Teachers’ enactments of curriculum: Fidelity to Procedure versus Fidelity to Goal for scientific argumentation

Fidelity of implementation (FOI) has received attention in calls for funding and research; however, there are numerous ways of conceptualising and measuring this construct. We argue that this conceptualisation is important for recent reform efforts focused on science practices. Consequently, we explored FOI in the context of the enactment of a middle-school curriculum focused on one particular science practice, argumentation. We coded videos of five teachers’ enactments of argumentation lessons using two different fidelity coding schemes. First, Fidelity to Procedure targeted teachers’ adherence to the order and types of procedures. Second, Fidelity to Goal examined teachers’ adherence to the overarching argumentation goals. This analysis resulted in case studies that illustrate distinct patterns in the teachers’ curriculum enactments. One case in particular, Ms Newbury, received a low score for Fidelity to Procedure, but a high score for Fidelity to Goal. She altered procedures to provide her students, all of whom were English Language Learners, with different linguistic supports, but maintained the overarching argumentation goals. Consequently, we argue that FOI for goals may better capture whether teachers’ enactments are supporting students in the science practices. Furthermore, the results suggest the importance of educative curriculum including rationales for the curricular goals.     

Early Childhood Teachers as Socializers of Young Children’s Emotional Competence

Young children’s emotional competence—regulation of emotional expressiveness and experience when necessary, and knowledge of their own and other’s emotions—is crucial for social and academic (i.e., school) success. Thus, it is important to understand the mechanisms of how young children develop emotional competence. Both parents and teachers are considered as important socializers of emotion, providing children experiences that promote or deter the development of emotional competence. However, compared to parents, early childhood teachers’ roles in socializing young children’s emotional competence have not been examined. Based on the findings from research on parental socialization of emotion, in this theoretical review we explore possible teacher roles in the development of young children’s emotional competence. Additionally, we suggest future research focusing on early childhood teacher socialization of emotion, and discuss theoretical and practical benefits of such research.     

A “Library School:” Building a Collaborative Preschool-Library Partnership to Support Whole Family Engagement

Early Childhood Education Journal - Preschools and public libraries are natural partners in that they share similarities in their support for early learning and family engagement for the young...     

Investigating morphological awareness and the processing of transparent and opaque words in adults with low literacy skills and in skilled readers

For adults with low literacy skills, the role of phonology in reading has been fairly well researched, but less is known about the role of morphology in reading. We investigated the contribution of morphological awareness to word reading and reading comprehension and found that for adults with low literacy skills and skilled readers, morphological awareness explained unique variance in word reading and reading comprehension. In addition, we investigated the effects of orthographic and phonological opacity in morphological processing. Results indicated that adults with low literacy skills were more impaired than skilled readers on items containing phonological changes but were spared on items involving orthographic changes. These results are consistent with previous findings of adults with low literacy skills reliance on orthographic codes. Educational implications are discussed.     

Responding to a fiscal crisis: a data‐driven approach

The Division of Planning and Institutional Improvement (PAII) at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis provides for the campus data for academic planning and management, assessment and evaluation services, and progress reports on mission‐critical goals. To respond to a forecast fiscal crisis and support long‐range planning for the Division, staff undertook a survey of deans and other key campus stakeholders to determine which of its services were best‐known and considered most useful for unit‐level planning and decision‐making, especially as these units faced the same projections of severe fiscal constraints. Findings indicated greater awareness and use of PAII data among deans than among other academic leaders and provided important insights into the kinds of data needed most for decision‐making. These outcomes will guide the Division’s future strategies for educating deans and other stakeholders on underused, but potentially useful, services and for selecting new services to offer.     

Improving the Measurement of Cognitive Skills Through Automated Conversations

Open-ended, short-answer questions, referred to as constructed responses (CR), allow students to express knowledge and skills through their own words. While CRs can reduce the likelihood of guessing correct answers, they also enable students to provide errant responses due to a lack of knowledge or a misunderstanding of the question. Conversation-based assessments (CBAs) require constructing responses to open-ended prompts (similar to CRs), but also leverage natural-language processing to provide adaptive follow-up prompts that target particular information. This work describes an investigation into potential benefits of CBAs as they are compared to a CR approach. Results from 632 middle schoolers indicate that, when compared to CRs, the CBA items allowed 41% of students to provide a more complete response and improve their score.     

Predicting parental involvement in children's schooling within an economically disadvantaged African American sample

Predictors of parental school involvement were examined within a sample of 159 economically disadvantaged, African American parents living in an urban setting. School involvement was defined in terms of parent activity within the school. Parent demographics, attitudes about education, and community engagement behaviors as well as parent perceptions of school receptivity to parental involvement were evaluated as predictors of school involvement. Predictors of school involvement were examined separately for parents of elementary school students and for parents of middle and high school students. Results indicated that school receptivity was the strongest predictor of parental school involvement within both groups of parents. In addition, parental educational aspirations for the child and community engagement behaviors were significant predictors for both groups of parents. Parent level of employment was a significant predictor of school involvement only for parents of middle/high school students. Implications for school psychologists based on the findings are discussed. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 42: 101–111, 2005.     

Treatment for Sexual Assault Survivors at University Counseling Centers

University Counseling Centers (UCCs) provide important services for sexual assault survivors, yet little research has been conducted on interventions used by clinicians in this unique setting. As a preliminary investigation, UCC professionals were asked about services provided to survivors of sexual assault and staff perceptions of the effectiveness of these interventions. Supportive counseling was perceived to be the most effective relative to other interventions, and many participants indicated that they did not use or were not sure if other evidence-based interventions were effective with student victims. Several recommendations for future research on sexual assault services in UCCs are suggested.