Those who ignore the past … : 12 'easy' lessons for the next millennium

Efforts to improve US schools through curriculum reform, attention to teaching and, the specifications of objectives and standards for education, have been recurrent themes during the past half-century. I offer a distillation of 12 'easy' lessons that can be learned from the careful examination of ideas and practices concerning the improvement of schools. I discuss each of these lessons with respect to their potentialities and their complexities, and try to provide a summary of what can be learned from US history which can guide efforts to make schools genuinely educative institutions. Whether those lessons will be learned and applied are consequences that I do not, and cannot, confidently address. However, my arguments may promote debate that might decrease the likelihood that the past will be repeated.     

Adoption and adaptation in the use of transaction processing systems: The case of OCLC software

Library networks have developed transaction processing software as automation tools for technical and public services, based on generic library models. Transaction processing systems are shown to be a flexible type of design, allowing users to introduce modifications which aid their individual objectives: 92% of user institutions reported they made local modifications to standard OCLC practices and procedures. These findings are discussed in terms of network models for decision making in software use; methodology of software user studies; and diffusion of innovation processes in post-implementation stages of transaction processing software.     

Early identification of special educational needs and the definition of 'at risk': The Early Years Transition and Special Educational Needs (EYTSEN) Project

Education in the early years is a key element in the Government's current strategy. Recently, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) funded a major study of Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE). The Early Years Transition and Special Educational Needs (EYTSEN) Project developed from the EPPE research and was also funded by the DfES. The authors of this article, Brenda Taggart, Pam Sammons, Rebecca Smees, Kathy Sylva, Edward Melhuish, Iram Siraj-Blatchford, Karen Elliott and Ingrid Lunt, all worked on the EYTSEN Project, based at the Institute of Education, University of London. In this article, they provide a summary of the findings from the EYTSEN Project, reviewing the impact of pre-school provision on children said to be 'at risk' of developing special educational needs. They suggest that pre-school experience has a positive impact on cognitive attainment and social or behavioural development and that integrated centres (where education and care are fully combined) and nursery schools have the most positive influence among the different f o rms of pre-school provision. This paper also discusses the identification of special educational needs; quality in pre-school centres; parents' perspectives; and future developments. The article closes with a call for improved training for practitioners working in early years settings.     

Capturing the Complexity of Moral Development and Education

This article discusses challenges educators face when attempting to sequence moral education. Two factors are identified as primary sources hindering efforts to engage in effective moral education: (a) the premature application of research findings from developmental psychology to classroom practices and (b) the underestimation of the complexity of interactions between development in students' social and moral understandings and their applications in social contexts. Research is reviewed demonstrating that morality develops alongside concepts about societal conventions and zones of personal discretion and privacy. Results of an ongoing study are presented pointing toward a U-shaped pattern in moral development in which frequency of moral choices is higher among younger children and older adolescents than among early adolescents. Research examining contextual moral decision making is discussed in relation to efforts to sequence moral education.     

Intellectual interest mediates gene × socioeconomic status interaction on adolescent academic achievement

Recent studies have demonstrated that genetic influences on cognitive ability and academic achievement are larger for children raised in higher socioeconomic status (SES) homes. However, little work has been done to document the psychosocial processes that underlie this Gene × Environment interaction. One process may involve the conversion of intellectual interest into academic achievement. Analyses of data from 777 pairs of 17-year-old twins indicated that Gene × SES effects on achievement scores can be accounted for by stronger influences of genes for intellectual interest on achievement at higher levels of SES. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that higher SES affords greater opportunity for children to seek out and benefit from learning experiences that are congruent with their genetically influenced intellectual interests.     

Untangling citation networks

The pattern of citation links between articles permits a placement in a space of points representing these articles. Using the rule that articles are placed at the centroid of the articles to which they are linked, pictures can be drawn revealing key papers and their descendants. This simple rule for placing papers by their citation pattern may also be used to scale other citation-based data. The example used in this paper is the placement of overlapping groups of articles linked by shared articles.     

The 3 × 2 Achievement Goal Questionnaire for Teachers

Within the past decade, the achievement goal approach has begun to be used to study teacher achievement motivation. In recent research with students, a 3 × 2 model of achievement goals has been proffered that separates mastery-based goals in terms of a task/self distinction. The purpose of the present study was to extend this 3 × 2 model to teachers in order to provide important insights into teachers’ individual differences. We devised items for the questionnaire and showed that data obtained with the 3 × 2 Achievement Goal Questionnaire for Teachers fit the 3 × 2 model (in absolute terms and relative to 10 alternative models) and that each goal of the model exhibited good internal consistency. In addition, we linked the 3 × 2 goals to other key constructs relevant to achievement goals, namely, implicit theories of ability, instructional practices and intrinsic interest.     

Exploring the Co‐Development of Reading Fluency and Reading Comprehension: A Twin Study

This study explores the co‐development of two related but separate reading skills, reading fluency and reading comprehension, across Grades 1–4. A bivariate biometric dual change score model was applied to longitudinal data collected from 1,784 twin pairs between the ages of 6 and 10 years. Grade 1 skills were influenced by highly overlapping genetic and environmental factors. Growth in both skills was influenced by highly overlapping shared environmental factors. Cross‐lagged parameters indicated bidirectional effects, with stronger effects from fluency to comprehension change than from comprehension to fluency change.