In Defense of Qualitative Changes in Development

The balance between the preservation of early cognitive functions and serious transformations on these functions shifts across time. Piaget’s writings, which favored transformations, are being replaced by writings that emphasize continuities between select cognitive functions of infants and older children. The claim that young infants possess elements present in the older child’s concepts of number, physical impossibility, and object permanence is vulnerable to criticism because the inferences are based primarily on the single measure of change in looking time. It is suggested that investigators use unique constructs to describe phenomena observed in young infants that appear, on the surface, to resemble the psychological competences observed during later developmental stages.     

The relation between individual interest and knowledge acquisition

The objective of this study was to examine how individual interest and knowledge acquisition are causally related. Three hypotheses were tested using a cross‐lagged panel analysis (N = 186) and two quasi‐experimental studies (N = 68 and N = 108) involving students from schools in Singapore. The first hypothesis is the broadly shared standard assumption on the relation between individual interest and knowledge: the more an individual is interested in a topic, the more (s)he is willing to engage in learning. An alternative hypothesis assumes that individual interest is not the cause but the consequence of the process of learning: individual interest as an affective by‐product of learning. Finally, a third possibility is that interest and knowledge influence each other reciprocally. The results supported the affective‐by‐product hypothesis. Our findings seem at variance with commonly held conceptions that being interested guides knowledge attainment. The implications of these findings for interest research are discussed.     

Journalism

George E. Stevens and John B. Webster's Law and the Student Press (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1973---price not given, paper)

Jerome L. Nelson's Libel. A Basic Program for Beginning Journalists (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1973---price not given, paper)

Art of the Printed Book: 1455-1955 (New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1973---$20.00/11.00)

Bruce Buschel, Albert Robbins, William Vitta, and Rod Nordland's The Watergate File (New York: Quick Fox Inc., 33 West 60th St., 1973---$3.95, paper)     

The promise and reality of formative assessment practice in a continuous assessment scheme: the case of Trinidad and Tobago

Continuous Assessment (CA) systems are externally directed, curriculum-based assessment schemes used for both summative and formative purposes within classrooms. CA has been implemented as national policy in several postcolonial developing countries and is believed to hold great promise for improving education outcomes. This theory-driven evaluation (TDE) used a mixed methods research design to interrogate the nature of CA practice. The focus was on stakeholders’ understanding and practice of formative assessment in the CA Programme (CAP) of Trinidad and Tobago. The integrated findings suggest that the programme planners’ formative intent was often not fulfilled. Instead, teachers routinely recorded assessment marks without using the data. There is evidence that formative assessment practice was not congruent with teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and practices. Although the design of CA schemes suggests the possibility of synergy between formative and summative purposes, in reality this ideal is rarely achieved in these particular contexts.     

Announcements

International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance -     

Effects of a Classroom Management Intervention on Student Achievement in Inner‐City Elementary Schools

ABSTRACT

As part of a study of the life‐cycle of inner‐city schools, the achievement of elementary school students (on MAT6 and TEAMS tests) who had teachers trained in a classroom management program in one school were compared with students in a comparison school during a four‐year period. Students at Madison Elementary School showed statistically greater achievement gains on both nationally normed achievement tests (MAT6) and on state criterion‐referenced achievement battery than students at the comparison school in each of three years. The overall effect size due to program treatment on the MAT6 test scores was large, ranging from .43 (1986–87) and .83 (1987–88) during intervention to .73 (1988–89) after intervention. Similar results were found in the TEAMS test associated with the program intervention with overall effect size of 1.02 (1987–88) and .78 (1988–89) in mathematics, .68 and .77 in reading, and .59 and .77 in writing for the respective years. On measures of learning environment, in a post hoc analysis (1990–91), students at Madison perceived their environment to be significantly more positive than comparison students. Teacher and principal interviews during and after the intervention periods provided contextual guidance for the findings.