Syntactic skills in sentence reading comprehension among Chinese elementary school children

The present study examined the role of syntactic skills for reading comprehension in Chinese. Two hundred and seventy-two Chinese children were tested on their phonological processing, orthographic, morphological, syntactic, and literacy skills at Grades 1 and 2. Hierarchical multiple regression results showed that syntactic skills, in terms of word order, connective usage, and knowledge of morphosyntactic structure (measured by an oral cloze task) in Grade 1, significantly predicted sentence reading comprehension in Grade 2 after controlling for the children’s age, IQ, and word level reading-related cognitive skills in Grade 1, and word reading in Grade 2. As in alphabetic languages, syntactic skills are essential for reading comprehension in Chinese. The unique roles of individual syntactic skills for understanding sentences in Chinese are discussed.     

Examining charter student achievement effects across seven states

Since their inception, charter schools have been a lighting rod for controversy, with much of the debate revolving around their effectiveness in improving student achievement. Previous research has shown mixed results for student achievement; this could be the consequence of different policy environments or varying methodological approaches with differing assumptions across studies. In our analysis, we discuss these approaches and their assumptions and estimate charter school achievement effects using a consistent methodology across seven locations.     

“That’s How We Roll”: A Case Study of a Recently Arrived Refugee Student in an Urban High School

This critical case study of one, Somali Bantu male high school student illuminates the struggle for recently arrived refugees at the high school level. Few educational research studies describe how recently arrived refugee students and their families make their transition to US schools (Ngo et al. in Hmong Stud J 8:1?C35, 2007; Hones and Cha in Educating new Americans: immigrant lives and learning. Erlbaum, Mahwah, 1999; Igoa in The inner world of the immigrant child. Erlbaum, Mahwah, 1995). Studies that examine how race, county of origin, and low socio-economic status affect refugee students also are few in number. Specifically Kamya (Soc Work 42:154?C165, 1997) argues that there is a compelling need for research that investigates how racism and stereotypes of Black Americans affect the experiences of African black immigrants and refugees. Rong and Brown (Educ Urban Soc 2:247?C273, 2002) add that black newcomers students often face a triple disadvantage of being black, having limited access to educational opportunity, and being poor. These challenges are particularly relevant for high school students as they have a limited amount of time to acquire proficiency in English and content area knowledge before transitioning to post-secondary education or the work force. In order to better understand how some of these processes work for a recently arrived refugee student in an urban school district, this paper examines the educational adaptation and coping strategies of one Somali Bantu male high school student and his family to the US public school system during the 2007?C2008 school year through the lens of intersectionality.     

Influence of student learning experience on academic performance: The mediator and moderator effects of self‐regulation and motivation

This study examined the mediator and moderator roles of self‐regulation and motivation constructs in the relationship between learning experience and academic success. Self‐reported measures of learning experience, self‐regulation and motivation were obtained from 384 undergraduate students from a university in Hong Kong. Structural equation modelling indicated that self‐regulation and motivation fully mediated the learning experience—academic performance relation. In addition, hierarchical regression analysis also showed that both self‐regulation and motivation had small moderating effects on the link between learning experience and academic performance. That is, the association between learning experience and cumulative GPA was stronger for students with lower levels of self‐regulation and motivation. The implications of fostering motivation and enhancing university learning experience are discussed.     

Social support within an on-line cancer community: an assessment of emotional support,perceptions of advantages and disadvantages,and motives for using the community from a communication perspective

This study investigated an on-line cancer support community emphasizing communication concerns important to the community administrators. The researcher conducted an on-line survey of participants (N v = v 103) focused on their on-line communication activities and social support. The results indicate a modest negative correlation between emotional support received on-line and perceived stress, differences in emotional support scores based on perceptions of disadvantages of on-line support groups, and different motives for using the community between people with cancer and family members. The study also describes suggestions based on the results that were made to community administrators and which could be used by other on-line support communities.     

Software support for online mentoring programs: a research‐inspired design

This article provides an overview of Telementoring Orchestrator? (TMO), a new web‐based software tool designed to aid small or large organizations in supporting telementoring programs (also called online mentoring or e‐mentoring programs). In this report, we review the research that inspired the design of the software, and survey the major components of the system, explaining the rationale behind our design choices. Since software designers cannot avoid making assumptions about an application’s users and its uses, our goal is to explain the assumptions that TMO makes about telementoring programs and telementoring relationships, and how these relate to our own research and field experiences. We aim to help potential users understand the range of programs that TMO might help manage and study in its current form, and to help the prospective designers of similar systems understand other design choices that might be made. We conclude by setting an agenda for future work, including both feature extensions for the software itself, and new research that could be carried out with it.     

Book Reviews

What does it mean for a mentoring program to succeed? Most evaluations focus on participants' perceptions of success. Few studies employ an independent measure of the intended outcomes of the program, and fewer still examine both participant satisfaction and achievement. This article presents an example of how comparing data on perceived and achieved success can foster new insights into the trade‐offs inherent in program design and improvement. Based on an analysis of survey and interview data from an online mentoring program in which 17 history experts supported 108 high school students in historical research, it was found that mentees' satisfaction did not correlate with their achievement of intended program outcomes. Further analysis illuminated design trade‐offs between the aspects of the online mentoring program that supported perceived success and those that supported intended outcomes. The authors argue that examining such trade‐offs in other mentoring programs may facilitate their improvement over time.     

Informal learning organizations as part of an educational ecology: Lessons from collaboration across the formal-informal divide

How do informal learning organizations work with schools as part of a broader educational ecology? We examined this question through a comparative case study of two collaborative efforts whereby informal arts education organizations, a children’s museum and a community-based organization, worked with an urban school district to redefine the provision of educational services for children and youth. Grounded conceptually in organizational theory, our study identified factors that enable and constrain collaboration across the formal-informal divide. We argue that examining the dynamics of cross-sector collaboration as occurring within a regional ecology of diverse learning organizations and broader institutional context provides insights into the outcomes of joint work. Our findings have implications for designing collaborations between schools and informal organizations that contribute to their respective strength, as well as the broader regional educational ecology in which they reside.