Development of orthographic knowledge in German‐speaking children: a 2‐year longitudinal study

There is growing evidence that children develop orthographic knowledge from the very beginning of literacy acquisition. This study investigated the development of German‐speaking children's orthographic knowledge with a nonword choice task. One nonword in each pair contained a frequent consonant doublet (zommul) and the other nonword contained an infrequent doublet (zobbul). Children (N = 54) performed at chance level in kindergarten but chose nonwords with frequent doublets significantly more often than expected by chance in first and second grade. Correlations between children's orthographic knowledge and their reading and spelling skills were not found. The results indicate that knowledge of frequent double consonants is evident in German‐speaking children from first grade onwards, but it is not related to their reading and spelling performance. This finding is consistent with the view that children in transparent orthographies rely less on frequent letter patterns during reading and spelling compared to children in deep orthographies.     

Student performance in teacher education in Norway: the impact of student,institutional and structural factors

Many education systems face a challenge in recruiting graduates as teachers. This is also the situation in Norway and the newest estimates tell us that we will lack 9000 teachers in 2020. The situation is made even worse by the high number of dropouts and low performance rates in teacher education. There are many factors which have an impact on study performance and progress. Some factors are at student level, some at institutional or programme level and others at structural level. In the present article, we will discuss how students attending two different teacher education programmes at a university college in Norway negotiate between their studies and the need to earn money and the consequences this has for their study performance. We focus on student-level factors and how the university college organises its campus programmes. The findings are based on a quantitative study among 401 student teachers.     

International Communication

Gerd D. Wallenstein, International Telecommunication Agreements (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana Publications, 1977—$175.00 for a two volume set)

Oswald H. Ganley and Gladys D. canley, International Implications of United States Communications and Information Resources (price is $990 with a discount for noncommercial institutions, paper)     

Understanding the link between older volunteers’ resources and motivation to volunteer

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of older volunteers’ available human, social, and cultural capital on their motivational forces to volunteer, measured through the Volunteer Function Inventory. A large European database of 955 older volunteers (i.e., aged 50+) was employed, and Seemingly Unrelated Regressions showed that older volunteers have different motivations according to different sets of individual resources. Furthermore, lower amounts of human and social capital (e.g., low educational level, poor health, being widowed, divorced or single) are associated with a higher propensity to volunteer to enhance one’s own self-esteem, to avoid thinking of personal problems, and for social reasons. These results have important implications for policy makers and voluntary organizations if they want to enhance volunteering among older people with less resources, i.e., that are more at risk of social exclusion. For example, according to the results of this study, policy makers could consider developing more tailored opportunities for involving older volunteers with low educational level, poor health, widowed, divorced, or single. They could do this by underlying that volunteering offers possibilities to satisfy motivational needs important to the, elderly, e.g., to increase self-esteem, to deal with personal problems in a better way, and to have satisfying social contacts.     

Two german theses reviewed

R. Breitenstein‐Röder, ‘Die Stellung des Sports in Indien: Eine Entwick‐lungskizze, eine Bestandsaufnahme und Erklärungsversuche’ (The Role and Function of Sports in India), Diploma thesis, German University of Sports Sciences, Cologne 1986, pp. 197.

B. Neumüller, ‘Die Geschichte der Much Wenlock Games’ (The History of the Much Wenlock Games), diploma thesis, German University of Sports Sciences, Cologne, 1985, pp.451.     

The Psychometric Properties of Classroom Response System Data: A Case Study

Classroom response systems (often referred to as “clickers”) have slowly gained adoption over the recent decade; however, critics frequently doubt their pedagogical value starting with the validity of the gathered responses: There is concern that students simply “click” random answers. This case study looks at different measures of response reliability, starting from a global look at correlations between formative clicker responses and summative examination performance to how clicker questions are used in context. It was found that clicker performance is a moderate indicator of course performance as a whole, and that while the psychometric properties of clicker items are more erratic than those of examination data, they still have acceptable internal consistency and include items with high discrimination. It was also found that clicker responses and item properties do provide highly meaningful feedback within a lecture context, i.e., when their position and function within lecture sessions are taken into consideration. Within this framework, conceptual questions provide measurably more meaningful feedback than items that require calculations.     

Genetics and Neuroscience in Dyslexia: Perspectives for Education and Remediation

ABSTRACT— Our understanding of the causes of a developmental disorder like dyslexia has received recent input from both neuroscience and genetics. The discovery of 4 candidate genes for dyslexia and the identification of neuronal networks engaged when children read and spell are the basis for introducing this knowledge into education. However, the input from educational practitioners as well as empirical knowledge from research on learning also contribute significantly to our understanding of how children acquire the basic skills for learning to read and spell. It is imperative to merge the knowledge acquired from research in the fields of neuroscience, genetics, and empirical education, as well as to understand how the learning brain and instruction interact. Doing so can be seen as a major step in attaining an optimal approach for teaching, reading, and spelling and for finding the best suited and most effective treatment concepts for dyslexic children and adolescents.     

Development of an Interdisciplinary, Intercultural Master’s Program on Sustainability: Learning from the Richness of Diversity

The purpose of this article is to describe a joint effort between three European and six Latin American universities to create an international Master’s degree program on Sustainable Development and Management. Faculty members from these institutions are working together on this unusual and innovative project, which recognizes the importance of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) tools in international projects and programs. The article provides information about the ongoing interdisciplinary and intercultural dialogue and the learning process that is occurring throughout the development of the program.