An examination of the criterion validity and sensitivity to brief intervention of alternate curriculum‐based measures of writing skill

Curriculum‐based measures have been validated for use in evaluating reading, mathematics, and writing skills (Marston, 1989). Despite its common use by school psychologists (Wilson & Reschly, 1996), the relationship between the Woodcock Johnson‐Revised and curriculum‐based measures of writing has not been evaluated. This study investigated the relationship between the Woodcock Johnson‐Revised Writing Samples subtest and alternate curriculum‐based measures of written expression. In addition, the sensitivity of the measures to the effects of a short group writing intervention was assessed. Forty‐five third and fourth graders participated in an intervention that consisted of brainstorming ideas, presenting those ideas on a dry‐erase board, and writing a complete sentence on paper with writing quality feedback before completing a CBM (curriculum‐based measurement) writing passage. Numbers of words written as well as five alternate measures of writing samples were used to assess the effects of the intervention. The intervention had a positive effect on total words written. Total punctuation marks, simple sentences, and words in complete sentences emerged as the best predictors of the Woodcock Johnson‐Revised Writing Samples subtest scores in regression analyses. The implications of the analyses, limitations of the study, and directions for future research are discussed. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 41: 291–300, 2004.     

You and CO2: a Public Engagement Study to Engage Secondary School Students with the Issue of Climate Change

School students are growing up in a world with a rapidly changing climate, the effects of which will become increasingly apparent during their lifetimes. We designed and pilot tested “You and CO₂”, a STEAM program designed to encourage students to reflect on their personal impact on the environment, while also appreciating their place within society to bring about positive societal change. Over three interlinked workshops, students analyzed the carbon footprints of some everyday activities, which they then explored in more detail through interacting with a bespoke piece of digital fiction, No World 4 Tomorrow. The program culminated with students producing their own digital fictions, allowing them the freedom to explore the themes from the previous workshops with a setting and focus of their choice. We reflect here on the experience of running the You and CO₂ program and on the themes that emerged from the students’ original digital fictions.

     

Myint Swe Khine (Ed.): Emerging trends in learning analytics: leveraging the power of education data (Contemporary approaches to research in learning innovations,volume 12)

Learning Environments Research -     

Informal interaction and faculty projections of student ratings of the institutional climate

This study employed the Semantic Differential technique to investigate the relationship between informal interaction with students and the accuracy with which faculty members project students' perceptions of the institutional climate at two colleges of Arts and Sciences. When subdivided into nominal categories of high, moderate, and low interactors on the basis of their frequency of informal, out-of-class contacts with students, high interactors were found to project consistently more accurate student ratings of the climate on a bureaucracy factor than low interactors. A similar, though not consistent, relationship was found between high and low interactors on an intellectualism/scholarship dimension.     

Self-concept development and educational degree attainment

The present study explores changes in the academic, social, and artistic self-concept of college students over a nine-year period. While the findings demonstrate a positive relationship between the educational degree attainment levels of students and their formation of a more healthy self-concept, the findings further indicate that the relationship is not consistent for males and females. In general, the findings suggest that the collegiate experience does not diminish self-concept gender differences that exist at the time of matriculation. The degree to which changes in students' self-concept is related to selected aspects of their collegiate experience and characteristics of their undergraduate institutions is also explored. The findings indicate that changes in students' self-concept is related to their level of social and academic integration during their undergraduate careers and to the size and selectivity of colleges they attend. The implications of these findings for enhancing students' self-concept during the college years are discussed.     

Twenty years of research on college students: Lessons for future research

Based on a comprehensive review of the last twenty years of research on the influences of college on students, this article discusses conceptual and methodological recommendations for enhancing future assessment and college impact studies. The recommendations deal with isolating net college effects, studying the timing of change, estimating college effect sizes, examining indirect and conditional effects, and the potential benefits of qualitative approaches. Areas for future inquiry are also identified.Presented at the Annual Forum of the Association for Institutional Research, Louisville, KY, May 13–16, 1990.     

Initial evidence on the long-term impacts of work colleges

With the purpose of gaining a better understanding of the impacts that attending a work college may have on students while in college and up to 25 years later, this study estimated the effects of graduating from a group of work colleges on alumni educational and employment outcomes. Based on an overall sample of 7083 alumni from 5 work colleges, 20 private liberal arts colleges, and 5 public regional universities, a series of regression equations tested for differences across a range of college and employment related outcomes. With respect to a variety of facets of undergraduate educational outcomes, results indicate that attending a work college, relative to other types of institutions, has significant long-term effects. With respect to socioeconomic outcomes, results indicate that work colleges provide the greatest benefit to students from families with relatively low parental incomes. This research was supported by grants from The Mellon and Spencer Foundations.     

Responsibility of learning: a cross-cultural examination of the relationship of grit,motivational belief and self-regulation among college students in the US,UAE and Turkey

Learning Environments Research - The present study explored the relationship between grit, motivational beliefs and self-regulation among undergraduate students in the United States, the United...