Young adult outcomes of the Abecedarian and CARE early childhood educational interventions

Adult benefits for participants in Project CARE were compared with those of the Abecedarian Project, a closely related randomized study of early childhood educational intervention for children from low-income families who were at risk of developmental delays and school failure. CARE replicated Abecedarian's young adult treatment-related educational and vocational attainment gains. CARE data also supported the Abecedarian reduction in marijuana use. Treated individuals in both studies reported adopting a more active life style. The average age at birth of a first child, the number of children, and the proportion of teen parents were positively affected in the Abecedarian sample but not in CARE. Finding significant educational and vocational gains lasting into young adulthood in the CARE study reinforces Abecedarian young adult findings and strengthens the case for early childhood intervention for children from low-income families.     

Use of grade-based norms versus age-based norms in psychoeducational assessment for a college population

Considerable discussion has occurred about the most appropriate methods for diagnosing learning disabilities (LD) in postsecondary students. Two of the many areas of controversy that have emerged include the appropriate diagnostic criteria to use and the appropriate referent group. A review of previous court cases demonstrates that the issue of whether to compare an individual to the general population or to a smaller referent population has not been adequately clarified. Furthermore, few empirical studies have examined the impact of choosing different referent groups on the likelihood that one will be diagnosed with LD. Therefore, this correlational study described the levels of agreement between three diagnostic models of LD, using both age- and grade-based norms to represent two referent groups for each of the three models. The sample included 155 postsecondary students referred for testing due to academic difficulties. The findings indicated that in two of the three models tested, comparing individuals to their grade-matched peers (i.e., using grade-based norms) resulted in more LD diagnoses than comparing individuals to their age-matched peers (i.e., age-based norms).     

The moderating influence of instructional intensity and word type on the acquisition of academic vocabulary in young English language learners

This study used a within-subjects design to explore two instructional conditions for developing vocabulary in second-grade Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs)—extended instruction and embedded instruction implemented during shared interactive reading. Words assigned to the extended condition were directly taught using a multifaceted approach that included visuals, bilingual definitions, examples, spelling, and partner-talk about the words’ meaning. Words assigned to the embedded condition were taught solely through brief definitions to embedded text, writing activities, and songs. In the control condition students heard the target words read aloud during shared interactive reading but without definitions or direct instruction. The study also explored the interaction between instructional condition and word type. Four types of words—abstract cognates, abstract noncognates, concrete cognates, and concrete noncognates—were randomly assigned to each condition. Nine teachers in four schools and 187 second-grade ELs participated in this within-subjects intervention, which took place in transitional bilingual classrooms. Findings indicated that across all word types, both extended and embedded instruction were more effective than the control condition in helping ELs acquire vocabulary. Findings also indicated that extended instruction was more effective then embedded instruction for all word types except concrete cognates suggesting that these young Spanish-speaking ELs were advantaged by word knowledge in their home language. Finally, while embedded instruction was less effective than extended instruction, it was much more effective than a control condition. Embedded instruction takes significantly less preparation and instructional time than extended instruction, offering teachers a practical way to teach more vocabulary to ELs.     

Contemporary Classics? The Early Onset of Influence of Articles Published in Criminology and Criminal Justice Journals, 2010–2015

Citation analysis is a valuable method for tracking the growth and transmission of scientific knowledge. In criminology and criminal justice, such analyses tend to be focused on “classic” works or on highly cited scholars over many years. As an alternative approach, we focus on work that has been cited rather quickly – what we term the “early onset” of impact. In doing so, we identified 221 of the most highly cited peer-reviewed articles, authored by 480 scholars, which were published in criminology and criminal justice journals between 2010 and 2015. Analyses reveal wide variation in substantive topics and methodological approaches, as well as a substantial gender gap with respect to authorship. Additional analyses provide insight into both journal and institutional/program prestige. We conclude with directions for future research and stress the importance of tracking over time articles that appear to be off to an early start with respect to scholarly impact.     

Feasibility of the MTAI as a Selection Instrument for Pre-Service Teacher Education — A Pilot Project

The Institute of Education is the only institution in Singapore that trains and prepares individuals for the task of teaching. In order to ensure that its products, the teachers, are of a respectable calibre, not only should the training programme be reviewed regularly, but also the method of selecting trainees.     

Metacognition,elaboration, and knowledge acquisition: Implications for instructional design

The robustness of the effect of precise elaborations on memory and the relationship of these effects to metacognitions about learning was investigated in two studies. Twenty-six naive experimenters administered prepared tasks to 130 subjects. Participants rated the comprehensibility of each sentence as it was read. An unexpected cued-recall test with a confidence rating for each answer given was administered, followed by rating the ease of learning the types of items used in three treatments: precisely elaborated, imprecisely elaborated, and unelaborated base sentences. Both studies resulted in very similar findings: Memory for precise elaborations was 50% greater than for either imprecisely elaborated or unelaborated statements. Comprehension ratings of the three sets of statements were not significantly different. Confidence ratings of correctly answered items were significantly higher than of incorrectly answered items.