EVALUATING THE EFFECTS OF ON‐TASK IN A BOX AS A CLASS‐WIDE INTERVENTION

The present study evaluated the effects of the On‐Task in a Box intervention on student on‐task behavior when used as a class‐wide intervention. The intervention package includes self‐monitoring, video modeling, and reinforcement contingency components. A multiple baseline design across three elementary classrooms was used to determine the effects of the intervention on student behavior. Results indicated immediate increases in on‐task behavior in all classrooms. Calculation of nonoverlap of all pairs’ effect sizes indicated strong intervention and maintenance effects on on‐task behavior of students in all classrooms. Social validity data were also collected, which indicated adequate validity of the intervention. Results of the study suggest that the intervention package may be effective for improving class‐wide levels of on‐task behavior.     

When friendships surpass parental relationships as predictors of long-term outcomes: Adolescent relationship qualities and adult psychosocial functioning

Perceptions of adolescent–parent and adolescent–peer relationship qualities, and adolescents’ attachment states of mind were examined as predictors of adult social and romantic relationship quality, depressive symptoms, and work performance. Adolescents (86 male, 98 female; 58% White, 29% African American, 8% mixed race/ethnicity, 5% other groups) were followed from age 13 to 24 via observational, self-, parent-, and close friend-reports. Adolescent close friendship quality was a significantly better predictor of adult peer and romantic outcomes, work performance, and depressive symptoms than parental reports of the parent–teen relationship; attachment security was also a strong predictor of numerous outcomes. Results are interpreted as reflecting the difficulty for parents judging parent–teen relationship quality and as reflecting the growing importance of close friendships during this period.     

Causal knowledge and children’s possibility judgments

Children often say that strange and improbable events, like eating pickle-flavored ice cream, are impossible. Two experiments explored whether these beliefs are explained by limits in children's causal knowledge. Participants were 423 predominantly White Canadian 4- to 7-year-olds (44% female) tested in 2020–2021. Providing children with causal information about ordinary events did not lead them to affirm that improbable events are possible, and they more often affirmed improbable events after merely learning that a similar event had occurred. However, children were most likely to affirm events if they learned how similar events happened (OR = 2.16). The findings suggest that knowledge of causal circumstances may only impact children's beliefs about the possibility after they are able to draw connections between potential events and known events.     

Pilot study of online training modules to improve speech-language pathology students’ explicit syntax knowledge

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) exhibit weaknesses in the syntactic aspects of language that affect their spoken language (i.e., speaking and listening) and written language (i.e., reading and writing). Speech-language pathologists (SLP) who work with children with DLD are the team member with the greatest expertise in syntax. However, emerging data suggest that speech-language pathology (SLP) students and SLPs have limitations in their explicit syntax knowledge that may affect how they assess and treat the language and literacy knowledge and skills of children with DLD. Additionally, there is a lack of data on the outcomes of professional development specific to syntax. This paper reports on the effects of self-paced, online learning modules on SLP graduate students’ explicit syntax knowledge. Thirty-six SLP graduate students completed online syntax learning modules that taught four pairs of syntactic structures. SLP graduate students experienced a treatment effect from two of the four online training modules. Treatment effects seemed to be influenced by the syntactic skill being treated, by prior knowledge of that particular syntactic structure, and by other environmental factors, including training program. Although future studies should explore these factors further, the outcomes of this pilot study are the first to report on a way to improve SLP graduate students’, and potentially SLPs’, explicit syntax knowledge.

     

Fun moments or consequential experiences? A model for conceptualising and researching equitable youth outcomes from informal STEM learning

Cultural Studies of Science Education - While there are many different frameworks seeking to identify what benefits young people might derive from participation in informal STEM (Science,...     

Evaluating the feasibility of remotely administered curriculum-based measurement for students with autism: A pilot study

Students with autism may struggle to develop the academic skills necessary for success in school and beyond. Understanding and improving academic skills performance requires appropriate measurement approaches. One such option that has been minimally studied with students with autism is curriculum-based measurement (CBM). Coinciding with the need to study different approaches to academic skills measurement for students with autism was the global pandemic which forced a shift to remote service delivery with little warning. While some autistic students struggled with this shift, others thrived, raising questions about how to further support students with autism in virtual formats. The purpose of this study was to examine the feasibility of using remotely administered CBM for autistic students by studying both the practicality and acceptability of this approach. Five students with autism (Grades 2–5) participated in this pilot study, completing reading, math, and writing CBMs at three time points. Student behavior and assessor fidelity were collected to examine practicality; assessor ratings of usability provided insight regarding the acceptability of the approach. Results indicated that remotely administered CBM is feasible for some students with autism: all participants completed the study tasks with minimal behavioral difficulties, and assessor ratings of acceptability were high.     

How students reason about matter flows and accumulations in complex biological phenomena: An emerging learning progression for mass balance

In recent years, there has been a strong push to transform STEM education at K-12 and collegiate levels to help students learn to think like scientists. One aspect of this transformation involves redesigning instruction and curricula around fundamental scientific ideas that serve as conceptual scaffolds students can use to build cohesive knowledge structures. In this study, we investigated how students use mass balance reasoning as a conceptual scaffold to gain a deeper understanding of how matter moves through biological systems. Our aim was to lay the groundwork for a mass balance learning progression in physiology. We drew on a general models framework from biology and a covariational reasoning framework from math education to interpret students' mass balance ideas. We used a constant comparative method to identify students' reasoning patterns from 73 interviews conducted with undergraduate biology students. We helped validate the reasoning patterns identified with >8000 written responses collected from students at multiple institutions. From our analyses, we identified two related progress variables that describe key elements of students' performances: the first describes how students identify and use matter flows in biology phenomena; the second characterizes how students use net rate-of-change to predict how matter accumulates in, or disperses from, a compartment. We also present a case study of how we used our emerging mass balance learning progression to inform instructional practices to support students' mass balance reasoning. Our progress variables describe one way students engage in three dimensional learning by showing how student performances associated with the practice of mathematical thinking reveal their understanding of the core concept of matter flows as governed by the crosscutting concept of matter conservation. Though our work is situated in physiology, it extends previous work in climate change education and is applicable to other scientific fields, such as physics, engineering, and geochemistry.     

Functions of aggressive behavior and future functional impairment

The present study investigated relations between proactive and reactive functions of physical and relational aggression and functional impairment across early childhood. It was hypothesized that reactive functions of aggression would be associated with functional impairment. Hypotheses with regard to proactive functions of aggression were exploratory. Participants were 36 children (22 girls) from a longitudinal study. At Time 1 (M = 50.31 months old, SD = 10.97), observations of aggressive behavior were collected during preschool free-play. At Time 2 (M = 73.33 months old, SD = 10.88), parent-report of functional impairment was collected. Reactive physical aggression was a significant and unique predictor of future impairment when controlling for gender and all other types of aggression. Implications of these findings are discussed from a developmental perspective.