Examining the Validity of Behavioral Self-Regulation Tools in Predicting Preschoolers' Academic Achievement

Research Findings: The current study investigated the predictive utility of teacher-rated, observed, and directly assessed behavioral self-regulation skills to academic achievement in preschoolers. Specifically, this study compared how a teacher report (the Child Behavior Rating Scale), an observer report (the Observed Child Engagement Scale), and a direct assessment (the Head–Toes–Knees–Shoulders task) relate to early math and literacy skills. The sample consisted of 247 children from 31 preschool classrooms. Trained research assistants observed a subsample of 104 children. Results indicated significant positive relationships for teacher-rated and directly assessed behavioral self-regulation for early math and literacy skills. Teacher ratings were the strongest predictors of literacy, and the direct assessment emerged as the strongest predictor of math. Observed behavioral self-regulation was not significantly related to either academic domain. Practice or Policy: Discussion focuses on the domain specificity of behavioral self-regulation assessments and the importance of utilizing multiple measurement tools when assessing behavioral self-regulation and its relations to early achievement.     

On Martyn Hammersley's Critique of Bassey's Concept of the Fuzzy Generalisation

This article is a further contribution to a critique of Michael Bassey's concept of 'fuzzy generalisations' as a form of dissemination of educational research. Martyn Hammersley has questioned both the uniqueness, and validity, of 'fuzzy' generalisation; the former in terms of a misunderstanding about the nature of generalisation as a whole, and the latter in relation to the potential for circumventing the research community's role in validation. It is argued here that, whilst in agreement with the first of these criticisms, the second depends upon the perspective taken, and that, from the perspective of the practitioner--as opposed to the researcher--(external) validity is a question of 'usefulness' within a particular context rather than generalisability across contexts. Furthermore, generalisations which state what will happen to a practitioner may fail to take account of the fact that he or she is far from being a passive recipient of the research.     

Bridging Education and Practice With a Competency-Based Learning Contract

ABSTRACT

Field work programs have a substantial responsibility for providing support and gatekeeping functions while ensuring an educational experience that allows students to master the nine holistic, multidimensional social work accreditation competencies. With additional emphasis on field as a “signature pedagogy,” field directors are tasked with finding placements that can support these explicit competencies. Through the utilization of a learning contract that combines the Council on Social Work Education Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards competencies (including component behaviors) students and supervisors can begin to discuss their joint progress on meeting each of these prior to the final evaluation. This process will ensure that students have demonstrated the necessary outcomes to become a generalist social work practitioner.     

Learning together: a transdisciplinary approach to student–staff partnerships in higher education

ABSTRACT

Partnership in higher education has gained prominence over recent decades, but recent studies have identified a lack of research exploring how partnership practices unfold in specific disciplinary contexts. This article explores how a transdisciplinary approach can be used to better understand and facilitate student–staff partnerships where staff and students have diverse disciplinary backgrounds and knowledge. We present a case study of the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation at the University of Technology Sydney, focusing on the adaptation of our curriculum co-creation processes by drawing on multiple knowledge types through a reflexive process of mutual learning. We conclude that explicit consideration of these principles, which are common to both transdisciplinary and partnership frameworks, have the potential to enhance consideration of diverse perspectives and the roles played by worldviews, norms and values when building student–staff partnerships around curriculum co-creation.     

Professional Development Scholarships Increase Qualifications of Diverse Providers

Efforts to improve school readiness call for improvements in the professional qualifications of the early childhood workforce. It is critically important that these efforts are inclusive of a diverse workforce. Providers from diverse ethnic and linguistic backgrounds make up a sizable portion of the early childhood workforce, yet diversity continues to be disproportionally concentrated among providers with lower qualifications. This study examines the effect of a state-wide scholarship program on increasing qualifications for nondegree-seeking providers from diverse groups caring for children in early childhood settings. Data from two components of Oregon’s Quality Rating and Improvement System for early care and education were linked with individual provider identification numbers (N = 1,783): the Oregon Child Care Professional Development Registry (PD Registry) and the state-wide Betty Gray Scholarship Program. Findings revealed that providers from ethnic and linguistic minority backgrounds had lower qualifications, on average, but also accessed scholarships at elevated rates. Scholarships were associated with modest increases in professional qualifications for all groups of providers but did not reduce the gap in qualifications between providers from minority and nonminority backgrounds. Implications for teacher educators who deliver training and/or education to providers are discussed. Directions for future research and programming related to qualifications of early childhood providers are also presented.     

'Average Stray Aliens': An Average Australian Conversation on Eurocentrism

Prompted by a recent error in an Australian newspaper, by which voice-recognition technology inadvertently transformed ‘average Australians’ into ‘average stray aliens’, this paper appears as a conversation about Eurocentrism between five participants, all of whom work in European studies as teachers and researchers in Australia, the place of ‘stray aliens’. Our dialogue proceeded cumulatively in August 2001, with e-mail responses circulating between contributors. Our aim was to dislocate the debate about ‘Europe’ and ‘Eurocentrism’ away from the Eurocentre to one of Europe's blind spots, Australia. Emerging in the debate is a strong sense of the ways in which power and privilege inevitably accrue centrifugally: Eurocentrism affects and re-writes itself on us in ways perhaps unimagined in the Eurocentre. As a bid toward resistant practice against the centre, we have refrained self-consciously from explaining every local reference in our self-reflective, dialogic, and open-ended discussion about the ways ‘Europe’ and ‘Eurocentrism’ touch us as teachers, researchers and ‘average stray aliens’.