The relationship among counselor experience level, empathic accuracy, and counseling outcome in the early phase of counseling

The current study examined a mediating effect of empathic accuracy on the relationship between counselor experience level and counseling outcome. Data were collected from 48 counselor?Cclient dyads in real-life counseling settings. Empathic accuracy and counseling outcome were assessed by using client perceptions of the first three audiotaped counseling sessions. Ickes?? standard empathic accuracy assessment procedure was used with modifications to assess empathic accuracy. The procedure to assess empathic evaluation included three steps: (a) clients recognize and write down their thoughts and feelings while listening to the audiotapes, (b) counselors infer their client??s thoughts and feelings, (c) The third raters rate the statements of counselors?? empathic accuracy. Correlational analysis revealed that counselor experience level, empathic accuracy, and counseling outcome were positively related to one another. A path analysis was used to test the model that counselor experience level affects counseling outcome through the effect of empathic accuracy. Both paths from counselor experience level to empathic accuracy and from empathic accuracy to counseling outcome were significant, along with a significant mediating effect of empathic accuracy. These results show enhancing empathic accuracy is critical for counseling outcome. Limitations of the current study and suggestions for future research were discussed.     

How epistemic reflexivity enables teacher educators’ teaching for diversity: Exploring a pedagogical framework for critical thinking

Recent research points to the importance of teacher educators teaching for diversity in initial teacher education programmes. Teaching for diversity is an approach to teacher education in which an understanding of specialist literature and a focus on critical thinking supports a social justice agenda as opposed to merely using different tips and tricks to prepare future teachers for teaching diverse learners in the classroom. In this study, we explored how Australian and New Zealand teacher educators negotiated a social justice agenda in teacher education programmes, using a new transdisciplinary framework of epistemic reflexivity. The Epistemic Reflexivity for Teacher Education (ER-TED) framework draws on epistemic cognition (Clark Chinn’s Aims, Ideals, Reliable epistemic processes – AIR – framework) and Margaret Archer’s reflexivity to explore knowledge claims in teacher educators’ pedagogical decision-making. The findings identified how teacher educators in our study discerned and deliberated with respect to epistemic aims for justification, which involve transformative critical thinking and critical thinking for self. They reported good knowledge (ideals) as being scholarly in nature, and reliable epistemic processes based on higher-order thinking (analysis and evaluating competing ideas) or engaging with multiple perspectives. The teacher educators in our study are clear examples of how strong overall evaluative epistemic stances enable teaching for social justice. We argue that the ER-TED framework can help us as a profession to address teaching for diversity in teacher education programmes based on the belief that the pursuit of social justice requires an evaluativist epistemic stance.     

Trust and Mistrust in Sources of Scientific Information on Climate Change and Vaccines

Science & Education - Public trust in science and expertise remains a contentious issue. When public trust is analysed, it often simplifies a complex process of information retrieval and...     

Continuity and Change in the Home Literacy Environment as Predictors of Growth in Vocabulary and Reading

One hundred and ten English‐speaking children schooled in French were followed from kindergarten to Grade 2 (M_age: T1 = 5;6, T2 = 6;4, T3 = 6;11, T4 = 7;11). The findings provided strong support for the Home Literacy Model (Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2002 ) because in this sample the home language was independent of the language of instruction. The informal literacy environment at home predicted growth in English receptive vocabulary from kindergarten to Grade 1, whereas parent reports of the formal literacy environment in kindergarten predicted growth in children's English early literacy between kindergarten and Grade 1 and growth in English word reading during Grade 1. Furthermore, 76% of parents adjusted their formal literacy practices according to the reading performance of their child, in support of the presence of a responsive home literacy curriculum among middle‐class parents.     

Trace Lines for Testlets: A Use of Multiple-Categorical-Response Models

It is not always convenient or appropriate to construct tests in which individual items are fungible. There are situations in which small clusters of items (testlets) are the units that are assembled to create a test. Using data from a test of reading comprehension constructed of four passages with several questions following each passage, we show that local independence fails at the level of the individual questions. The questions following each passage, however, constitute a testlet. We discuss the application to testlet scoring of some multiple-category models originally developed for individual items, In the example examined, the concurrent validity of the testlet scoring equaled or exceeded that of individual-item-level scoring     

Leading change in reading for young adolescents: what is happening in New Zealand?

Effective school leadership in supporting outcomes for all students is critical. This study focuses on six New Zealand principals as they endeavour to make a difference to reading outcomes for 11 to 13 year-old students. In New Zealand, there are approximately 20% of students who are underachieving in reading. Once they reach the final years of primary schooling, this is the final opportunity to rectify this underachievement before these at-risk students enter secondary schooling. Interviews were conducted with the six principals at six case study schools, which represented a range of schools. Findings showed that there was widespread use of standardized testing results in reading to provide accountability for the New Zealand National Standards requirement, and also to inform next teaching steps. However, principals differed in the manner that they led the schools-wide analyses of the data. There was a stark diversity in the implementation of sustained and focused professional development in reading. The use of teacher aides to support our most vulnerable students, low-progress readers and English Speakers of Second Language was widespread, with only two schools providing in-school support and training of these paraprofessionals.     

Contemporaneous and Longitudinal Prediction of Children's Social Functioning from Regulation and Emotionality

Relations of regulation and emotionality to social functioning were examined for 77 children followed from early to middle school age. Parents and teachers reported on children's social behavior, emotionality, and regulation, and children engaged in analogue peer conflict situations (i.e., with puppets). High-quality social functioning was predicted by high regulation and low levels of nonconstructive coping, nevatige emotionality, and general emotional intensity. Prediction often was obtained across reporters and time, although prediction was strongest within context (home versus school). Moreover, measures of regulation and emotionality frequently contributed unque variance to the prediction of social functioning. Contemporaneous correlations at age 8–10 were similar to those obtained at age 6–8, and prediction of later social functioning from emotionality and regulation at age 4–6 was similar at ages 6–8 and 8–10.