A PILGRIM TALE

Evaluation of adult religious education as provided by faith communities is seldom discussed in the literature and even more rarely implemented in practice. The purpose of this article is to underscore the importance of evaluation for the improvement of adult religious education, to provide an overview of evaluation in this context, and to urge that more intentional efforts be directed to expanding the body of literature in this field and to implementing evaluation in the practice of adult religious education.

Four components of evaluation are defined: evidence, criteria, judgment, and improvement. An overview is provided by answering the questions: what? who? when? and how? in relation to evaluation. Four barriers to evaluation in adult religious education are discussed along with suggestions for overcoming those barriers.     

Dear Radio Broadcaster: Fan Mail as a Form of Perceived Interactivity

In an attempt to learn more about perceived interactivity, this study explores the perceptions of radio listeners during the 1920s and 1930s. Radio provides an interesting case for exploring interactivity because, although the medium lacked interactive technological features, millions of listeners perceived that the opportunity to “interact” with radio existed through fan mail. The study finds that fan mail reflects several dimensions of interactivity often associated with the technological features of a medium: user input and feedback, medium responsiveness, two-way communication, and system monitoring. The results suggest that interactivity may be dependent on media content rather than media technology.     

Computerised screening for dyslexia in adults

Identifying dyslexia in adulthood presents particular challenges because of complicating factors such as acquisition of compensatory strategies, differing degrees of intervention and the problem of distinguishing dyslexic adults from those whose literacy difficulties have non‐cognitive causes. One of the implications is that conventional literacy measures, per se, do not provide a satisfactory basis for screening for dyslexia in adulthood as some dyslexic adults have above‐average literacy skills and some non‐dyslexic adults have very poor literacy skills. This study examined an alternative approach to dyslexia screening, using three tests that depend heavily on phonological processing, lexical access and working memory, but which are not conventional measures of literacy. Using these tests, which are computer delivered, 70 dyslexic adults from three different types of educational institution were compared with 69 non‐dyslexic adults from the same institutions. The results showed that the dyslexic and non‐dyslexic groups were significantly different on all three computer‐based tests, with an average effect size of 1.55. Adaptive versions of these tests were then created to reduce overall administration time for the suite to about 15 minutes. Analysis showed that the combined scaled scores from the adaptive versions of the three tests significantly discriminated the dyslexic from the non‐dyslexic group with an increased effect size of 2.07 and with a sensitivity rate of 90.6% and a specificity rate of 90.0%. It was concluded that this approach is a valid and useful method of identifying dyslexia in adulthood, which, given the ease of administration to large numbers of adults, has noted advantages for education and employment.     

Examining the Effectiveness of a Multicomponent Reading Comprehension Intervention in Middle Schools: A Focus on Treatment Fidelity

In this experimental study, we examined the effects of a multicomponent reading comprehension intervention in sixth- to eighth-grade English language arts classes with a focus on factors to enhance treatment implementation. We tested the contribution of a theoretically derived fidelity framework that included adherence, quality, dosage, program differentiation, and student responsiveness. The study was conducted in three schools, involving 14 teachers and 859 students. English language arts classes were randomly assigned to the Comprehension Circuit Training intervention (n?=?30) or typical practice comparison (n?=?31) conditions, and all teachers taught in both conditions. Findings indicated that there was no reliable difference between the intervention and typical practice groups on standardized or researcher-developed proximal measures. To investigate the relationship between fidelity and student outcomes, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to determine the relation of the indicators to a latent fidelity factor. Results of the CFA revealed a single fidelity factor composed of the adherence, quality, dosage, student responsiveness, and program differentiation variables. The fidelity factor was statistically significantly related to outcomes on a standardized comprehension measure (γ?=?.86, p?γ?=?.52, p?相似文献   

Changing Conceptions in the Relative Sequence of Major Topics in General Science Textbooks (1911-1934)

The authors examined the relationship between fifth-grade students' verbal ability level and the adaptive nature of the questions that these students asked in attempting to find a correct synonym for vocabulary items. Questions were divided into necessary questions (questions posed after a wrong provisional answer) and unnecessary questions (questions posed after a right provisional answer). Another division of questions was into helpful questions (questions that led to a correction of a wrong provisional answer) and harmful questions (questions that led to a shift from a right to a wrong answer). Also examined were discontinued inquiries (instances in which a student decided to break off an inquiry in favor of inferring the right alternative). The results showed that students with high verbal ability asked more necessary questions and stepped up the number of unnecessary questions for difficult items, signaling that these questions were asked to increase confidence in knowing. Students' verbal ability did not affect the frequency of discontinued inquiries, but a significant effect was found for the helpfulness of these inquiries. A detailed account of the various processes and stages involved in students' questioning is presented.     

CONTACT QUALITY AND ATTITUDES TOWARD THE ELDERLY

The contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954) states that cooperative contact with individual members of an out-group can lead to a general more positive attitude toward the out-group as a whole. The research reported in this article investigated the validity of the contact hypothesis within the context of interage interactions. Specifically, the study examined the relationship between young adults' contact with older adults and their attitudes toward the elderly in general. Previous research has emphasized that various factors related to contact quality strongly influence the formation of positive attitudes. In accordance with this assertion, we hypothesized that a single factor, participants' self-reported quality of contact with older individuals, would be related to their attitudes toward the elderly as measured by an implicit attitude scale. Participants' self-reported frequency of contact with older adults was expected to have no effect on their attitudes. College-aged participants were given a single questionnaire that assessed (a) the frequency and quality of their contact with elderly men and women and (b) their implicit attitudes toward the elderly. The results confirmed that self-reported favorable quality, but not frequency, of contact was significantly related to more positive attitudes toward the elderly.     

The effects of maternal smartphone use on mother–child interaction

This study assessed the effects of maternal smartphone use on mother–child interaction. Thirty-three Israeli mothers and their 24- to 36-month-old toddlers (16 boys) from middle-high socioeconomic status participated in three within-subjects experimental conditions: maternal smartphone use, maternal magazine reading, and uninterrupted dyadic free-play. The mothers produced fewer utterances, provided fewer responses to child bids, missed child bids more often, and exchanged fewer conversational turns with their children when engaged with a smartphone or printed magazines compared to uninterrupted free-play. The quality of maternal responsiveness was also decreased. These findings suggest maternal smartphone use compromises mother–child interaction, which given smartphone ubiquity in daily life may have negative effects on child development in various domains, including language, cognition, and socioemotional regulation.