Common core writing and language standards and aligned state assessments: a national survey of teacher beliefs and attitudes

A random sample of 482 teachers in grades 3 through 8 from across the United States were surveyed about (a) their perceptions of the version of the Common Core writing and language standards adopted by their state and their state’s writing assessment, (b) their preparation to teach writing, and (c) their self-efficacy beliefs for teaching writing. Regardless of grade, a majority of teachers believed that the adopted standards are more rigorous than prior standards, provide clear expectations for students that can be straightforwardly translated into activities and lessons, and have pushed them to address writing more often. However, many surveyed felt the new writing and language standards are too numerous to cover, omit key aspects of writing development, and may be inappropriate for struggling writers. Moreover, most did not feel that professional development efforts have been sufficient to achieve successful implementation, and nearly one in five respondents was not familiar with the standards. The respondents were generally less sanguine regarding their state’s writing test, with elementary teachers even less positive than middle school teachers on some aspects, though nearly a third were unfamiliar with their state test. A majority believed state writing tests, though more rigorous than prior tests, fail to address important aspects of writing development, do not accommodate the needs of students with diverse abilities, and require more time than is available to prepare students. Additionally, many teachers believed professional development efforts have been insufficient to help them understand measurement properties of the assessments and how to use test data to identify students’ writing needs. Teachers who were better prepared to teach writing and who held more positive personal teaching efficacy beliefs for writing exhibited generally more positive perceptions of their state’s standards. In contrast, only teacher efficacy beliefs made a unique contribution to the survey respondents’ attitudes and beliefs about their state’s writing test.     

Structuring the Classroom for Performance: Cooperative Learning with Instructor‐Assigned Teams*

The main concern is a longstanding one in classroom instruction—the determinants of effective team performance. The paper explicitly examines the effect of teacher‐controlled factors on the use and functioning of student teams. From a sample of 500 undergraduate students, data are obtained on aptitude, diversity, instability, motivation, personality style, size, and performance. The regression results suggest that team motivation and instability, which are both partly controlled by the instructor, are particularly important in determining a team's performance. An implication is that instructor decisions about team make‐up and incentives can have a significant impact on student achievement.     

Counselling Maori people in New Zealand [Aotearoa]

This paper is an edited version of a seminal address given to a national association of counselors in New Zealand by a senior Maori figure professionally involved in the helping field. It focuses on a particular indigenous ethnic minority in terms of appropriate counseling, but has relevance for other traditionally-based cultures. After some attention to the societal context, the address considers major directions of western thought and how these have been reflected in counseling. It then suggests that these are largely inappropriate for Maori people, elaborating contrasts. Three major dimensions of Maori culture relevant to counselling are presented and developed. Finally, attention is given to ways in which counseling in New Zealand might be better developed along bicultural lines.This paper is based on an address given by Mason Durie (of the Rangitane and Raukawa Maori tribes) to a recent New Zealand Counseling and Guidance Association's Annual Conference at Palmerston North, New Zealand. The address was transcribed from tape and edited for publication by Gary Hermansson.     

Measuring Quality: A Comparison of U.S. News Rankings and NSSE Benchmarks

College rankings and guidebooks have become big business. The prominent role played by rankings and guidebooks is problematic because the criteria used to evaluate institutions have little to do with the quality of education students receive. Designed as an alternative to college rankings, NSSE assesses student engagement in activities that contribute to learning and success during college. This study compared the NSSE scores for 14 AAU public research universities with their rankings by U.S. News and World Report.     

The effects of physical structure and semantic organization on the recall of prose

The effects of a prose passage's physical structure and semantic organization upon free recall performance was investigated. Passages, describing characteristics of fictitious countries, contained either five or nine paragraphs on attributes of the countries. Results showed that Mandler's in J. L. Cowan (Ed.), Studies in thought and language. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1970] organizational limits could apply to prose as well as word lists and could be used to explain previous discrepant results in semantic organization research. Results showed differences in the distribution of materials interacting with type of semantic organization to produce differences in recall. Different learning strategies imposed by the passage's semantic organization were also found.     

Anticipatory contrast as a measure of time horizons in the rat: Some methodological determinants

In three experiments, the time horizon over which the rat evaluates alternative feeding sources was investigated. The time horizon was measured by the suppression of intake of one incentive (a 0.15% saccharin solution) when a preferred alternative incentive (a 32% sucrose solution) was available but delayed. In Experiment 1, we found a direct function between the amount of saccharin intake and the delay time before access to 32% sucrose. Compared with intake for a saccharin-only control, saccharin intake was suppressed before 4-min and 16-min sucrose delays, but not before a 32-min delay. Because previous work (Flaherty & Checke, 1982) had reported suppression before a delay of nearly 32 min, in the subsequent experiments we examined factors that might account for this difference. In Experiment 2, we found that saccharin intake was suppressed before a 32-min delay interval when saccharin and sucrose solutions were presented in a bright-novel test environment but not when the same solutions were presented in the home cage. In Experiment 3, we found that the time between testing and subsequent postsession feeding could also affect the suppression of saccharin intake. Saccharin intake was suppressed when access to 32% sucrose was delayed by 32 min and the test situation was followed by immediate postsession feeding, but not when postsession feeding was delayed by 90 min. These results thus extend estimates of the rat’s time horizon to at least 32 min, but indicate that the effective time horizon can vary, depending on the test situation.     

Auditory perceptual processing in reading disabled children

One hundred and three children attending Learning Assistance Centres due to reading difficulties and one hundred and three matched, average readers were administered a battery of auditory perceptual processing tasks. The battery was composed of auditory analysis and synthesis, auditory sequential memory, auditory discrimination, and phonemic segmentation tasks. A principal components analysis yielded four factors. These were determined to be advanced phonological awareness, sequential memory, discrimination, and simple phonological awareness. Discriminant analyses, using the factor scores, indicated that three of the four factors were able to discriminate between the able and disabled readers. Most notable among these was advanced phonological awareness. Auditory discrimination could not discriminate between the groups. The results suggest that there may not be one underlying phonological ability implicated in successful reading acquisition. Furthermore, it is clear that two levels of phonological awareness exist and that screening and diagnostic instruments should address both in order to have predictive validity.