Educational Psychology: The distinctive contribution

This paper, written in the twenty‐first anniversary year of the journal Educational Psychology in Practice, attempts to uncover those distinctive aspects of the discipline and the practice of applied psychology in general and educational psychology in particular. After considering some of the reasons for attempting this task at this point in time and outlining some of the difficulties involved in achieving this task, five distinctive dimensions are identified and discussed. These are: (i) adopting a psychological perspective to human problems; (ii) uncovering mediating/psychological variables which link particular situations with specific outcomes; (iii) employing psychological knowledge to create explanatory models of complex human problems; (iv) using evidence based strategies for change; and (v) sharing and promoting big ideas from psychology. Some of the possibilities which these distinctive features offer for innovation in educational psychology practice and research are listed, together with their implications for educational psychology practitioners in the future.     

Do Proper Accommodation Assignments Make a Difference? Examining the Impact of Improved Decision Making on Scores for English Language Learners

Does it matter if students are appropriately assigned to test accommodations? Using a randomized method, this study found that individual students assigned accommodations keyed to their particular needs were significantly more efficacious for English language learners (ELLs) and that little difference was reported between students receiving incomplete or not recommended accommodations and no accommodations whatsoever. A sample of third and fourth grade ELLs in South Carolina (N = 272) were randomly assigned to various types of test accommodations on a mathematics assessment. Results indicated that those students who received the appropriate test accommodations, as recommended by a version of a computerized accommodation taxonomy for ELLs (the selection taxonomy for English language learners accommodations; STELLA), had significantly higher test scores than ELLs who received no accommodations or those who received incomplete or not recommended accommodation packages. Additionally, students who were given no test accommodations scored no differently than those students that received accommodation packages that were incomplete or not recommended, given the students' particular needs and challenges. These findings are important in light of research and anecdotal reports that suggest a general lack of systematicity in the current system of assigning accommodations and a tendency to give all available accommodations regardless of individual child characteristics. The results also have important implications for how future accommodation research should be structured to determine the benefits of particular accommodations and accommodation packages. This study would suggest that control and treatment groups should be assembled based on specific student needs in order for direct comparisons to be made.     

A theory of change for student-led academic integrity

Breaches in academic integrity are a pervasive and enduring international concern to the overall quality of higher education. Despite students being the group most affected by academic integrity policies, organisational culture is such that students tend to be passive recipients of change initiatives, rather than the drivers. To deliver a paradigm change, a theory of change framework was designed, implemented and applied to explore the viability of a student-led academic integrity society. To achieve this, a national research project involving three stages of data collection (surveys, interviews and focus groups) was conducted to obtain the perspectives of students and student representatives. The key outcome of the project has been the recent launch of an academic integrity student society, a novel initiative outside the United States of America. The theory of change framework presented here seeks to offer guidance to other institutions contemplating the viability of student-led change to academic integrity and the establishment of academic integrity student societies, in particular.     

International Institute for Collaborative Cell Biology and Biochemistry—History and Memoirs from an International Network for Biological Sciences

I was invited to write this essay on the occasion of my selection as the recipient of the 2012 Bruce Alberts Award for Excellence in Science Education from the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). Receiving this award is an enormous honor. When I read the email announcement for the first time, it was more than a surprise to me, it was unbelievable. I joined ASCB in 1996, when I presented a poster and received a travel award. Since then, I have attended almost every ASCB meeting. I will try to use this essay to share with readers one of the best experiences in my life. Because this is an essay, I take the liberty of mixing some of my thoughts with data in a way that it not usual in scientific writing. I hope that this sacrifice of the format will achieve the goal of conveying what I have learned over the past 20 yr, during which time a group of colleagues and friends created a nexus of knowledge and wisdom. We have worked together to build a network capable of sharing and inspiring science all over the world.     

An analysis of the different patterns of 1:1 interactions between educational professionals and their students with varying abilities in inclusive classrooms

The purpose of this study was to examine the different types and patterns of 1:1 interactions provided by general educators, special educators and paraprofessionals to children with mild disabilities (n?=?13), severe disabilities (n?=?13), and children without disabilities (n?=?13) in inclusive classrooms. General educators, special educators, and paraprofessionals' 1:1 interactions with students in three comparison groups were recorded in 17 elementary and middle school classrooms using a partial interval observation system. We found significant differences with respect to interaction frequency and content. Teachers and paraprofessionals had consistently more 1:1 interactions with students with severe disabilities, followed by children with mild disabilities, and then students without disabilities. In comparison to special education teachers and paraprofessionals, general educators interacted significantly more frequently with children without disabilities and children with mild disabilities. In contrast, paraprofessionals interacted significantly more often with students with severe disabilities and less frequently with children with mild disabilities and students without disabilities. Instructional interactions in social, behavioural, and functional domains were infrequent in these classrooms. We conclude with a brief discussion of the implications of these findings for future research and practice.     

Editorial

Initial teacher training courses throughout the United Kingdom at present have been or are being changed in various ways which enlarge the role of schools and make new demands on the school teachers who act as mentors to student teachers in the schools. Despite the size of this change, it can be quite difficult to find evidence about its effects. Edwards (1994) suggested that one reason for this lack of evidence is that there has been little government support for obtaining it. As Edwards points out, however, the government in one part of the United Kingdom, namely Scotland, did ensure that evidence about the mentor teacher idea was obtained before there was a decision about applying the scheme across the country. The decision that it should be nationally applied was reported in this journal's ‘Notes and News’ section in Spring 1995, under the heading of ‘Introduction of a mentor scheme in Scotland’. This paper summarises the main outcomes of the pilot study which informed that decision. The paper concentrates on the pilot's second and final year (Cameron‐Jones and O'Hara 1994).     

Embedding General Education Competencies into an Online Information Literacy Course

ABSTRACT

Assessing core competencies for students who are enrolled in purely online programs poses a challenge to colleges and universities. Our institution has chosen an existing online information literacy course to incorporate and assess general education competencies for an overseas cohort of transfer students. This article presents a brief overview of the course and describes the way in which the course was redesigned to embed and assess the five general education competencies (critical thinking, information literacy, critical reading, quantitative reasoning, and writing).     

Advocating for controversial issues: The effect of activism on compliance‐gaining strategy likelihood of use

Previous research has demonstrated that compliance‐gaining strategies can he arrayed on an unidimensional continuum, anchored by positive, pro‐social strategies and negative, antisocial strategies (Hunter & Boster, 1987; Rolojf & Barnicott, 1978, 1979). Individual differences, including argumentativeness and verbal aggression (Boster & Levine, 1988), have been shown to affect one's ethical threshold. This ethical threshold is consistent with a Guttman simplex and determines both how many, as well as how antisocial, compliance‐gaining strategies individuals may consider using. Activists, who are highly involved and committed to their cause and who tend to be less verbally aggressive and more argumentative than the general public (Campo, 1999), are likely to have a lower threshold and to use more strategies. This study examines to what extent activism predicts one's ethical threshold, when controlling for the known effects of argumentativeness, verbal aggressiveness, and sex. Participants (N = 454) at two separate universities completed a repeated measures questionnaire that asked them to indicate their likelihood of use of 25 separate compliance‐gaining strategies. Based on respondents’ likelihood of use of these 25 strategies, the data were consistent with a Guttman simplex. A multiple regression model was tested, and indicated that one's ethical threshold is directly predicted by level of activism and verbal aggressiveness. Sex and argumentativeness were not found to be significant predictors in this revised model. In addition, activists used more strategies than non‐activists. Implications for advancing research related to activism and compliance‐gaining strategy selection are discussed.