study on behaviour and focuses on the data from primary and secondary school students within this study. The comments and suggestions offered by students move beyond a discussion of behaviour to focus on the broader questions of participation, engagement and meanings of active citizenship in school.     

Examining the effectiveness of home-based parent aide services to reduce risk for physical child abuse and neglect: Six-month findings from a randomized clinical trial

Objective

This study set out to carry out a feasible, real-world, randomized clinical trial to examine the benefits of home-based paraprofessional parent aide services in reducing physical abuse and neglect risk in high-risk parents.

Methods

Families were randomly assigned to receive either parent aide plus case management services (n = 73) or case management services only (n = 65), collecting in-home data on physical child abuse and neglect and proximal risk and protective factors, just prior to service initiation, and again after six months of services.

Results

Mothers receiving parent aide and case management services reported significant improvements from baseline to six-month follow-up in self-reported indicators of physical child abuse risk, as well as improvements on parental stress, mastery, depression, and anxiety, whereas mothers receiving only case management services did not. The slopes of such observed changes across groups, however, were not found to be statistically significantly different. No discernable improvements were found with regard to indicators of risk for child neglect.

Conclusions

As the first randomized clinical trial examining the effectiveness of parent aide services, this study provides the first controlled evidence examining the potential benefits of this service modality. This study suggests promising trends regarding the benefit of parent aide services with respect to physical child abuse risk reduction and related predictors, but evidence does not appear to suggest that such services, as they are presently delivered, reduce child neglect.

Practice implications

These findings support the continued use of parent aide services in cases of physical child abuse and also suggest careful consideration of the ways such services may be better configured to extend their impact, particularly with respect to child neglect risk.     

A Qualitative Metasynthesis of How Early Educators in International Contexts Address Cultural Matters That Contrast With Developmentally Appropriate Practices

Research Findings: The National Association for the Education of Young Children's guidelines for developmentally appropriate practices (DAP) have been imported and researched by others across the globe. A central issue that has arisen for these international early childhood educators is whether these best practices are sensitive to the sociocultural contexts in which they work. To shed further light on this issue, a qualitative metasynthesis was conducted that examined findings from published peer-reviewed studies of DAP in international early childhood contexts that investigated how early educators conceptualized and/or engaged in practices with young children. It then looked at whether these understandings and/or practices culturally contrasted with DAP. In brief, matters involving culture that contrasted with the framework of DAP arose frequently for the early educators in the data set. Yet researchers rarely offered suggestions for early educators to attend to these issues. Practice or Policy: It seems that to address matters involving culture that contrast with the framework of DAP in international contexts early educators should examine the 3 central tenets of DAP simultaneously when addressing the needs of children—their sociocultural, individual, and developmental needs. It also appears that advocates for DAP need to consider whether particular materials, resources, and/or policies should be in place in any early childhood education context for early educators to conceptualize as well as practice DAP. Lastly, there is a need for further research that examines how teachers in international contexts are responding to cultural issues that contrast with DAP in their conceptions of and/or practices in early education.     

Valid and Reliable Science Content Assessments for Science Teachers

Science teachers’ content knowledge is an important influence on student learning, highlighting an ongoing need for programs, and assessments of those programs, designed to support teacher learning of science. Valid and reliable assessments of teacher science knowledge are needed for direct measurement of this crucial variable. This paper describes multiple sources of validity and reliability (Cronbach’s alpha greater than 0.8) evidence for physical, life, and earth/space science assessments—part of the Diagnostic Teacher Assessments of Mathematics and Science (DTAMS) project. Validity was strengthened by systematic synthesis of relevant documents, extensive use of external reviewers, and field tests with 900 teachers during assessment development process. Subsequent results from 4,400 teachers, analyzed with Rasch IRT modeling techniques, offer construct and concurrent validity evidence.     

Reflecting Socially on Social Issues in a Social Studies Methods Course

The purpose of this study was to investigate how student teaching experiences impact the sense of teaching efficacy and feelings of preparedness of pre-service teachers in a nearly and elementary teacher education program (EC-6). The study used an action research, mixed-methods design. Seventy-one pre-service teachers at a large public university in the southwest completed surveys about their preparedness to teach and teaching efficacy pre and post the student teaching semester. Findings indicate that pre-service teachers’ perceptions of preparedness and sense of teaching efficacy both increased significantly (p < .5) from pre-student teaching to post-student teaching. In addition, three themes emerged from the answers to open-ended questions on learning components of student teaching experiences: opportunity for hands-on teaching, the opportunity to observe experienced teachers, and the relationship with their cooperating teacher.     

Ethical orientations and criminal justice: The effects of academic major and gender

We identified and compared the self-reported ethical ideological orientations of criminal justice majors and other students from a course selected to represent the general student population at a midwestern public university. We also explored potential differences in ethical orientation as a function of gender. Criminal justice majors report ethical orientations compatible with those of the general student population. Males report significantly higher ethical idealism scores than females, but we found no significant difference on ethical relativism. Further, male criminal justice majors demonstrate significantly lower variance within scores on both ethical idealism and ethical relativism than do female criminal justice majors and both males and females from the general student population. We discuss the practical and pedagogical implications of ethical ideology for criminal justice education and practice.     

What Do We Mean by Cyberlearning: Characterizing a Socially Constructed Definition with Experts and Practitioners

The term “cyberlearning” reflects a growing national interest in managing the interactions of technology and education, especially with respect to the use of networking and information technologies. However, there is little agreement about what the term means. Such disagreements reflect underlying differences in beliefs about the purposes of education. These disagreements are problematic for anyone interested in evaluating cyberlearning practices. This study used surveys and interviews to investigate how practitioners and experts in the field of cyberlearning define it, how they implement it and what they believe its purpose to be. Little agreement was found among participants in terms of their definitions of cyberlearning, which was supported by the wide variety of practices labeled “cyberlearning.” Although most participants emphasized the purpose of cyberlearning as a form of content delivery, an often-passionate minority argued for the potential of cyberlearning to encourage a shift away from content-delivery paradigms. The participants’ spoke from a variety of perspectives about cyberlearning including as educators, designers, activists, and policymakers, which led them to construct diverse narratives about the purposes and problems facing education and education policy. While the differences in embodied in these narratives remain an important consideration, some emerging points of convergence are identified.     

Strategies for Data-Informed Labor Market Responsiveness

Central Arizona College (CAC) has leveraged EMSI to design the most effective regional strategies for academic/economic prediction analysis. Accessing current and reliable data on occupations, skills requirements, and demographics, CAC can extract, analyze, and present this data to academic programs, advisory boards, economic development councils, and private industries throughout the service area, allowing CAC to develop long term collaborations.