Students’ perceptions of vocabulary knowledge and learning in a middle school science classroom

This study investigated eighth-grade science students’ (13–14-year-olds) perceptions of their vocabulary knowledge, learning, and content achievement. Data sources included pre- and posttest of students’ perceptions of vocabulary knowledge, students’ perceptions of vocabulary and reading strategies surveys, and a content achievement test. Students’ perceptions of vocabulary knowledge were compared before and after instruction to see whether students believed they gained knowledge and the ability to explain categories of technical science terms. Students’ perceptions of vocabulary knowledge increased as a result of instruction. The participants had favorable views of the vocabulary and reading strategies implemented and believed the literacy approaches were important for their developing science knowledge. In addition, students’ content achievement was compared to a national data set. Students in this study outperformed a national data set on all content knowledge items assessed. Students’ perceptions of their knowledge and vocabulary and reading strategies were congruent with their content achievement. This study is one of the first to highlight the pivotal role students’ perception of vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary and reading strategies plays in science content learning.     

A Murray Cod assemblage: Re/considering riverScape pedagogy

ABSTRACT

This article enacts Deleuze and Guattari's (1987 Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. (Original work published in 1980) [Google Scholar]) concept assemblage to craft a riverScape pedagogy that is informed by, and responsive to, the Murray Cod, the river, and its circumstances. The Murray Cod, the largest fish species in Australia's Murray-Darling Basin, has diverse cultural meanings. Cod are at once a creation being of Indigenous people, a migratory predator that breeds in response to warm floodwaters, and a fish suffering significant ecological decline as a result of changes to land and water use in its habitat. Murray Cod assemblage weaves these elements together to re/create a bioegalitarian pedagogy, part thought experiment and part teaching strategy.     

How Prepared Are MSW Graduates for Doctoral Research? Views of PhD Research Faculty

ABSTRACT

This national survey of PhD faculty assessed the research preparation of entering doctoral social work students on a wide range of research knowledge and related skills. The prior literature shows that PhD programs repeat much BSW and MSW research course content. This study shows that the trend continues and has perhaps widened. PhD research faculty report that the typical entering PhD student displayed solid conceptual, ethics, and writing skills but lesser preparation for conducting quantitative and qualitative research, including methods related to understanding evidence-based practice. The research expectations of responding PhD faculty were low, reflecting limited retention and little production of research among typical entering doctoral students. These findings raise the issue of how effectively the social work profession prepares students for research and for future PhD education.     

Recorded Student Interviews in Improving Instruction

Abstract

A Valuable Resource: Key Resources on Teaching, Learning, Curriculum, and Faculty Development By Robert J. Menges and B. Claude Mathis San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1988, 406 pages, index, $35. Reviewed by Ohmer Milton

Accomplished Advocates for Change: Women in Academe: Outsiders in the Sacred Grove By Nadya Aisenberg and Mona Harrington Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1988, xii + 207 pages. Reviewed by Amy A. Kass

The Power of Scientific Thought: The Cultural Meaning of the Scientific Revolution By Margaret C. Jacob Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988, xii + 274 pages, $29.95. Reviewed by Robert L. Spaeth     

The Overlap of Child and Adult Writing Vocabularies

Many mechanistic rules of thumb for evaluating the goodness of fit of structural equation models (SEM) emphasize model parsimony; all other things being equal, a simpler, more parsimonious model with fewer estimated parameters is better than a more complex model Although this is usually good advice, in the present article a heuristic counterexample is demonstrated in which parsimony as typically operationalized in indices of fit may be undesirable. Specifically, in simplex models of longitudinal data, the failure to include correlated uniquenesses relating the same indicators administered on different occasions will typically lead to systematically inflated estimates of stability. Although simplex models with correlated uniquenesses are substantially less parsimonious and may be unacceptable according to mechanistic decision rules that penalize model complexity, it can be argued a priori that these additional parameter estimates should be included. Simulated data . are used to support this claim and to evaluate the behavior of a variety of fit indices and decision rules. The results demonstrate the validity of Bollen and Long’s (1993) conclusion that “test statistics and fit indices are very beneficial, but they are no replacement for sound judgment and substantive expertise” (p. 8).     

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.     

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.     

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.     

A ‘whole-school/community development’ approach to preventing and countering bullying: the Erris Anti-Bullying Initiative (2009–2011)

This paper describes how a ‘whole-school/community development’ anti-bullying programme was designed, implemented and evaluated in an initiative in Erris, Co. Mayo, Ireland, involving local primary and post-primary schools and community groups. Students from seven participating schools (five primary, two post-primary) completed modified versions of the Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire both prior to and following programme implementation. Thereafter, there were reductions in students' reports of involvement in bully/victim problems and increases in their reports of feelings about bullying and countering bullying that were consistent with an anti-bullying ethos. The sizes of these effects were modest, in some cases perhaps due to the significantly low incidence of students' involvement in bully/victim problems prior to the programme. This model is in continued use in Erris, and in its further development it is intended to seek out opportunities to implement and evaluate it in other locations.