An Investigation into the Dimensionality of TOEFL Using Conditional Covariance-Based Nonparametric Approach

This article reports two studies to illustrate methodologies for conducting a conditional covariance-based nonparametric dimensionality assessment using data from two forms of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). Study 1 illustrates how to assess overall dimensionality of the TOEFL including all three subtests. Study 2 is aimed at illustrating how to conduct dimensionality analyses for a testlet-based test by focusing on the Reading Comprehension (RC) section in combination with item content analyses and hypothesis testing. The results of Study 1 indicated that both TOEFL forms involve two dominant dimensions corresponding to the Listening Comprehension section and the combination of the Reading Comprehension section and Structure and Written Expression section. The extensive RC analyses from Study 2 revealed strong evidence that a significant amount of the RC multidimensionality came from testlet effects. Confirmatory analyses coupled with exploratory cluster analyses and substantive item content analyses further identified dimensionality structure having to do with reading subskills.     

Self-modeling as an intervention to increase student classroom participation

The effect of self-modeling as an intervention to increase individual participatory behavior in the classroom was investigated using a multiple baseline design across three second grade students with a follow-up. In addition, a control student was employed to further investigate the effects of the intervention. Self-modeling is defined as the positive change in behavior resulting from spaced viewing of oneself on edited tapes depicting exemplary behavior. Students viewed edited videotapes of themselves successfully volunteering to participate in class by raising their hand. The three students, during baseline, had a mean participation rate ranging between 8% and 24% compared with the control student's rate ranging between 53% and 63%. During intervention, the mean participation rate ranged between 28% and 60% compared with the control student's rate ranging between 43% and 46%. At follow-up, students had a mean percentage rate ranging between 44% and 64% compared with the control student's rate of 53%. Thus, they more closely approximated or surpassed the control student's mean rate of participation during intervention and follow-up, suggesting that the self-modeling intervention was effective in increasing individual participatory behavior in the classroom. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The relative effects of university success courses and individualized interventions for students with learning disabilities

Little is known about the relative effects of post‐secondary learning services for students with learning disabilities. We compared outcomes for students with learning disabilities who selected to: (1) take an academic learning success course (course‐intervention), (2) have regular individual interventions (high‐intervention) or (3) use services only as needed (low‐intervention). Pre‐ and post‐test comparisons revealed improvements in academic self‐efficacy and academic resourcefulness for students in the course‐ and high‐intervention groups. The course‐intervention group also showed decreases in their failure attributions to bad luck and increases in their general repertoire of learned resourcefulness skills in comparison to the high‐intervention group and had significantly higher year‐end GPAs in comparison to the low‐intervention group. Here we find positive outcomes for students with learning disabilities taking a course that teaches post‐secondary learning and academic skills.     

Preparing future educational leaders to write for Scholarly Publication

One objective of graduate-level education is the socialization of students into the professional roles they will eventually assume. The ability to engage successfully in scholarly writing and publishing are important competencies for graduate students, particularly at the doctoral level, to acquire. An experimental course, Basics of Scholarly Publishing, is described along with the results of a survey of 52 students who have completed the course. The proportion of those successfully breaking into scholarly print was 86.5% and increasing. Additional benefits of the course are discussed and an appeal is made for universities elsewhere to begin offering similar learning experiences for their students at the graduate level.     

DISSERTATION RESEARCH: PART 2, THE QUANTITATIVE DISSERTATION: FORM AND SUBSTANCE

This is the second in a three‐part series of papers concerning dissertation research. In this paper, the elements of quantitative dissertations are identified for analysis and subsequent discussion. Dissertation research should provide the researcher the opportunity to become another example of the generative, creative, and inventive capacity of mankind to be liberated for a period of time from the immediate in order to extend his or her own thoughts forward toward whatever future may be permitted. Dissertation research should provide the reader an opportunity to extend and expand his realm of thought apart from an imposed or artificial conformity to form.     

Farewell from the Founding Editor-in-Chief

On June 14, 2011, the world of higher education lost a great editor and scholar. D. Barry Lumsden passed away that morning, leaving behind three excellent journals and a legacy of scholarship. Dr. Lumsden had edited the Community College Journal of Research and Practice since he founded it in 1976, and we feel his loss keenly. Our sympathies go out to his family, friends and colleagues for their loss.

I have had the pleasure of working with Barry since joining Taylor & Francis (T&F) in 1984. He was one of the more colorful characters I have come across in 30 years of publishing. He referred to me, as you will see below, as Brother Kevin. He always brought a smile to my face when I would pick up the phone (he is from a generation that still picks up the phone and talks to people) and hear him say hello. He cared deeply about the journals he worked on and the contribution he was making to the field. His legacy has been established by the contributions that he has made and, for me, he will always bring a smile to my face when I think of him.

In early 2011, on Dr. Lumsden's recommendation, we appointed Deborah L. Floyd as his successor. Dr. Floyd has worked on the journal for several years, both as an editorial board member and a guest editor, and we know she will do a fine job in her new role as editor-in-chief. We are saddened by Dr. Lumsden's passing, but look forward to working with Dr. Floyd as she continues the work he started three decades ago. The following editorial was to be his farewell to the Community College Journal of Research and Practice, the journal he edited for 35 years.

Kevin Bradley, President

Taylor & Francis US Journals Program     

Neoliberalism,global poverty policy and early childhood education and care: a critique of local uptake in England

The global rise of a neoliberal ‘new politics of parenting’ discursively constructs parents in poverty as the reason for, and remedy to, child poverty. This allows for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) to become a key policy lever by using human technologies to intervene in and regulate the lives of parents and children in poverty. The article explores the uptake of this policy locally through interviews with 30 ECEC practitioners in three locations across England. The interviews suggested that the neoliberal discursive formation of child poverty as a problem of the poor themselves had symbolic power and was a view shared by most of the interviewees. This appeared to restrict their thinking and action, shaping a limited engagement with parents in poverty. Delivering curricular requirements was seen to further delimit practitioners’ practices with children in poverty by reducing their poverty sensitivity. Although this is a small study, its findings may be of value in questioning neoliberal logics, and their implications are considered critically.