Recruiting and Retaining Asian American and Pacific Islander Teachers

The Urban Review - The lack of Teachers of Color in the United States raises questions about their recruitment and retention and the responsiveness of schools to racial and linguistic diversity....     

Does previewing answer choice options improve performance on reading tests?

Previewing answer-choice options before finishing reading the text is a widely employed test-taking behavior. In the present study we examined whether previewing is related to item response accuracy and response time, using data from Chinese learners of varying English proficiency levels and English native speakers. We examined eye movement patterns of participants who completed online multiple-choice sentence completion tasks, and how previewing was related to reading performance and whether the relation varied as a function of English proficiency level. The results showed that, relative to no previewing, previewing was associated with a significantly lower probability of answering an item correctly but not with significantly longer response time. Importantly, these relations varied across English proficiency levels such that participants with higher proficiency performed better without previewing, but there was no difference for lower-intermediate learners of English. These findings suggest that previewing does not facilitate performance on a sentence comprehension task, but instead interferes with the comprehension process, particularly for individuals with relatively high language proficiency.     

Stories of Success from Eminent Finnish Women: A narrative study

Factors to which women attribute their success were explored in this study using narrative analysis of the life stories of contemporary eminent women living in Finland. The participants were 12 Finnish women who have achieved success and peer recognition in various fields including science, business and finance, politics, and the arts. Four universal themes emerged from an analysis of the interview data. In their stories of achievement, the main factors were their personal self-reliance, the superiority of their work, and their interdependence with others including family members and co-workers. In addition, every woman talked about the egalitarianism that pervades Finnish society and its importance in the home and workplace. The voices of these women confirmed and extended the knowledge base about the course of talent development for females and the meaning of success for eminent women.     

Why the Simple View of Reading Is Not Simplistic: Unpacking Component Skills of Reading Using a Direct and Indirect Effect Model of Reading (DIER)

Pathways of relations of language, cognitive, and literacy skills (i.e., working memory, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, inference, comprehension monitoring, word reading, and listening comprehension) to reading comprehension were examined by comparing four variations of direct and indirect effects model of reading. Results from 350 English-speaking second graders revealed that language and cognitive component skills had direct and indirect relations to listening comprehension, explaining 86% of variance. Word reading and listening comprehension completely mediated the relations of language and cognitive component skills to reading comprehension and explained virtually all the variance in reading comprehension. Total effects of component skills varied from small to substantial. The findings support the direct and indirect effects model of reading model and indicate that word reading and listening comprehension are upper-level skills that are built on multiple language and cognitive component skills, which have direct and indirect relations among themselves. The results underscore the importance of understanding nature of relations.     

From retention to satisfaction: New outcomes for assessing the freshman experience

To meet higher education's challenge of accountability from a customer-satisfaction perspective, one urban institution has developed an integrated approach to studying the freshman-year experience in order to develop comprehensive outcome measures for assessing freshman success. Multiple sources of data (freshman satisfaction survey data, enrollment data, and academic performance data) are integrated into a database that provides the institution with a comprehensive set of outcome indicators and a model of the freshman experience. This institution used the integrated data set to develop models of freshman retention. In order to focus more clearly on customer satisfaction, models of student satisfaction were developed to determine critical components in freshman satisfaction.     

定量分析能源效率以及温室气体减排项目和政策中的协同效益方面的国际经验

提高能效和燃料转换效率是温室气体减排战略的一部分。过去二十年,很多研究显示这两方面带来气候变化以外的好处,多半介于这些政策方案实施成本的30%到超过100%。国际上,政策制定者对于分析能效政策和燃料转换效率政策同时纳入对温室气体和非温室气体两方面影响的探讨愈来愈感兴趣。欧盟、美国与日本已开发出一套相当成熟的方法。通常,协同效益的定量工作可分为三类:(1)协同效益模型;(2)事前的政策评估方法;(3)由学者建立的框架,意在改善这方面的研究,并将协同效益应用到更多的地区和政策方案上。 表ES-1将协同效益定量方面的几个重点模型、指南和框架做了摘要。     

Preschool children’s use of meta-talk to make rational collaborative decisions

In collaborative decision-making, partners compare reasons behind conflicting proposals through meta-talk. We investigated UK-based preschoolers’ (mixed socioeconomic status) use of meta-talk (Data collection: 2018–2020). In Study 1, 5- and 7-year-old peer dyads (N = 128, 61 girls) heard conflicting claims about an animal from two informants. One prefaced her claim with “I know”; the other with “I think”. Dyads identified the more reliable informant through meta-talk (“She said she knows”). In Study 2, 3- and 5-year-olds (N = 64, 34 girls) searched for a toy with an adult partner making incorrect proposals. Children refuted this through reporting what they had witnessed (It cannot be there because “I saw it move”, “she moved it”). In preschool period, children start using meta-talk to make rational collaborative decisions.     

Pressures and influences on school leaders navigating policy development during the COVID-19 pandemic

The pressures and influences experienced by school leaders as school policymakers, during the first responses to COVID-19 pandemic, made their task of interpreting, translating and implementing school guidance both difficult and stressful. During COVID-19 pandemic, school leaders faced challenges to prioritise and balance ever-changing government policy advice with the limitations of school buildings, the welfare of students and staff, and the needs of communities, a task made complicated by the methods of communication used by government. By surveying and interviewing headteachers, senior leaders and governors, this article identifies the reactions and responses of school leaders who construct and enact policy in the context of COVID-19 pandemic. The article addresses the nature of, and factors affecting, pressures school leaders feel in authoring and implementing policy. These pressures are non-trivial and increase tension in already highly stressful work. The report draws on data collected from a randomised, stratified sample of primary and secondary school leaders from across England in early June 2020, during the time of national lockdown and remote learning. Findings suggest quality, quantity and frequency of top-down communication contributed to school leader stress, while horizontal communication and collaboration between school leaders and across school communities supported leaders during rapid change. We recommend that government and the Department of Education strengthen and streamline stressful communication systems while building cooperative communities, mitigating against the challenges identified by school leaders during the COVID-19 pandemic.     

The accountability era in US teacher education: looking back,looking forward

Abstract

In keeping with the theme of the 40th anniversary issue of EJTE, this article looks back and forward at US teacher education accountability. It argues that “holding teacher education accountable” has been the major approach to reforming teacher education in the US for the last two decades, assuming that enhanced teacher education quality depends on vigilant public evaluation and monitoring of outcomes related to teacher education institutions, programs, and teacher candidates. This article looks back at the “era of accountability” by examining five policy, political, and professional developments that contributed to its emergence and strong hold on US teacher education. Looking forward to the future of teacher education accountability in the US, the article argues that we need a new approach – democratic accountability in teacher education – which is based on intelligent professional responsibility for students’ learning including democratic knowledge and skills, strong equity, and genuine collaboration with multiple stakeholders.