Evidence-based policy-making: the usability of the Eurostat Adult Education Survey

This article reflects on European education policy which is driven by benchmarks and indicators. While the European benchmark on adult lifelong learning participation—15% to be achieved by 2020—is measured by the Labour Force Survey, the Eurostat Adult Education Survey (AES) was designed to better understand the topic of adult lifelong learning participation in-depth. This article explores the AES as an instrument to inform policy-makers and whether it provides adequate information to empirically testify participation hypotheses. The article argues that analysis of the AES provides limited understanding of the educational supply side. Furthermore, policy-makers should be aware of methodological and conceptual weaknesses before relying on these data in their policy development.     

Association of “Macho Man” Sexual Attitudes and Behavioral Risks in Urban Adolescents

We examined whether sexual attitudes of adolescents were related to their self-reported sexual risk behavior by analyzing survey data from 1,052 boys and girls aged 14 to 17 years from a low income, urban community. Sexual behavior norms that may increase sexually transmitted infection/HIV risks in youth were sanctioned more by males and by sexually experienced youth, but their attitudes were unassociated with either their age or race/ethnicity. Endorsement was correlated with greater intention to have sexual intercourse among all youth. Among sexually experienced participants, it was associated with earlier sexual debut, more partners, and less intention to use condoms but not with the number of unprotected sexual episodes in the prior six months. Sexual attitudes of youth may conflict with initiation and maintenance of safer sex practices, making them vulnerable to HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. Risk reduction interventions for adolescents should address this.     

Using multidimensional scaling to improve functionality of the Revised Learning Process Questionnaire

The Revised Learning Process Questionnaire has been part of the development of a conceptual understanding of how students learn and what motivates them to engage in particular tasks. We obtained responses from 329 student volunteers at a mid‐sized public university in the southeast USA. We first investigated whether the psychometric properties and latent factor structure of this questionnaire are replicable in a different educational context and with students from a different country than that originally used to create and validate the questionnaire. We found this to be true. Second, we used Profile Analysis via Multidimensional Scaling (PAMS) to improve the diagnostic functionality of the instrument as well as further explore the latent structure of the questionnaire. The factor structure was evident in this solution, but we found that interpreting the latent structure in terms of the dimensions of Strategy and Motive as opposed to the factors of Deep and Surface approaches to be more appropriate for diagnostic use. We also found that PAMS has the inherent ability to assess an individual’s fit within the model, thereby acting as a measure of self‐report credibility. The Strategy dimension was found to have ecological validity through analysing its relationship to academic performance.     

Deaf and hard of hearing students' problem-solving strategies with signed arithmetic story problems

The use of problem-solving strategies by 59 deaf and hard of hearing children, grades K-3, was investigated. The children were asked to solve 9 arithmetic story problems presented to them in American Sign Language. The researchers found that while the children used the same general types of strategies that are used by hearing children (i.e., modeling, counting, and fact-based strategies), they showed an overwhelming use of counting strategies for all types of problems and at all ages. This difference may have its roots in language or instruction (or in both), and calls attention to the need for conceptual rather than procedural mathematics instruction for deaf and hard of hearing students.     

Bilingual effects on cognitive and linguistic development: role of language, cultural background, and education

A total of 104 six-year-old children belonging to 4 groups (English monolinguals, Chinese-English bilinguals, French-English bilinguals, Spanish-English bilinguals) were compared on 3 verbal tasks and 1 nonverbal executive control task to examine the generality of the bilingual effects on development. Bilingual groups differed in degree of similarity between languages, cultural background, and language of schooling. On the executive control task, all bilingual groups performed similarly and exceeded monolinguals; on the language tasks the best performance was achieved by bilingual children whose language of instruction was the same as the language of testing and whose languages had more overlap. Thus, executive control outcomes for bilingual children are general but performance on verbal tasks is specific to factors in the bilingual experience.     

Academic Life and Motherhood: Variations by Institutional Type

This paper explores the interface between work and family at different types of institutions from the perspective of women faculty who are on the tenure track and who are mothers of young children. Such a perspective provides insight into institutional variation on academic life in general, and for new faculty as mothers in particular. A macro view of the findings points to two major concerns: time (and lack thereof) and its impact on the “ideal worker” norms that shape what it means to be a good mother and good professor at different institutional types; and, the idea of “choice” as an illusion.     

Rubric formats for the formative assessment of oral presentation skills acquisition in secondary education

Educational technology research and development - Acquiring complex oral presentation skills is cognitively demanding for students and demands intensive teacher guidance. The aim of this study was...     

The Girls of Central High: How a Progressive Era Book Series for Girls Furthered the Cause of Female Interschool Sport

An increased awareness of the gendered traditions of physical activity portrayed in vintage book series for girls and boys may provide teachers with a deeper understanding of (still) current ideological assumptions affecting female and male participation in sport and recreational activity. This article explores a unique girls’ fiction series about competitive high school sport for females during the Progressive Era. These stories are significant in that they enabled young women to explore conventional and resistant viewpoints about competitive sport, usually a strictly masculine preserve. While these struggles occurred nearly one hundred years ago, echoes of these issues reverberate today in contemporary high school physical education and competitive sport programs.     

The influence of student problems on student withdrawal decisions: An autopsy on “autopsy” studies

The influence of student problems, which are often cited by students as reasons for withdrawal, is compared with the influence of constructs derived from Tinto's student attrition model. The findings suggest that data from post-hoc attrition studies should be used cautiously.The authors are listed in alphabetical order. Each author contributed equally to the article.