Examining the Impact and School‐Level Predictors of Impact Variability of an 8th Grade Reading Intervention on At‐Risk Students’ Reading Achievement

The purpose of the present article is to report on a large‐scale investigation of six school districts’ implementation of an initiative aimed at reducing dropout rates by improving reading achievement in the middle grades. Data for the Middle School Intervention Project (MSIP) were collected in 25 middle schools across the state of Oregon. We examined (a) the degree to which the schools improved reading achievement for struggling readers in 8th grade, and (b) whether we could account for school differences in the treatment effect through measured explicit and intensive intervention factors. At the end of 8th grade there was no evidence of significant or positive effects on the two primary reading outcome measures.     

Human-based social interaction can reward a rat’s behavior

Rats were trained to leverpress in a conventional operant test chamber; however, their behavior was rewarded solely by social interaction with a human being. This training was successful for half the subjects tested; success was confined to animals for which social interaction had occurred prior to training. Similar findings with other species are discussed. Although the effects of social interaction with a human are by no means as robust as those of food to a hungry animal, the present results suggest that the human-rat interaction may be a positive adjunct to conventional behavioral training techniques, and a possible confound where its effects are uncontrolled.     

How immediate is language understanding? Investigating reading in real time

Oral and silent reading was studied for moving-window text displayed on a computer screen. Experiment 1 investigated whether local linguistic properties of text being read aloud affect speed in performing a dual task or the distance which a reader's voice lags behind the text seen. Regression analyses showed that choice reaction time during reading is not predicted by any linguistic properties of the immediate text considered, and that these properties instead predict a measure of eye-voice span. Experiment 2 investigated whether, in silent reading, reference is assigned to expressions in text while, or after, they are being viewed. In nearly all contexts, readers were observed to confirm that a given character in a story was being referred to only after the source expression in text had passed out of view. In general, the results tend to speak against an hypothesis about reading which holds that a reader completes processing of an expression in text while still looking at it.     

School Environmental Education Programme Impacts upon Student and Family Learning: A case study analysis

This article uses a case study approach to explore the impact of two school environmental education programmes, from the perspective of participating students, their teachers and their parents. A total of 152 students (79 from primary schools and 73 from a secondary school), 3 teachers and 62 parents contributed their perceptions regarding the impact of the programmes. Each programme is described in detail and students' responses compared across the two programmes and across different class groups participating in each programme. It is concluded that both programmes were successful in engaging students in thinking and learning about environmental issues, although some programme features were more likely than others to lead to impacts beyond the bounds of the classroom. Recommendations are made regarding those features that need to be included in school environmental education programmes in order to maximise student and family learning outcomes.     

School-wide Positive Behavior Support: Addressing Behavior Problems that Impede Student Learning

The school-wide application of positive behavior support (PBS) is a prevention-oriented approach to student discipline that is characterized by its focus on defining and teaching behavioral expectations, rewarding appropriate behaviors, continual evaluation of its effectiveness, and the integration of supports for individuals, groups, the school as a whole, and school/family/community partnerships. Although school-wide PBS has been implemented in hundreds of schools thus far, many professionals in education and psychology remain, for the most part, unfamiliar with this proactive alternative for increasing positive student behavior. This article reviews the foundations and core components of school-wide PBS, provides a case example of the implementation and preliminary evaluation of school-wide PBS in an urban middle school, and summarizes critical issues and future research directions in this area of considerable importance to professionals in educational psychology and related fields.     

Unraveling the culture of the mathematics classroom: A video-based study in sixth grade

Changing perspectives on mathematics teaching and learning resulted in a new generation of mathematics textbooks, stressing among others the importance of mathematical reasoning and problem-solving skills and their application to real-life situations. The article reports a study that investigates to what extent the reform-based ideas underlying these mathematical textbooks impact the current teaching of mathematics. Two problem-solving lessons were videotaped in 10 sixth-grade classrooms and a coding scheme was developed to analyze these lessons with regard to three aspects of the classroom culture that are assumed to enhance students’ mathematical beliefs and problem-solving competencies: (1) the classroom norms that are established, (2) the instructional techniques and classroom organization forms, and (3) the set of tasks students are confronted with. Two instruments were administered to measure students’ beliefs about learning mathematical word problem solving, and to assess their problem-solving processes and skills. The results indicate that some reform-based aspects seemed to be easier to implement (e.g., a strong focus on heuristic skills, embedding tasks in a realistic context) than others (e.g., the use of group work, an explicit negotiation of appropriate social norms).     

Drivers of change in construction training: How significant is the sustainability agenda?

The construction industry is contributing to the sustainability agenda through numerous strategies to improve energy efficiency in the design, materials, and operating conditions of buildings. However, this is only one driver of change in the construction sector. This article, which takes Australia as a case study, shows that many other drivers are also important. Among them are the growing importance of building information management systems, and the trend towards the factory manufacturing of components and onsite assembly in construction. Rather than see these as competing drivers of green construction, the article argues that the emphasis on soft skills in these drivers can be used, within the training context, to reinforce the sustainability and green skills agenda.