Evaluation research in distance education

Although research supports the use of telecommunications in distance education, the more important question 'how best to use telecommunications in a given situation' has largely eluded researchers. This is due to the failure to link questions generated by the problems of practice with the theoretical constructs contributing to the understanding of the phenomena of distance education. The debate has occurred on two levels, the first relating to research design issues and the second to the conceptualisation of researchable questions. The authors address both levels from the vantage point of third generation telecommunications technologies. They offer a model for linking research and evaluation in distance education.     

Worthwhile work? Childcare,feminist ethics and cooperative research practices

Interdisciplinary research collaborations are often encouraged within higher education while the practicalities of such collaborations are glossed over. This project specifically addresses the praxis of research collaborations, exploring how feminist academics within different countries and disciplines came together to explore their mutual concern about the perceived worth and well-being of early childhood practitioners. Engaging in a formal methodological dialogue over eight months, seven academics discussed, analysed and dissected their different investments in research methods and intents, with the aim of agreeing to a common methodological framework. Unexpectedly, what emerged was not a product, but a process. We argue that this process offers much to those seeking deep collaboration in and through shared research. Building on a collective research interest, we found ourselves in a process of becoming, germinating the seed of a transnational research cooperative, based on trust and mutual respect, rather than the arid methodological contract originally envisioned.     

Reading-related behavioral characteristics of chinese children with dyslexia: The use of the teachers’ behavior checklist in Hong Kong

Primary school teachers rated the frequency of occurrence of 65 reading-related behavioral characteristics of Grade 1 to Grade 6 Chinese school children in Hong Kong. An item factor analysis based on ratings on 554 students yielded two major dimensions of behavioral characteristics on reading and writing problems, and sequencing and spatial difficulties. In predicting the literacy and cognitive skills of a separate sample of 184 school children, gender, age, and the two empirical scales developed on the basis of factor analysis were used as predictors in regression analyses. The findings indicated that reading and writing problems emerged as the most predominant predictor of various literacy and cognitive deficits. The two mean scores of behavioral characteristics for children with dyslexia were significantly elevated as compared with those for children without dyslexia. Implications of the findings for screening dyslexia and predicting specific cognitive deficits using classroom-based behavior checklists are discussed.     

Screening for Chinese Children with Dyslexia in Hong Kong: The use of the Teachers' Behaviour Checklist

Primary school teachers rated the frequency of occurrence of 65 reading‐related behavioural characteristics in a sample of 251 Grade 1 to Grade 6 Chinese school children in Hong Kong. These behavioural characteristics were in the areas of general performance, reading, dictation, writing, mathematics, language, memory, concentration, sequential ability, motor co‐ordination, spatial orientation, and social/emotional adjustment. Of these 12 areas, 10 yielded scale scores that could distinguish children with dyslexia from those without dyslexia, identified on the basis of their performance in five domains of literacy and cognitive skills. Using a summary score derived from the 10 relevant scales, an optimal cut‐off score was suggested to arrive at a balance between high sensitivity and an acceptable rate of false positives in screening for children with dyslexia. The need for cross‐replication in screening children with dyslexia using the behaviour checklist with different samples of school students is emphasised.     

Teacher inquiry into formative assessment practices in remedial reading classrooms

Six remedial reading teachers in a large, rural school district participated in a form of professional development called Teaching as Intentional Learning, based on an inquiry process. Their topic of inquiry was formative assessment. Professional development comprised both direct instruction and inquiry learning in teachers’ own classrooms. This study describes the strategies they experimented with, their professional growth in formative assessment, and effects on students. All six teachers showed important professional growth, as indicated by their own reflections and also by their supervisor’s observations. In First Grade, at‐risk students assigned to these project teachers had increased reading readiness scores on one measure (DIBELS PSF) compared with at‐risk students assigned to non‐project teachers.     

Empathy and Cognition in High-Functioning Children with Autism

This study compares the ability of nonretarded autistic children (9-16 years of age) with the ability of normally developing children (9-14 years of age) to discriminate between various emotional states, to take the perspective of another regarding emotional states, and to respond affectively. The children's understanding of conservation was also assessed. While the children with autism did surprisingly well on the empathy-related measures, they performed less well than the normal children on these measures and on conservation. There was a closer association between cognitive abilities and affective understanding in the group of autistic children than in the control group.     

Integrating Research Proposals Into a Field Seminar: Feedback From Students

Teaching research to social work students continues to be the topic of an ongoing dialog within the profession. The literature suggests that some form of a “real-world” or “hands-on” learning opportunity has many benefits for teaching a subject that students often are reluctant to engage in. Using online survey methods, researchers gathered feedback from graduate students and their field supervisors about their experience of completing a field seminar that integrated an agency-based research proposal as part of the course requirement. Although there were limitations to this approach, many of the same benefits of actually implementing research were reported by students who completed only a proposal.     

Syntactic and discourse skills in Chinese adolescent readers with dyslexia: a profiling study

This study aims to investigate the relation of syntactic and discourse skills to morphological skills, rapid naming, and working memory in Chinese adolescent readers with dyslexia and to examine their cognitive–linguistic profiles. Fifty-two dyslexic readers (mean age, 13;42) from grade 7 to 9 in Hong Kong high schools were compared with 52 typically developing readers of the same chronological age (mean age, 13;30) in the measures of word reading, 1-min word reading, reading comprehension, morpheme discrimination, morpheme production, morphosyntactic knowledge, sentence order knowledge, digit rapid naming, letter rapid naming, backward digit span, and non-word repetition. Results showed that dyslexic readers performed significantly worse than their peers on all the cognitive-linguistic tasks. Analyses of individual performance also revealed that over half of the dyslexic readers exhibited deficits in syntactic and discourse skills. Moreover, syntactic skills, morphological skills, and rapid naming best distinguished dyslexic from non-dyslexic readers. Findings underscore the significance of syntactic and discourse skills for understanding reading impairment in Chinese adolescent readers.     

Student Responses to the Women's Reclamation Work in the Philosophy of Education

Reclamation work denotes the process of uncovering the lost contributions of women to the philosophy of education, analyzing their works, making them accessible to a larger audience, and (re)introducing them to the historical record and canon. Since the 1970s, scholars have been engaged in the reclamation work, thus making available to students, professors, and researchers a rich and varied perspective for tracing the evolution of educational thought. This article shares the responses of undergraduate and graduate students to discussing the reclamation work and canonical formation in their Philosophy of Education course. Two of the benefits most commonly cited by students involve learning a fuller, more accurate picture of history and ameliorating contemporary gender inequity. We assert that the traditional canon and syllabi for Philosophy of Education and Social Foundation courses could be enriched through the inclusion of works that trace the tradition of women's intellectual thought.