Connecting the Classroom and the Community: Exploring the Collective Impact of One District–Community Partnership

This study explored how one district–community partnership, comprised of seven nonprofit community partners that serve five elementary schools in a single urban school district, improved community literacy. This collective case study used semi-structured interviews to investigate the perspectives of 17 partners and analyzed student assessment data. Results revealed greatest benefits for first grade students and a need for consistent district leadership. This research is viewed through Hanleybrown, Kania, and Kramer’s (2012) collective impact framework.     

Scientific Perspectivism in Secondary-School Chemistry Education

Science & Education - The importance of learning chemical ways of thinking is widely recognized. Various frameworks have been developed to address the essence of chemistry and chemical...     

Training preservice teachers to analyze and evaluate textbooks

Learning how to evaluate reading texts should be an important part of preservice training. This study used a simulated textbook selection process to compare differences in the consistency of experimental and control groups in evaluating textbooks. The experimental groups, who were required to define their criteria operationally, were more consistent in their evaluations than the control group, who used traditional checklists. Jacqueline C. Comas is assistant professor of education at the University of Florida in Gainesville where she teaches courses in language arts and children's literature. She is a former classroom teacher, has served as a reading consultant, a reading/language arts supervisor, and has worked with textbook adoption committees for the improvement of instructional materials since the late 1970s.     

Relationship between Modern-Dance Experience and Balancing Performance

Abstract

Nicholls's theory of achievement motivation (1989) assumes one's goal orientation in an achievement activity is consistent with one's views concerning what is acceptable behavior in that setting. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship of a task and ego goal orientation (i.e., the tendency to focus on personal mastery or beating others, respectively) to sportsmanship attitudes and perceptions of the legitimacy of aggressive acts by testing this assumption in the context of interscholastic sport. Fifty-six male and 67 female high school basketball players completed a three-part questionnaire assessing (a) individual differences in goal orientation, (b) approval of “unsportsmanlike play/cheating,” “strategic play,” and “sportsmanship behaviors,” and (c) subjective ratings of the legitimacy of intentionally injurious behaviors. All measures were basketball-specific. Results indicated a low task orientation and high ego orientation corresponded to an endorsement of unsportsmanlike play/cheating. Ego orientation positively related to the rating of aggressive acts as more legitimate. Gender differences in goal orientation, sportsmanship attitudes, and legitimacy ratings were observed.     

Efficacy of Skinfold Training Clinics: A Comparison between Clinic Trained and Experienced Testers

Abstract

In an attempt to differentiate more adequately between the terms motor ability and athletic participation in their relationship to some measurable aspects of personality, a group of 167 Pomona College junior and senior male students were classified both as to level of motor ability and participation in athletics and were administered the CPI. Utilizing a total test response derived from the sum of ranks of median scores, low and middle motor ability groups ranked higher in the main effects and within the nonathlete and intramural participation groups, but athletic participation did not appear to have any effect upon the measures studied. The pattern of results suggested an expectation hypothesis wherein higher ratings in the personality inventory might be achieved by groups of subjects who participated at a level which would be “expected” in relation to their motor ability.