National profiles of school readiness skills for Head Start children: An investigation of stability and change

Among a nationally representative sample of 2336 Head Start children, patterns of school readiness were compared at the beginning and end of children's first preschool year, and predictors of stability and change across readiness profiles were examined. The present study documented that although the majority of children remain in a qualitatively similar school readiness profile across their first year in Head Start, 20% of children move to a qualitatively different profile over the school year, reflecting both improvements and declines in functioning. Child and family attributes (e.g., child age, ELL status, maternal education, and family structure), as well as contextual factors (e.g., teacher education and experience, parenting style, and parent involvement) were significant predictors of both profile stability and change. Given that we have little understanding about what factors practice or policy can manipulate to improve school readiness, these findings shed light on what we might do to promote school readiness and prevent declines in functioning over time. Thus, findings from this study provide a population- and pattern-based perspective of Head Start children's strengths and needs, relevant for informing both individual and systems level change in Head Start programs across the nation.     

Choosing a University: Important Attributes Used by Access Students in South Africa

Universities in South Africa are operating in an increasingly competitive environment with each institution aiming to attract the best students and meet their enrolment targets. The Department of Education’s (DoE’s) strategy to address the inadequacies of the past and the shortage of skills in maths and science in South Africa has also affected how universities operate. In responding to the DoE’s strategy to address past inadequacies many universities offer access programmes to students from previously disadvantaged schools. This paper highlights the factors or attributes that are important, specifically to access students, in their selection of which university to attend for their tertiary studies and makes recommendations in terms of a marketing strategy for universities targeting this group whose background and needs are different to students who come from more advantaged schools. Marketing implications for access programmes are provided.     

Are two years better than one year? A propensity score analysis of the impact of Head Start program duration on children's school performance in kindergarten

Using data from a nationally representative sample, this study examined Head Start children's school outcome differences by the end of Kindergarten between children who attended Head Start program for two years and the ones who attended for one year. Propensity scores were used to match children who experienced different durations of the program on a series of demographic characteristics in order to achieve a precise estimation of the effects of program duration. The results showed that in comparison to a demographically comparable group of children who attended the Head Start program for one year, the children who experienced two years of intervention services had statistically significantly higher performance on all six academic and social outcome measures by the end of Kindergarten, which included PPVT, Woodcock–Johnson Reading Skills, Woodcock–Johnson Math Reasoning Skills, teacher-reported composite academic skills, preschool learning behaviors, and social skills. Policy and practice implications are discussed.     

Pond life that ‘know their place’: exploring teaching and learning support assistants’ experiences through positioning theory

Teaching and learning support assistants (TLSAs) are notoriously underpaid and undervalued as members of school workforces in England and elsewhere in the world, where the discourse of support has worked to legitimize their poor status. This article reports and explores empirical findings through the lens of positioning theory. This theoretical approach has revealed ways in which the positions occupied by TLSAs are consolidated in social acts and discursive practices that contribute to a narrative that is shared and understood by those positioned and those positioning. The multiplicity of, and sometimes competing, positions occupied by TLSAs are revealed through different readings of the collective storylines of pond life and knowing one’s place that determine a set of social and occupational practices. These serve to illustrate the discursive fights TLSAs were engaged in to assert their professionalism in schools and to challenge their low status.     

MEMORY FOR PICTORIAL INFORMATION AND THE PICTURE SUPERIORITY EFFECT

This research compared the performance of younger (mean age — 20.7 years) and older (mean age–68.3 years) adults on a memory task that involved pictures, words, and pictures‐plus‐words as stimuli. The results, consistent with previous research, indicated an equivalent picture superiority effect for both young and old adults when pictures were compared to words. More specifically, although recall scores were significantly higher for younger adults compared to older adults, the superior recall scores for pictures versus words did not differ between the age groups. However, the performance of older adults declined markedly, compared to the younger adults, in the picture‐plus‐word condition. These findings are interpreted as providing support for a divided attention model, which involves effortful processing of both visual and verbal aspects of stimuli. This situation of divided attention appears to put older adults at a relative disadvantage compared to young adults.     

Stepping out of our comfort zones: pre-service teachers' responses to a critical analysis of gender/power relations in sexuality education

This paper discusses pre-service teachers' responses to a critical analysis of gender/power relations using examples from a final assessment for an intensive elective unit called Teaching Sexuality in the Middle Years. This unit critically examines gender/ power relations, the production of difference, heteronormativity and pleasure and desire, employing a feminist post-structural framework. Despite the focus on critical thinking, reflection and interrogating structural inequalities in this unit some students were resistant or unable to engage with this approach in their assessments, although appearing to do so in workshops. We consider the broad range of sexuality education discourses mobilised by this unit to try to make sense of what looks like resistance but may be something more complex and difficult to negotiate. The paper ends with a consideration of some of the implications of this approach for practice.     

Elaborated metaphors support viable inferences about difficult science concepts

Instructional metaphors scaffold learning better when accompanied by an elaboration. Applying structure mapping theory, we developed and used an elaborated instructional metaphor (text and illustrations) for introductory chemistry concepts. In two studies (N ₁ = 44, N ₂ = 57), college students with little chemistry background read either the elaborated metaphor, sub‐concept metaphor statements (e.g. an atom is like a tile) only or (Study 2) sub‐concept labels (e.g. atom) only. When asked to write what they knew about the sub‐concept, those in the elaborated metaphor condition wrote more sophisticated domain inferences than those in the other condition(s), p < .05. The elaborated metaphor helped participants construct accurate pre‐conceptual mental models that could prepare them for future learning (i.e. acquisition of new knowledge). The results also suggested that acquisition of high‐level concepts may require active learner transactions with the analogue, as can be had in interactive instructional game worlds.     

Faculty–library collaborations in digital history: A case study of the travel journal of Cornelius B. Gold

ABSTRACT

In this article, the authors present a case study on a teaching and learning initiative in digital humanities at Connecticut College. The article outlines a project in which students in a midlevel history course collaborated with library staff and faculty to develop a digital exhibition on a nineteenth-century journal in the College's collection. The cooperative approach and institutional support that the team received provided an effective and flexible means for achieving common goals. As students applied emergent technologies to college collections, they were able to conduct meaningful research and bring archival resources to new audiences.     

Multum in parvo: Paperbacks in speech

Women process information about support situations and messages more extensively than men, but little is known about whether these gender differences reflect underlying differences in processing ability, motivation, or both. Two studies examined information processing by men and women in both relatively less serious and more serious situations. Participants in Study 1 responded to more and less serious experimental scenarios, whereas participants in Study 2 reported on a recent bereavement situation. In both studies, the pattern of observed gender differences was most consistent with women possessing both greater ability and greater motivation to process information about support situations and messages.