Solution-focused assessment: rethinking labels to support inclusive education

In the Netherlands and the USA, the assessment process is changing for children who present learning and behavioural challenges in school. Evaluations for eligibility determinations and support planning are shifting along with disability models and tensions over the provision of inclusive schooling. Legislative edicts influence the assessment process differently in these two countries while both nations seem to be headed in a similar direction. This paper relates evolving disability models to the changing assessment process in each country and proposes that a solution-focused perspective offers an assessment concept which supports the goal of inclusive education. Specifically discussed are the implications of a solution-focused approach on the identification of disability, the assessment of special educational needs, individualised support planning and the essential cooperation within evolving schools as well as the environment beyond.     

Research Resources

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The Slavic Cataloging Manual

The article discusses the Slavic Cataloging Manual (SCM), available on the World Wide Web since 1994. The SCM contains a great deal of valuable information for all aspects of cataloging materials in Slavic and East European languages and in the non‐Slavic languages of the former Soviet Union, as well as equally valuable information for cataloging materials about the area. The manual offers especially detailed guidance on heading construction and subject analysis for the dissolved unions of the former USSR, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. This is a valuable resource for anyone involved in Slavic cataloging, both the experienced cataloger and the novice.     

Complexity of reasoning about children's development: Links with teacher‐preparation content courses and supervised laboratory experience

Abstract

In a sample of 74 university students studying early childhood and pre‐kindergarten education, researchers assessed the relationships between child development knowledge, complexity of reasoning about development, prior work experience with children, and teacher‐preparation content courses and laboratory courses. There was no statistically significant association between knowledge of child development and complexity of reasoning. The former primarily involves the acquisition of facts about patterns of general change, whereas complexity of reasoning permits caregivers to apply those facts to real‐life care‐giving dilemmas. Child development knowledge was predicted by the number of completed pre‐kindergarten content courses, but not by experience with children. Complexity of reasoning was predicted by both content and laboratory courses, the effects of which were assessed separately. Findings suggest that teacher‐preparation content courses, supplemented by guided experience with children, provide a basic framework for integrating important concepts about children's growth and behavior.     

Preservice teachers’ perceived control over negative caregiving outcomes: Implications for early‐childhood teacher preparation

Abstract

This study is focused on preservice early‐childhood teachers’ attributions about control and responsibility for negative caregiving outcomes. Prior research has linked low perceived control over failed outcomes with harsh care‐giving behavior. In this sample of 81 preservice teachers in a pre‐kindergarten, Associate‐degree program, bivariate correlations revealed associations between preservice teachers’ perceived control over caregiving outcomes, the parenting styles they experienced during childhood, and the complexity of their reasoning about children's development. When entered into regression analyses, low perceived control over negative caregiving outcomes was predicted by ratings of high parental permissiveness experienced as a child, as well as by categorical, rather than complex, conceptions of development. Implications of findings for university preparation of preservice teachers are discussed. © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.     

The impact of an integrated approach to science and literacy in elementary school classrooms

This study investigates the efficacy of an integrated science and literacy approach at the upper‐elementary level. Teachers in 94 fourth grade classrooms in one Southern state participated. Half of the teachers taught the treatment unit, an integrated science–literacy unit on light and energy designed using a curriculum model that engages students in reading text, writing notes and reports, conducting firsthand investigations, and frequent discussion of key concepts and processes to acquire inquiry skills and knowledge about science concepts, while the other half of the teachers taught a content‐comparable science‐only unit on light and energy (using materials provided by their districts) and provided their regular literacy instruction. Students in the treatment group made significantly greater gains on measures of science understanding, science vocabulary, and science writing. Students in both groups made comparable gains in science reading comprehension. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 631–658, 2012     

Exploring the syntactic skills of struggling adult readers

This study investigated the syntactic ability of 82 struggling adult readers who recognize words between the third and fifth grade levels. Analysis of the adults?? performance on the TOLD-I:3 indicated that they were deficient on the syntactic task. Correlations found the struggling adult readers?? oral language skills, written language skills, and reading comprehension skills to be related. A regression analyses indicated that the adults?? syntactic knowledge did not individually predict reading comprehension, however their other oral language skills did. The findings of this study suggest that the adults performed similar to children who are either learning to read or considered poor readers. This study also contributes to the adult literacy field by providing exploratory information on an area (syntax and struggling adult readers) that is lacking.     

The impact of concept mapping and visualization on the learning of secondary school chemistry students

The aim of this study was to examine whether the construction of integrated knowledge structures by students can be stimulated by concept mapping and by better visualization of concepts and their interrelationships. The investigation was carried out in regular teaching settings: chemistry courses in secondary schools in Flanders, in the domain of electrochemistry. A significant positive effect of extra attention to visualization on the learning achievement of students was found. However, significant effects of concept mapping as an instruction method could not be detected under the given research conditions.