Learner Characteristics that Influence the Treatment Effectiveness of Early Literacy Interventions: A Meta‐Analytic Review

The purpose of this article was to systematically review the available research on learner characteristics that influence the treatment effectiveness of early literacy interventions. Meta‐analytic procedures were applied to a total of 30 studies that met the inclusionary and exclusionary criteria. Mean average effect sizes were computed for seven primary learner characteristic categories: (1) rapid naming, (2) alphabetic principle, (3) phonological awareness, (4) problem behavior, (5) memory, (6) IQ, and (7) demographic. The primary learner characteristics that influenced the treatment responsiveness of early literacy interventions were, in order of magnitude, rapid naming, problem behavior, phonological awareness, alphabetic principle, memory, IQ, and demographics. With the exception of the demographic category, the obtained effect sizes for the primary learner characteristics were moderately large. The demographic primary learner characteristic (i.e., disability, ethnicity, grade‐level status) of children was not statistically (p < 0.05) distinct from zero. The findings, limitations, and future research needs are discussed.     

A theory of instruction for introductory programming skills

ABSTRACT

Background and Context: Current introductory instruction fails to identify, structure, and sequence the many skills involved in programming.

Objective: We proposed a theory which identifies four distinct skills that novices learn incrementally. These skills are tracing, writing syntax, comprehending templates (reusable abstractions of programming knowledge), and writing code with templates. We theorized that explicit instruction of these skills decreases cognitive demand.

Method: We conducted an exploratory mixed-methods study and compared students’ exercise completion rates, error rates, ability to explain code, and engagement when learning to program. We compared material that reflects this theory to more traditional material that does not distinguish between skills.

Findings: Teaching skills incrementally resulted in improved completion rate on practice exercises, and decreased error rate and improved understanding of the post-test.

Implications: By structuring programming skills such that they can be taught explicitly and incrementally, we can inform instructional design and improve future research on understanding how novice programmers develop understanding.     

Children's Conceptions of Ownership for Self and Other: Categorical Ownership Versus Strength of Claim

Children are capable of viewing object ownership as categorical and exclusive, but ownership claims can also vary by degree. This study investigated how children use these different conceptions of ownership in a giving and a taking task. In two studies, 4- to 7-year olds (N = 105) could give and take craft objects that they or another child had found (weaker claim) and made (stronger claim). In Study 1, no additional ownership information was given, and in Study 2 categorical ownership was stated (“these belong to you”). The results showed that children used categorical ownership for their own objects but used ownership strength for the other child's objects, taking more of the found items.     

Depression and Anxiety in the Postnatal Period: An Examination of Infants’ Home Language Environment,Vocalizations, and Expressive Language Abilities

This longitudinal study investigated the effects of maternal emotional health concerns, on infants’ home language environment, vocalization quantity, and expressive language skills. Mothers and their infants (at 6 and 12 months; 21 mothers with depression and or anxiety and 21 controls) provided day-long home-language recordings. Compared with controls, risk group recordings contained fewer mother–infant conversational turns and infant vocalizations, but daily number of adult word counts showed no group difference. Furthermore, conversational turns and infant vocalizations were stronger predictors of infants’ 18-month vocabulary size than depression and anxiety measures. However, anxiety levels moderated the effect of conversational turns on vocabulary size. These results suggest that variability in mothers’ emotional health influences infants’ language environment and later language ability.     

Radicals reflect: The first twenty years of the caucus for a new political science

B. Nelson Ong is Assistant Professor Political Science at the College of New Rochelle, New Rochelle, NY 10805. He is also the Secretary of the National Association of Scholars.