Making Social Work Count: A Curriculum Innovation to Teach Quantitative Research Methods and Statistical Analysis to Undergraduate Social Work Students in the United Kingdom

Students in the United Kingdom (UK) are found to lack knowledge and skills in quantitative research methods. To address this gap, a quantitative research method and statistical analysis curriculum comprising 10 individual lessons was developed, piloted, and evaluated at two universities The evaluation found that BSW students’ (N = 81) self-efficacy improved significantly from pre- to posttest, but statistical knowledge improved only slightly and the improvement was not statistically significant. The findings point to recommendations for social work educators in the UK and beyond to consider when integrating the 10-input quantitative method curriculum and when teaching research methods and statistics to undergraduate social work students.     

Using a New Statistical Model for Testlets to Score TOEFL

Standard item response theory (IRT) models fit to examination responses ignore the fact that sets of items (testlets) often are matched with a single common stimulus (e.g., a reading comprehension passage). In this setting, all items given to an examinee are unlikely to be conditionally independent (given examinee proficiency). Models that assume conditional independence will overestimate the precision with which examinee proficiency is measured. Overstatement of precision may lead to inaccurate inferences as well as prematurely ended examinations in which the stopping rule is based on the estimated standard error of examinee proficiency (e.g., an adaptive test). The standard three parameter IRT model was modified to include an additional random effect for items nested within the same testlet (Wainer, Bradlow, & Du, 2000). This parameter, γ characterizes the amount of local dependence in a testlet.
We fit 86 TOEFL testlets (50 reading comprehension and 36 listening comprehension) with the new model, and obtained a value for the variance of γ for each testlet. We compared the standard parameters (discrimination (a), difficulty (b) and guessing (c)) with what is obtained through traditional modeling. We found that difficulties were well estimated either way, but estimates of both a and c were biased if conditional independence is incorrectly assumed. Of greater import, we found that test information was substantially over-estimated when conditional independence was incorrectly assumed.     

MyTeachingPartner-Math/Science pre-kindergarten curricula and teacher supports: Associations with children's mathematics and science learning

MyTeachingPartner-Math/Science (MTP-MS) is a system of two curricula (math and science) plus teacher supports designed to improve the quality of instructional interactions in pre-kindergarten classrooms and to scaffold children's development in mathematics and science. The program includes year-long curricula in these domains, and a teacher support system (web-based supports and in-person workshops) designed to foster high-quality curricular implementation. This study examined the impacts of the intervention on the development of mathematics and science skills of 444 children during pre-kindergarten, via school-level random assignment to two intervention conditions (Basic: MTP-M/S mathematics and science curricula, and Plus: MTP-M/S mathematics and science curricula plus related teacher support system) and a Business-As-Usual control condition (BaU). There were intervention effects for children's knowledge and skills in geometry and measurement as well as number sense and place value: Children in Plus classrooms made greater gains in geometry and measurement, compared with those in BaU classrooms. Children in Plus classrooms also performed better on the number sense and place value assessment than did those in Basic or BaU classrooms. We describe the implications of these results for supporting the development of children's knowledge and skills in early childhood and for developing and providing teachers with professional development to support these outcomes.     

Should toddlers and preschoolers participate in organized sport? A scoping review of developmental outcomes associated with young children’s sport participation

ABSTRACT

Organized sport is offered at increasingly younger ages, with many programs geared towards preschoolers, toddlers, and infants. While sport is promoted as an amendable context for healthy development of school-age children, little is empirically known about potential benefits or risks associated with organized sport participation in early childhood. A scoping review of nine electronic databases identified English-language, peer-reviewed, original research articles which addressed psychological, emotional, social, cognitive, or intellectual developmental outcomes of organized sport involvement of children aged 2–5 years; included studies were appraised for quality. Findings offer preliminary evidence that early sport participation is related to primarily positive outcomes (e.g. enhanced social skills, pro-social behaviours, self-regulation), while negative and inconclusive outcomes were also identified. Results suggest limited existing research has primarily relied on parent or teacher proxy-report or assessment, and reinforces that little is known about toddler and preschooler organized sport participation as a distinct form of physical activity, despite pervasive availability of programming, and positive parental perceptions of early enrolment. Additional research with stronger methodological design and rigor is needed; recommendations to enhance the quality of future studies with young children are discussed.     

Testing to enhance retention in human anatomy

Recent work in cognitive psychology has shown that repeatedly testing one's knowledge is a powerful learning aid and provides substantial benefits for retention of the material. To apply this in a human anatomy course for medical students, 39 fill-in-the-blank quizzes of about 50 questions each, one for each region of the body, and four about the nervous system, were developed. The quizzes were optional, and no credit was awarded. They were posted online using Blackboard, which provided feedback, and they were very popular. To determine whether the quizzes had any effect on retention, they were given in a controlled setting to 21 future medical and dental students. The weekly quizzes included questions on regional anatomy and an expanded set of questions on the nervous system. Each question about the nervous system was given three times, in a slightly different form each time. The second quiz was given approximately half an hour after the first one, and the third was given one week after the second to assess retention. The quizzes were unpopular, but students showed robust improvement on the questions about the nervous system. The scores increased by almost 9% on the second quiz, with no intervention except viewing the correct answers. The scores were 29% higher on the third quiz than on the first, and there was also a positive correlation between the grades on the quizzes and the final examination. Thus, repeated testing is an effective strategy for learning and retaining information about human anatomy.     

Effective Classroom Instruction: Implications of Child Characteristics by Reading Instruction Interactions on First Graders' Word Reading Achievement

Too many children fail to learn how to read proficiently with serious consequences for their overall well-being and long term success in school. This may be because providing effective instruction is more complex than many of the current models of reading instruction portray; there are child characteristic by instruction (CXI) interactions. Here we present efficacy results for a randomized control field trial of the Individualizing Student Instruction (ISI) intervention, which relies on dynamic system forecasting intervention models to recommend amounts of reading instruction for each student, taking into account CXI interactions that consider his or her vocabulary and reading skills. The study, conducted in seven schools with 25 teachers and 396 first graders, revealed that students in the ISI intervention classrooms demonstrated significantly greater reading skill gains by spring than did students in control classrooms. Plus, they were more likely to receive differentiated reading instruction based on CXI interaction guided recommended amounts than were students in control classrooms. The precision with which students received the recommended amounts of each type of literacy instruction, the distance from recommendation, also predicted reading outcomes.     

Click,Swipe, and Read: Sharing e-Books with Toddlers and Preschoolers

e-Books share some key features with traditional printed picture books, but also include distinct features such as live animation, interactive components, and the operation of the technology that require new approaches to shared reading with young children. The purpose of this paper is to better inform adults working with young children (teachers, child care providers, and parents) of important factors to consider when choosing and sharing e-books with young children. We discuss why to share e-books with young children; types of e-books and how to evaluate them; how adults can best support young children’s language and literacy development through shared readings of e-books, including examples of shared readings of an e-book with young children; and an exploration of the potential of e-books to support meaningful interactions around texts.     

Change in Depressive Symptoms Among Treatment‐Seeking College Students Who Are Sexual Minorities

Changes in students’ depressive symptoms during the course of treatment at college counseling centers were examined by sexual orientation. In Study 1, results showed that depressive symptoms decreased similarly across sexual orientation groups during the course of treatment. In Study 2, family support did not moderate the relationship between pre‐ and posttreatment depressive symptoms but had a direct effect on posttreatment depressive symptoms for students questioning their sexual identity. Clinical implications are discussed.     

Inference and Association in Children's Early Numerical Estimation

How do children map number words to the numerical magnitudes they represent? Recent work in adults has shown that two distinct mechanisms—structure mapping and associative mapping—connect number words to nonlinguistic numerical representations (Sullivan & Barner, 2012 ). This study investigated the development of number word mappings, and the roles of inference and association in children's estimation. Fifty‐eight 5‐ to 7‐year‐olds participated, and results showed that at both ages, children possess strong item‐based associative mappings for numbers up to around six, but rely primarily on structure mapping—an inferential process—for larger quantities. These findings suggest that children rely primarily on an inferential mechanism to construct and deploy mappings between number words and large approximate magnitudes.