A comparison of students who delay kindergarten entry and those who are retained in grades K−5

Retention has been one way that school personnel have dealt with the problem of school failure. Some authors have proposed delayed school entry as an alternative to retention, especially since there are concerns about the effects of retention on students' self-esteem. It is unclear from the literature whether retention and delayed entry have differential outcomes on measures of school success. This study explored whether there were differences in IQ and achievement (at grades 2, 5, and 7) between students who delayed school entry and those who were retained in later elementary grades, as well as any interactions with gender. There was a significant 6-point difference in IQ, favoring the delayed-entry group. Furthermore, when the achievement test scores were analyzed using an ANCOVA with IQ as a covariate, no significant differences were identified for either group or gender. Implications for school practices are provided.     

蒲公英的启示

我记得小时候常常送蒲公英给我母亲。尽管花茎粘糊糊的,而且每当草坪上出现了这些花儿时,父母总会骂上几句,但这些都没有关系。我觉得它们美极了!这些花朵总是春风吹又生。父亲和兄弟们至少每周用一次割草机把它们割干净,却还是拿这些坚韧的小家伙们没办法。     

Building Mind, Brain, and Education Connections: The View From the Upper Valley

ABSTRACT— This article describes the efforts of a small group of educators and researchers to build a model for making connections across mind, brain, and education. With a common goal of sharing, strengthening, and building useable knowledge about child and adolescent learning and development, we focused on questions of mutual interest to educators and researchers. We describe our efforts to develop a common vocabulary and language and to create opportunities for dialogue and discussion, including classes and talks for in-service and preservice teachers, research laboratories open to in-service and preservice teachers, local conferences that provided a context for educator and researcher interactions, and researcher outreach in the local education community at the administrative, classroom, and student levels. These activities represent concrete mechanisms by which links might be forged between educators and researchers within the context of Mind, Brain, and Education.     

On transitional space,unresolved conflicts,and an uncertain teacher education

This research project began as an effort to redesign a learning theory course as transitional space and evolved into an analysis of how unresolved conflict from younger learning selves influence graduate preservice teachers’ acquisition of teacher identity. The study draws upon work by Elizabeth Ellsworth on transitional space and Deborah P. Britzman’s work that deconstructs teacher education development. The data for the study were collected throughout a three‐semester graduate teacher education program and include narrative and formal writing using theoretical discourses. Foucauldian concepts of discourse analysis were used to interpret the initial data set; discourse analysis maps were then employed to further develop data interpretation. Two case study illustrations of preservice teachers resulted from this work. These illustrations demonstrate how transitional space is troubled space and the unevenness of teacher development. The study raises the question, ‘What will teacher education do with uncertainty?’     

Doing the right thing: infants' selection of actions to imitate from observed event sequences

Two studies were conducted to investigate how 14- to 16-month-old infants select actions to imitate from the stream of events. In each study, an experimenter demonstrated two actions leading to an interesting effect. Aspects of the first action were manipulated and whether infants performed this action when given the objects was observed. In both studies, infants were more likely to imitate the first action when it was physically necessary to generate the effect, and in Study 2 they were also more likely to imitate the action when it was socially cued. It seems that infants' own knowledge of space and causality as well as their sensitivity to others' social signals both contribute to their tendency to imitate actions.     

A Model of the Effects of Perceived Parent and Peer Support on Adolescent False Self Behavior

A model linking 3 perceived support variables, namely, level of support, quality of support (unconditional or conditional), and hope about future support, to false self behavior (acting in ways that are not the "real me") was hypothesized. Both parent and peer support were examined. The best fitting model for the parent and peer data revealed that perceived quality and level of parent support predict hope about future parent support, which in turn predicts false self behavior. Adolescents' motives for engaging in false self behavior were also examined. Those whose reported motives were hypothesized to be the most clinically debilitating (devaluation of the self) reported the most negative outcomes (depressed affect, low self-worth, hopelessness, and less knowledge of the true self). In contrast, adolescents citing the developmentally normative motive of role experimentation reported the most positive affect, highest self-worth, greatest hopefulness, and most knowledge of true self. Those reporting that they engaged in false self behavior to please, impress, or win the approval of parents and peers had intermediate scores on the depression, self-worth, hope, and knowledge of true self measures. Discussion focused on the potential causes and consequences of false self behavior.     

Exploring youth engagement in agricultural development: the case of farmers’ children in the Philippines as rice crop manager infomediaries

Purpose: This paper explores the intersections between community development and youth development in an initiative that mobilized farmers’ children as Rice Crop Manager (RCM) infomediaries (information mediators). RCM is an ICT-enabled nutrient management application.

Design/Methodology/Approach: The study engaged 30 farmers’ children in high school level from the provinces of Pangasinan, Isabela, Camarines Sur, Iloilo, Bukidnon, and Davao del Norte from November 2016 to October 2017. They interacted with the research team (the authors) and the RCM-SMS platform that sends text messages regarding fertilizer recommendations. A staff member from the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) also called the students for some follow-up questions. The research team conducted three rounds of interviews with the students concerning the messages and calls that they received and what they did with the information.

Findings: This study finds that farmers’ children can perform infomediary roles quite effectively. Academically excellent children and those involved in farm work performed best.

Practical Implications: The study provides guidance on similar initiatives tapping young people in agricultural development.

Theoretical Implications: This paper finds that while Community Youth Development (CYD) Theory provides a powerful lens in understanding community and youth development intersections, some identified outcomes may overlap and may not be very easy to observe. Hence, the identified outcomes may be revisited for clarity and to make them more all-encompassing.

Originality/Value: The paper documents actual parent-child interaction when the latter is mobilized to serve as an infomediary to access nutrient management-related information on rice.     

Pre-service teachers’ perceptions of self as inclusive educators

Teacher education institutions play a key role in preparing pre-service teachers to graduate as competent and confident inclusive educators. Seeking to understand pre-service teachers’ current perceptions of diversity and inclusion, and how they perceived themselves as future inclusive educators, this qualitative study employed inductive analysis to explore pre-service teachers’ self-perceptions as inclusive teachers, utilising the theory of possible selves. Forty-six (n?=?46) of 292 pre-service teachers enrolled in an inclusive education subject in a graduate entry teacher education programme in eastern Australia participated in this study. Findings revealed that pre-service teachers had developed good theoretical understanding of inclusive education through their coursework. However, their development of possible selves as inclusive educators was less well-defined in that they had difficulty extending their understandings of who they might be as inclusive teachers beyond their coursework samples. This difficulty in identifying their cultural selves beyond a stereotypical norm of who a ‘classroom teacher’ is indicates a need for more and extensive time for pre-service teachers to develop their professional identities as inclusive educators.     

Treatment Fidelity Challenges in a Five-State Consultation Study

Consultation is a promising approach to creating change in early childhood programs, from innovations in instructional strategies to the enhancement of global program quality. Studies of consultation effectiveness have been hampered by limited reports of implementation fidelity related to consultation procedures. This article describes the challenges of supporting and measuring implementation fidelity in a 5-state study in which community consultants followed a collaborative consultation model to enhance global quality in childcare programs. The authors consider the limitations of using a randomized experimental design to study the effectiveness of consultation and share lessons learned in their efforts to enhance treatment fidelity without compromising the basic tenets of the model or the rigorous design.