How Families Use Questions at Dioramas: Ideas for Exhibit Design

This paper explores the role of questioning in scientific meaning‐making as families talk, look and gesture in front of realistic and artful dioramas at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. The focus is on the ways questioning can either enable movement towards scientific understanding or hinder such progress. The socio‐cultural framework of this research emphasizes Vygotsky's interpretation of the zone of proximal development (zpd). Questions are viewed as tools for mediation in the zpd. This paper examines three families' dialogues, excerpted from a larger study of collaborative sense‐making among family groups in a natural history museum. It seeks to understand how collaborative dialogue meshes everyday understandings with canonical science, in this case through the use of questions.     

Normative data for eight dimensions of reading attitude,Part III—suburban parochial school students

The Survey of Reading Attitudes was administered to 235 intermediate-grade students enrolled in a suburban parochial school in Northeastern Ohio. Statistical analysis consisted of computing means, standard deviations, standard errors of measurement, and coefficient alpha reliability estimates for the eight dimensions of reading attitude included in the Survey. The reliability estimates for the respective dimensions are as follows: Expressed Reading α=.88; Reading as Direct Reinforcement, α=.79; Reading as Enjoyment, α=.89; Alternative Learning Modes, α=.71; Reading Group, α=.76; Reading Anxiety, α=.82; Silent vs. Oral Reading, α=.79; and Comics, α=.72.     

The effects of recognition and recall study tasks with feedback in a computer-based vocabulary lesson

Should computer-based study tasks use multiple-choice or constructed-response question format? It was hypothesized that a constructucted-response study task (CR) with feedback would be superior to multiple-choice study tasks that allowed either single or multiple tries (STF and MTF). Two additional recognition study task treatments were included that required an overt constructed response after feedback (STF+OR and MTF+OR) in order to control for possible confounding caused by response form mismatch between the recognition study task and recall posttest. Graduate students (N=133) were randomly assigned to one of the five computer-delivered treatments. Relative to STF, posttest effect sizes were: STF 相似文献   

Effects of orienting activities and practice on achievement,continuing motivation,and student behaviors in a cooperative learning environment

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of orienting activities and type of practice on achievement, continuing motivation, and student behaviors in a cooperative learning environment. Eighty graduate education majors were assigned to cooperative groups and required to learn instructional design principles from three instructional television lessons. Each lesson included specific orienting activities (advance organizers or objectives) and different types of practice (verbal information or intellectual skills). Results indicated that subjects who worked in groups that received intellectual skills practice performed better on the application portion of the posttest than those who received verbal information practice. Knowledge acquisition and student behaviors were affected by a combination of type of practice and orienting activity. Groups that received intellectual skills practice discussed more content, gave more help to their fellow group members, and exhibited less individual behavior than groups that received verbal information practice. Groups given objectives discussed significantly more content than groups given advance organizers. The authors wish to thank Steven Ross and the reviewers ofETR&D for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.     

Longitudinal Study of Middle Grades Chemistry Professional Development: Enhancement of Personal Science Teaching Self-Efficacy and Outcome Expectancy

The purpose of this research was to enhance self-efficacy beliefs, chemistry content, and pedagogical content knowledge of middle grades teachers by incorporating specific design elements into professional development. This study analyzed the influence of program design on achieving gains in personal science teaching self-efficacy, outcome expectancy, chemistry content, and pedagogical content knowledge in 4 discrete cohorts (N = 135). Significant changes were produced in self-efficacy at .01 in each cohort, personal science teaching self-efficacy was significantly enhanced in Cohorts 1, 2, and 4 at .01, and outcome expectancy was significantly enhanced in Cohorts 1 and 3 at .01 and in Cohort 4 at .05. Professional development that enhances personal science teaching self-efficacy and outcome expectancy should be recognized as essential to achieving scientific literacy for all students.     

Characterizing Learning Environments Capable of Nurturing Generic Capabilities in Higher Education

There has been wide recognition that today’s graduates need the type of generic capabilities necessary for lifelong learning. However, the mechanism by which universities can develop these generic skills is not clearly established. This study aimed to investigate the mechanism for their development. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test a hypothesized model of capability development through a suitable learning environment with 1756 undergraduates at a university in Hong Kong. To triangulate against this model and more fully characterize the learning environment, focus group interviews were held with five to six students from three programs with good records of capability development. Analysis of the interview data resulted in a set of categories, describing a learning environment, which were consistent with the SEM model. The learning environment which seemed conducive to capability development aimed for understanding of key concepts through a variety of assessment methods and active engagement in learning activities. Teacher–student relationships were developed through interaction, feedback and assistance. The promotion of peer–student relationships led to a high degree of collaborative learning.     

Investigating the Psychometric Properties of the ACEI Global Guidelines Assessment,Third Edition (GGA) in Nine Countries

The Third Edition of the ACEI Global Guidelines Assessment (GGA) was evaluated for its effectiveness as an international assessment tool for use by early childhood educators to develop, assess, and improve program quality worldwide. This expanded study was conducted in nine countries [People’s Republic of China (2 sites), Guatemala, India, Italy, Mexico (2 sites), Peru (2 sites), Taiwan, Thailand, United States] to continue the investigation of the psychometric properties of the GGA. A total of 346 programs and 678 early care and education professionals participated in this study. Results primarily confirmed the findings of the previous study, (Hardin et al. in Early Child Educ J 41(2): 91–101, 2013), indicating that the GGA showed strong to moderate internal consistency and interrater reliability for subscale ratings across this larger number of countries and programs. The congruence of item ratings and written evidence to support ratings was acceptable, although some programs had lower participation in providing evidence. To test concurrent validity of ratings, external raters also evaluated a subset of programs (n = 44 from Peru and United States) on both the GGA and the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised that showed moderate positive correlations. Patterns of program practices were also identified within and across the participating sites and countries. Results suggest that the GGA can be used as an onsite evaluation method that can help stakeholder participants (teachers and administrators) increase their awareness of program quality standards and serve as an assessment method for their own programs. In particular, the results suggest the GGA is a reliable and useful instrument that can be used effectively by early childhood stakeholders for assessing and improving program quality worldwide (Bergen and Hardin in Child Educ 91(4): 259–264, 2015).     

The integrated school in a conflict society: a comparative analysis of two integrated primary schools in Northern Ireland

The purpose of this paper is to compare the approach to promoting positive relationships between Catholics and Protestants in two types of integrated primary school in Northern Ireland. Drawing on qualitative interviews with teachers, governors and parents in one transforming school and one grant maintained integrated school, i.e. one representative of each of the two types, the paper shows that whilst there are distinctions in the ways that the schools promote their image and ethos, the ‘lived reality’ of the schools, as reported by the research participants, is almost indistinguishable. The paper suggests that both schools tend not to refer to or explore cultural difference and that this tendency to ‘minimise difference’ seems to have the potential to silence school members who do wish to explore their own and other cultures. It is argued that such practices are likely to impede rather than facilitate the progress of good inter‐community relations.