The instructional audit in urban school settings: A descriptive policy analysis of instructional delivery using signal-receptor assessment theory and information referenced testing

High levels of student absenteeism, low SES home environments, and a general lack of experienced teachers to service the school curriculum all contribute to difficulties in insuring the delivery of apriori school district defined instructional programs. The importance of urban school site educational evaluation is underscored by recent studies which show that the effectiveness of instructional delivery is an important predictor of student antisocial behavior such as drug abuse, gang activity, vandalism. This study examines some of the problems associated with instructional evaluation in urban school settings using signal-receptor assessment theory analysis and a new type of test scoring procedure called Modified Confidence Weighted-Admissible Probability Measurement (MCW-APM). With MCW-APM, school administrative personnel can simultaneously evaluate and obtain policy relevant information for instructional leadership concerning the signal (instruction as delivered), the reception (student learning as received), and the assessment instrumentation itself (sensitivity of the test). Additionally, this method of scoring permits individual student performance on school district developed CRTs to be referenced to an information based standard (informed, partially informed, uninformed, and misinformed) of mastery as a selection standard instead of a percent correct score.     

Piagetian tasks as readiness measures in mathematics instruction: A critical review

The purpose of this review was to synthesize the research on the relationship between performance on Piagetian tasks of concrete operations and performance on mathematics learning tasks in order to determine whether the Piagetian tasks make useful readiness measures. The research consistently indicates that, while there is a positive correlation between performance on Piagetian tasks and mathematics achievement, many school mathematics tasks can be mastered by children who have not yet developed the reasoning abilities measured by Piagetian tasks. This does not diminish the validity of Piaget's theory, but rather suggests that the kinds of reasoning processes identified by Piaget are not essential in solving many school mathematics tasks.     

La eficacia de un modelo de instrucción directa en la enseñanza de la comprensión de ideas principales

RESUMEN

La comprensión de las ideas principales es una destreza lectora importante, y suele ser lo que discrimina los buenos lectores de los deficientes. El propósito de este estudio es desarrollar un método de instrucción directa para enseñar a los niños la comprensión de las ideas principales, y evaluar su eficacia frente al método tradicional (instrucción por medio de libros de lectura básicos). El grupo entrenado (grupo estrategia) con instrucción directa rindió mejor en la aptitud para recoger las ideas principales que el grupo básico (que siguió el método tradicional) y adquirieron estas destrezas con mayor profundidad y comprensión. Pero no hubo diferencias en la aptitud para las ideas principales en el recuerdo.     

The development of a perceived masculinity scale

This essay posits that masculinity can be usefully understood from a communication perspective, and it specifically defines masculinity as a social and symbolic construct. In this view, the meanings and associations attributed to masculinity are a product of the enduring images and characteristics people have ascribed and assigned to men in groups over time. Based upon a survey of contemporary published research regarding masculinity, it is concluded that masculinity is now a multidimensional construct which attributes ten traits to people viewed as masculine which are examined in terms of: (1) physiological energy; (2) physical characteristics; (3) gender‐related sociocultural roles; (4) idealized gender; (5) gender preferences; (6) subjective gender‐identity; (7) gender‐related age identity; (8) gender‐related racial and national identities; (9) lust; and, (10) male eroticism. Specific questionnaires used to measure these dimensions are reviewed, and based on the responses of 562 subjects, the reliability and validity of one of these questionnaires is examined in detail. The essay concludes by recommending the use of the Perceived Masculinity Questionnaire 47, and it outlines some of the uses that can be made of a Perceived Masculinity Scale, especially some potential classroom uses.     

Letters to the editor

This study examines editorial photography in nine major erotica magazines to determine how pictures vary as a function of the social class, gender and sexual preference of the intended readership. The analysis reveals that upwardly‐mobile, heterosexual men are treated to idealized images, whereas working‐class, heterosexual men are presented with more mundane yet highly‐sexualized images. Heterosexual women are provided with photographs of nude males in a low‐sexual context. Magazines for homosexual men present images, except for gender, very similar to those created for upwardly‐mobile, heterosexual men. These patterns are discussed from a functionalist perspective to show how erotica magazines contribute to social‐order maintenance.     

The Role of the Year Leader: an Analysis of the Perceptions of Year Leaders and Deputy Heads in 8‐12 Middle Schools

Today's school leaders are searching for a way to give value to and effectively manage a school's intangible assets to create a more holistic picture of student success. Schools establish partnerships with community organizations towards this end and to ultimately impact student learning. Utilizing the framework of principals as knowledge managers, this paper describes how school principals involved in a university partnership developed a tool to manage and intentionally utilize the intangible assets of the school–university partnership to increase student learning. Included are examples of how the tool was applied and suggestions for adapting the tool to any school partnership.     

A rejoinder to Sarangapani and Winch

A statistical relationship between student affect and student achievement is routinely observed—students who like a particular subject also tend to do well in that subject. Theory suggests that the underlying causality is a mutual influence relationship in which affect influences, and is influenced by, achievement. Published analyses, however, usually assume a unidirectional influence—affect influences achievement. To the extent that the latter assumption is an over‐simplification, as theory suggests it is, then current understandings of the importance of affect for achievement are probably in error to some degree. The analyses reported here take a position consistent with theory to model the underlying causality of the relationship between affect and achievement as bidirectional. To this end, the present analyses formulate a non‐recursive structural equation model which specifies affect and achievement as influences on each other. This model is estimated separately for each of 23 nations, 19 of which are members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). All 23 nations participated in the OECD‐sponsored Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a programme whose focus is national achievement levels in populations of 15‐year‐olds. The results of these analyses lend support to the proposition that affect and performance exist in a mutual influence relationship, though the nature of this relationship varies between countries.     

There are Children Here: Service Learning for Social Justice

In this article, The Social Justice Education in Schools (SJES) Project integrates field-based study and existing research to identify five key Principles of Social Justice Education in Schools. An outgrowth of the federally funded Massachusetts Coalition for Teacher Quality and Student Achievement, the SJES Project seeks to positively impact teacher preparation, student achievement, and social justice practice in urban environments. The authors ground their discussion in their partnership with Rodriguez Elementary School, and present specific points of inquiry to facilitate K-12 educators, administrators, and community members' critical reflection on their own school environments. By developing a concrete framework for Social Justice Education in Schools, the authors hope to encourage future empirical research explicitly linking Social Justice Education to student achievement.