Migrants and maltreatment: comparative evidence from central register data

This paper reports the results of a series of studies on the abuse and neglect of migrant farmworker children. These investigations were conducted between 1983 and 1985 in the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Texas. Names of approximately 24,000 migrant children obtained from annual migrant education censuses were individually cross-referenced with the appropriate state data bases to determine if they had been involved in a confirmed incident of maltreatment. The information acquired was converted to incidence estimates that were contrasted with the rates for all children in the respective states and were decomposed to identify high-risk cohorts within the migrant population. One finding common to all five assessments was that migrant children were significantly more likely to be maltreated than other children, although these incidence rates varied appreciably from one state to another. The emphasis of this paper is on the unique methodology employed in the research, issues pertaining to provisions for accessing central registers and protecting confidentiality of subjects, the generalizability of the findings, and cross-state incidence differentials for both migrants and children from nonmigrant families.     

Staff meetings: Planning meaningful curriculum

Young children of the 80s feel a lack of involvement of significant others in their lives. They perceive the world as a place where important adults are not seriously involved in their lives even if the same adults would describe themselves as being very caring about their children. The reasons for this perception were developed in a Children of the 80s seminar at California State University, Fresno recently.Doris O. Smith is Coordinator of the Early Childhood Education Program of the School of Education and Human Development at California State University in Fresno.     

Student Achievement in an Educational Technology Course As Enhanced By Cooperative Learning

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of cooperative learning on students' achievement in an Educational Technology course in an Initial Teacher Training Program. A cooperative learning strategy was compared with the traditional whole class direct instruction approach. Ninety-five first year full-time students at a College of Education constituted the sample. The students' achievement included: academic achievement in the course, quantity measurement in the use of instructional media, and quality rating of utilization of instructional media during their teaching practice. Their attitude change was also assessed by an Attitude Inventory. The results indicated that cooperative learning strategy had a positive effect on academic achievement and quantity measurement in the use of instructional media (F(l,91) = 7.06, p < 0.01; F(l,91) = 4.59, p < 0.05). Cooperative learning strategy also had a positive influence on students' attitudes towards instructional media and their learning condition (F(l,93) = 5.07, p < 0.05; F(l,93) = 6.20, p < 0.05).     

Does the Use of Student Feedback Questionnaires Improve the Overall Quality of Teaching?

An investigation was conducted into 3- or 4-year departmental sets of student feedback questionnaire data from one university. Only four out of 25 departments had significant changes to any of the six dimensions in the 3- or 4-year period, and three of these significant changes were falls. There is, therefore, no evidence that the use of the questionnaire was making any contribution to improving the overall quality of teaching and learning of the departments, at least as perceived by the students. If it was, there should have been evidence of rising values. The following reasons why the use of the questionnaire might not have been conducive to improving teaching quality are discussed. The possibility that teaching quality is inherently stable is rejected. It is possible that feedback from the questionnaire was not used effectively. Related to this is whether instructors perceived that the university rewarded good teaching, so felt there was an incentive to make use of the feedback. The emphasis of the system was on appraisal, which might negate any developmental effect. The standard questionnaire and the associated procedures may have lacked flexibility and been inappropriate for innovative forms of teaching. The study questions whether student feedback questionnaires are utilising resources effectively if they are administered in an environment similar to the university in question, which appears reasonably typical.     

Working within the Zone of Proximal Development: Formative Assessment as Professional Development

Journal of Science Teacher Education -     

Beginning School Math Competence: Minority and Majority Comparisons

This article uses a structural model with a large random sample of urban children to explain children's competence in math concepts and computation at the time they begin first grade. These 2 aspects of math ability respond differently to environmental resources, with math concepts (reasoning) much more responsive to family factors before formal schooling begins than is computation. In this sample, blacks and whites are equivalent in terms of computational and verbal skills as measured by the California Achievement Test at the start of grade 1. However, there is a significant difference of about a quarter of a standard deviation favoring whites over blacks in terms of math concepts (reasoning skills). Both black and white children of all socioeconomic levels respond to parents' psychological resources: net of ability or other factors, children score higher if parents expect them to do well. Socioeconomic resources in the home also help both groups. In particular, the parent being a high school graduate as opposed to a dropout is important. When parents' material and psychological resources are taken into account, family configuration (solo motherhood vs. other types) has no discernible effects on either type of math performance.     

Meaningfulness is in the eye of the reader: eye-tracking insights of L2 learners reading e-books and their pedagogical implications

This study employed eye-tracking technology to probe the online reading behavior of 52 advanced L2 English learners. These participants read an e-book containing six types of multimedia supports for either vocabulary acquisition or comprehension. The six supports consisted of three micro-level supports that provided information about specific words (glosses, vocabulary focus, and footnotes), and three macro-level supports that provided global or background information (illustrations, infographics, and photos). The participants read the ebook under two presentation modes: (1) simultaneous mode: where digital input and supports were presented at the same time; and (2) sequential mode: where the digital content and supports were incrementally presented. Analyses showed that when reading for vocabulary acquisition, vocabulary focus and glosses were significantly fixated on, and when reading for comprehension, illustrations were more intensely fixated on. Additionally, when the digital content was incrementally presented, vocabulary focus received significantly higher total fixation duration. This suggests that reading under the sequential mode has the potency to guide L2 learners’ focal attention toward micro-level supports. In contrast, under the simultaneous presentation mode, L2 learners seemed to divide their focal attention among both micro-level and macro-level supports. Pedagogical implications are discussed based on the findings of this study.     

The perception of generic capabilities and learning environment among undergraduate nursing students after the implementation of a senior intake scheme

Hong Kong has introduced a senior intake admission scheme which is similar to the US model of credit transfer from community college programmes to university bachelor programmes. The study aimed to assess the outcomes, in terms of generic capabilities, of introducing a senior intake articulation scheme to a bachelor of nursing curriculum in Hong Kong. One hundred and seventy-four nursing students completed and returned the Student Engagement Questionnaire. The senior intake students reported significantly higher scores in creative thinking, active learning, teaching for understanding, feedback to assist learning, and relationship between teachers and students than the mainstream students. Self-managed learning and relationship with other students were positively and significantly related to academic performance. The senior intake students appeared to adjust well in university education. Greater effort should be made to nurture their relationship with other students and a review of the denseness of the mainstream curriculum is warranted.     

Re-signifying participatory action research (PAR) in higher education: what does ‘P’ stand for in PAR?

While carrying out a study aimed at understanding the contribution of participatory action research (PAR) to the political realm in contemporary higher education, a problematic situation was found when doing a literature review in the field of action research. This problem concerns the intermittent appearance of the ‘participatory’ component (P) in the acronyms used by PAR practitioners. To flag this problem, a decision was made to use the parentheses around the ‘P’ in PAR; that is, (P)AR. This intermittent appearance of (P) in the literature of action research is linked to one of the main findings in the study; namely, the existence of contested views of ‘action’ and ‘politics’ in action research. In order to address the concept of ‘participatory’ in PAR, and drawing from Hannah Arendt’s notion of ‘natality’, it is suggested that the participatory aspect of PAR (i.e. the ‘P’) be re-signified on the basis of six imbricated ‘P’ notions: people, plurality, publicity, participation, power and politics. The objective of this article is to present how this theoretical resource was utilised to re-signify the ‘participatory’ component of PAR. It is discussed that this re-signification of participation (the P), together with the re-signification of the action (‘A’) and the research (‘R’) components of PAR, constitutes one of the implications to contribute to the re-humanisation of contemporary higher education.