Development,Validation and Application of a Malay Translation of an Elementary Version of the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction

An elementary version of the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI) and a scale for determining students' Enjoyment of their Science Lessons (ENJ) were translated into Standard Malay. This process, together with its initial validation carried out in 136 classrooms with 3,104 students, is described in this paper. Statistical analyses revealed that data from this Malay version of the QTI with these Malay-speaking elementary school students in Brunei are indeed valid and reliable. Associations between students' perceptions of their teachers' interpersonal behaviours and their end-of-year results on an external science examination were investigated. Students' perceptions of cooperative behaviours were positively correlated, while submissive behaviours were negatively correlated with their cognitive achievement. Cross-national comparisons were made between students' perceptions of teachers' classroom interaction and similar studies in Singapore, Australia, and Korea.     

An investigation of the relationship between logical thinking structures and the ability to construct and interpret line graphs

This study investigates the relationship between logical thinking structures and the ability to construct and interpret line graphs. Seventy-two subjects in 7th, 9th, and 11th grades were administered individual Piagetian tasks to assess five specific mental structures: (Euclidean spatial structures) (a) Placement and Displacement of Objects (maintaining horizontal and vertical reference frames) and (b) One–One Multiplication of Placement and Displacement Relations (coordinate systems); (c) Multiplicative Measurement; (d) Multiplicative Seriation; and (e) Proportional Reasoning. Graphing abilities were assessed by having the subjects construct and interpret numerous graphs of varying content and difficulty. To minimize the researcher's guesses about interpretation, each subject's answers and reasons were subsequently explored during a clinical interview. The results indicate significant relationships of logical thinking to graphing ability. Multiplicative seriation, multiplicative measurement, and Euclidean spatial structures positively influenced graphing abilities. Subjects who showed evidence of proportional reasoning did significantly better on many graphing situations including choosing the part of the graph with the greatest “rate of change.” Locating points on a graph without a grid was significantly related to horizontal/vertical frames of reference. Students who did not possess the logical thinking structures were more likely to be dependent upon, and influenced by, perceptual cues and less able to interpret or construct graphs correctly.     

Emergence of choice strategies in the rat: Shift-stay differentiation precedes win-lose differentiation

The choice strategies of rat pups between 12 and 21 days of age were studied in a two-choice discrimination procedure that used access to a nonlactating anesthetized dam as a reward. After receiving a reward (win) or not receiving a reward (lose), a pup repeated a previous choice (stay) or made an alternative response (shift). At 12 and 15 days of age, pups demonstrated neither a stay nor a shift response strategy; at 18 and 21 days of age, pups had a robust tendency to shift. Winning or losing did not alter behavior until 21 days of age, at which point winning produced a greater tendency to return to the initially visited location for rats in the stay condition.     

Naturalistic Language Recordings Reveal “Hypervocal” Infants at High Familial Risk for Autism

Children's early language environments are related to later development. Little is known about this association in siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who often experience language delays or have ASD. Fifty‐nine 9‐month‐old infants at high or low familial risk for ASD contributed full‐day in‐home language recordings. High‐risk infants produced more vocalizations than low‐risk peers; conversational turns and adult words did not differ by group. Vocalization differences were driven by a subgroup of “hypervocal” infants. Despite more vocalizations overall, these infants engaged in less social babbling during a standardized clinic assessment, and they experienced fewer conversational turns relative to their rate of vocalizations. Two ways in which these individual and environmental differences may relate to subsequent development are discussed.     

IRT Estimation of Domain Scores

In classical test theory, a test is regarded as a sample of items from a domain defined by generating rules or by content, process, and format specifications, l f the items are a random sample of the domain, then the percent-correct score on the test estimates the domain score, that is, the expected percent correct for all items in the domain. When the domain is represented by a large set of calibrated items, as in item banking applications, item response theory (IRT) provides an alternative estimator of the domain score by transformation of the IRT scale score on the test. This estimator has the advantage of not requiring the test items to be a random sample of the domain, and of having a simple standard error. We present here resampling results in real data demonstrating for uni- and multidimensional models that the IRT estimator is also a more accurate predictor of the domain score than is the classical percent-correct score. These results have implications for reporting outcomes of educational qualification testing and assessment.     

‘Being’ a critical multicultural pedagogue in the art education classroom

Art educators continuously struggle to understand what multiculturalism ‘looks like’ in the art classroom. This has resulted in multicultural art education becoming superficial, in which art teachers guide students through art projects like creating African masks, Native American dream catchers, Aboriginal totems, and sand paintings, all without communicating the context of the art. This type of multiculturalism essentializes cultures, and builds Western, myopic narratives about groups of people, specifically about their ‘Art’. Critical multiculturalism is a power-focused upgrade of multiculturalism that calls for a critique of power and demands recognition that racism and other discriminations are enmeshed in the fabric of our social order. Teaching through a critical multiculturalism framework helps teachers dismantle Western, normalized narratives and produce counter-hegemonic curriculum that contextualizes culture and reveals its fluidity. In this article, the author shares a teacher action research study in which she describes what critical multiculturalism looks like in her art education classroom. The study focuses on ‘being’ a critically multicultural educator versus ‘doing’ critical multiculturalism. Such a position counters the idea that critical multiculturalism is a thing to complete, but instead is an ongoing process that rests on specific ways of thinking and considering the classroom, curriculum, and students.     

Coteaching, as colearning, is praxis

In this study, we report on our learning as we engaged in a four-month experience of coteaching a water unit in a Grade 7 classroom. Working at each other's elbows, in praxis, provided many opportunities to learn together: teaching and about teaching. We use two examples, learning to ask productive questions and struggling to enact an orderly curriculum to show how coteaching affords colearning, and how the lack of coteaching leads to struggling. Our work also suggests that coteaching allows for a mode of learning that is not captured by Schön's notions of reflection-in-practice and reflection-on-practice. We conclude that coteaching, as colearning, is praxis.