Cats,Comics, and Knausgård: Promoting Student Reading at a U.K. Academic Library with a Leisure Reading Collection

This case study describes the creation of a leisure reading collection in the Clifford Whitworth library at the University of Salford. It briefly surveys existing literature on leisure reading collections and looks at the growing interest among U.K. academic libraries in recreational reading. It considers the reasons for promoting reading as a leisure activity to students and describes the processes of selecting, purchasing, and marketing the collection at Salford. It also considers possible future developments for the collection and the evaluation of the library's attempts to encourage a culture of reading among Salford students. The positive response to the collection suggests the development of leisure reading is a worthwhile activity for academic libraries to focus on and the study contains useful information for others who are interested in creating a similar collection.     

Does Title-By-Title Selection Make a Difference? A Usage Analysis on Print Monograph Purchasing

This article compares the usage of print monographs acquired through firm orders and approval plans to determine whether title-by-title book selection makes a difference. The circulation data of print monographs acquired in a four-year period were extracted and separated according to their acquisition methods. Usage data were analyzed according to the Library of Congress Classification system and library's three subject area groups (Humanities, Social Sciences, and Sciences). The results indicate that books acquired via firm orders had a higher circulation rate in almost all subject areas. The authors discuss how the findings can be used to inform future collection practices.     

The Big-fish–little-pond-effect Stands Up to Critical Scrutiny: Implications for Theory, Methodology, and Future Research

The big-fish–little-pond effect (BFLPE) predicts that equally able students have lower academic self-concepts (ASCs) when attending schools where the average ability levels of classmates is high, and higher ASCs when attending schools where the school-average ability is low. BFLPE findings are remarkably robust, generalizing over a wide variety of different individual student and contextual level characteristics, settings, countries, long-term follow-ups, and research designs. Because of the importance of ASC in predicting future achievement, coursework selection, and educational attainment, the results have important implications for the way in which schools are organized (e.g., tracking, ability grouping, academically selective schools, and gifted education programs). In response to Dai and Rinn (Educ. Psychol. Rev., 2008), we summarize the theoretical model underlying the BFLPE, minimal conditions for testing the BFLPE, support for its robust generalizability, its relation to social comparison theory, and recent research extending previous implications, demonstrating that the BFLPE stands up to scrutiny. Quotations (associated page numbers) to the Dai and Rinn (2008) article are based on a prepublication version of the article available to the authors of this article that may have changed during the final preparation for publication. The authors would also like to express thanks to David Dai and Anne Rinn for their encouragement and assistance to us in preparation of our article, whilst still acknowledging that they might not agree will all the views expressed here.     

Home-based school teachers in Afghanistan: Teaching for tarbia and student well-being

Teachers in community-based or home-based schools in Afghanistan play a critical role in extending access to education to children who are unable to access the government schools, especially girls. These teachers—men and women—are nominated by the community to teach, without necessarily having teaching experience or even completing their own education. Whilst they may feel under-confident about their teaching skills and need ongoing professional development and support, these teachers nonetheless have a strong sense of their roles in the community, especially with respect to guiding children in their faith and promoting children's ‘tarbia’ (moral and ethical character) and well-being. This paper draws on qualitative data collected though the Healing Classrooms Initiative of the International Rescue Committee (IRC). Using interview and questionnaire responses it presents home-based school teachers’ experiences and beliefs about education and the role of the teacher, and discusses how these constitute alternative qualifications in the context of early reconstruction in Afghanistan.     

A Hong Kong case of lesson study—Benefits and concerns

In recent years, there has been a feeling that effective teachers can be fostered by grounding professional development in actual classroom practice. This paper reports how a group of teachers adopted a lesson study approach and worked collaboratively so as to improve their class instruction on wh-question formation. Teachers’ reflections indicate that the collaborative environment throughout the study enabled them to gain insights into how to improve their teaching strategies. Also identified are some of the problems faced by teachers, which may undermine the gains of lesson study.     

A quantitative analysis of cognitive strategy usage in the marking of two GCSE examinations

Diverse strategies for marking GCSE examinations have been identified, ranging from simple automatic judgements to complex cognitive operations requiring considerable expertise. However, little is known about patterns of strategy usage or how such information could be utilised by examiners. We conducted a quantitative analysis of previous verbal protocol data collected from twelve experienced examiners using a concurrent ‘think aloud’ method. Two contrasting examination papers had been marked: mathematics and business studies. Five senior examiners were interviewed about the findings. The analysis revealed differences in strategy usage among individual examiners, but most strikingly, between subjects and among question parts. For most questions, examiners used strategy combinations rather than single strategies. Business studies question parts could be categorised according to whether they entailed simple or complex strategies. However, most mathematics question parts entailed a mixture of diverse strategies. The examiners identified potential implications of the findings for examiner training and modernising marking systems.     

Enhancing preservice teachers’ professional competence through experiential learning

This report introduces a way of engaging preservice teachers in experiential learning activities to enrich their pedagogical content knowledge and skills. The framework suggested can be applied to instruction in a wide range of disciplines in different contexts. It calls on teacher educators to work on similar experiential learning initiatives to equip novice teachers with the necessary pedagogies and competence for their future careers.     

The Impact of Speedometry on Student Knowledge,Interest, and Emotions

Given the dearth of high-quality curriculum materials aligned with the new standards (NGSS and CCSS) and low student persistence in STEM fields, we sought to develop and test a STEM curriculum that would improve student knowledge, interest, and emotions. A cluster randomized control trial was conducted to assess the impact of Speedometry, a two-unit STEM curriculum that uses familiar toy cars to explore math and science concepts. A total of 1,615 fourth-grade students across 48 classrooms and 17 schools in an urban district participated in the study. Using a 3-level multilevel model (students nested within teachers and schools) and controls for student and teacher characteristics, we found that Speedometry led to significant increases in student knowledge and positive emotions such as excitement. Speedometry also led to significant decreases in negative emotions such as boredom, frustration, and confusion. The curriculum was implemented with high fidelity as evidenced by classroom observations and teacher self-reports.     

UK data from 197 undergraduates for the Nelson Denny Reading Test

The Nelson Denny Reading Test (Brown, Fishco & Hanna, 1993) provides measures of comprehension, reading rate and vocabulary. It is widely used in research studies with high school and undergraduate students and for assessment purposes in the USA. No widely used test of this kind exists for adults in the UK. The present paper reports data from 197 undergraduates from the University of Essex on the Nelson Denny test. Analyses were carried out of the data in terms of degree type and year of study. The scores obtained with the present sample were higher than those reported in the manual of the Nelson Denny test for a subset of the standardisation sample. Possible reasons for this difference are discussed. Overall, the results suggest that the Nelson Denny test is suitable for use with UK undergraduate students.