Cognitive validity of students’ self-reports of classroom mastery goal structure: What students are thinking and why it matters

Cognitive interviews were employed to systematically examine the cognitive validity of self-report survey items extensively used to assess classroom mastery goal structure. In a sample of elementary and middle school students, items were identified that functioned according to their intended meaning and those eliciting less accurate interpretations as conceptually defined by mastery goal structure cognitive validity criteria. Evidence suggested that items framed to focus on students’ teachers (i.e., teacher goals) were more cognitively valid than were items that focused students on their classroom context. Items with abstract terms yielded less accurate interpretations. We discuss implications of determining the cognitive validity of scales used to assess achievement goal structure and related self-report instruments.     

Elementary teachers' use and perception of rewards in the classroom

In the past four decades much research has gone into the use of rewards in education yet little attention has been given to the use of rewards from the perspective of teachers. This mixed method study examined how elementary school teachers define and use rewards in their classrooms and how various motivational constructs such as goal orientation, self-efficacy, and autonomy relate to teachers' use of rewards. Results revealed that all teachers in our sample use some form of rewards in their classrooms and the majority use some form of tangible rewards. Rewards were most frequently given for behaviour management, but there was a significant relationship between the use of rewards for behaviour and those given for academic achievement. Performance goal orientations for teaching were positively related to the use of tangible rewards and a higher degree of classroom control and negatively related to teacher self-efficacy. When asked to report on the appropriateness of using rewards in the classroom only one-third of the teachers reported that they should be used conditionally.     

Exploring ‘learning lives’: community,identity, literacy and meaning

This article explores the term ‘learning lives’ by reporting on three research projects conducted by members of the Oslo‐based research group TransActions. By stressing the term ‘learning lives’ within a range of social ‘educational’ contexts, the article aims to look at learning within and across different learning sites exploring the positioning and repositioning of learner identity across these different ‘locations’. We emphasise how the individual learner relates to other people and objects, drawing on deeper trajectories or narratives of the self as it exists within and outside the immediate learning contexts. We pay attention to processes occurring between people which we find significant for the individual's identity, literacy and learning. By doing so we hope to make explicit the mobilisation of resources within and across specific contexts, in the ‘learning lives’ of Norwegian youngsters.     

Do digital devices enhance teenagers’ recreational reading engagement? Issues for library policy from a recent study in two Australian states

ABSTRACT

Digital platforms have become central to twenty-first century education, culture, and government, and libraries devote an increasing proportion of budgets to acquisitions of e-resources. This research reports on a recent project that investigated Australian teenagers’ use of traditional print and digital platforms for long-form recreational reading. Specifically, it investigates whether digital devices are a preferred modality for Australian adolescents’ recreational reading and if access to digital devices with e-reading capabilities, such as tablets, smartphones, e-readers, and laptop or desktop computers, is associated with more reading engagement by avid and reluctant readers. The research, based on a diverse sample of urban and regional participants from two states, suggests that Australian adolescents’ preferences for e-books have been largely overestimated. Issues of relevance to public libraries are discussed.     

The Effect of Individual Differences in Cognitive Style and Motives in Solving Insight Problems

The relationship between cognitive style, achievement motives and problem solving performance was investigated. Two insight problems of the practical construction type were employed as criterion variables in Study 1, and five analytic insight problems were used as criterion variables in Study 2. In Study 1, 44 males and 43 females, aged 17 to 21 years, from a senior high school participated as subjects. In Study 2, 179 female and 96 male students from the same population were employed as subjects. In both studies, Assimilators profited from having high Ms scores, while there was a decrease for Explorers with higher Ms scores. The pattern of findings supports Atkinson's hypothesis (1980) of optimal motivation.     

TV's distorted vision of poverty

Avoiding almost entirely the depiction of poverty during prime‐time broadcasts, television networks present a sentimentalized vision of economic deprivation that omits or minimizes hardship while idealizing the supposed benefits of a spartan way of life. Much happier than the harried members of middle‐ and upper‐income groups, poor and working people on television seldom strive against their economic fates or against the system. Conclusions are based on a monitoring of prime‐time entertainment broadcast by the three commercial networks during “ratings month.”     

Not All Past Events Are Equal: Biased Attention and Emerging Heuristics in Children's Past‐to‐Future Forecasting

Four‐ to 10‐year‐olds and adults (N = 265) responded to eight scenarios presented on an eye tracker. Each trial involved a character who encounters a perpetrator who had previously enacted positive (P), negative (N), or both types of actions toward him or her in varying sequences (NN, PP, PN, and NP). Participants predicted the character's thoughts about the likelihood of future events, emotion type and intensity, and decision to approach or avoid. All ages made more positive forecasts for PP > NP > PN > NN trials, with differentiation by past experience widening with age. Age‐related increases in weighting the most recent past event also appeared in eye gaze. Individual differences in biased visual attention correlated with verbal judgments. Findings contribute to research on risk assessment, person perception, and heuristics in judgment and decision making.     

Looking Back on Lessons Learned: Gifted Adults Reflect on Their Experiences in Advanced Classes

The purpose of this study was to learn about gifted adults' experiences in advanced classes and attitudes about advanced classes or gifted programs for their children. Participants were 88 adults (33 men and 55 women) who have been participating in a longitudinal study of academically talented individuals since their high-school graduation in 1988. Participants responded to open-ended questions via mailed surveys. Eighty-five percent of participants described their academic experiences in advanced classes as positive, whereas slightly fewer participants (59%) described their interpersonal experiences in advanced classes as positive. Seventy-five percent of participants with children described signs of giftedness in their children, and 88% of participants indicated that they would support advanced placement for their children if it were recommended by the school. Implications of the findings were discussed and directions for future research were provided.     

Community College Student Dropouts from Higher Education: Toward a Comprehensive Conceptual Model

ABSTRACT

Historically, higher education research has focused on traditional students (i.e., recent high school graduates at a residential, 4-year institutions), but community college students are quickly becoming the new traditional student (Jenkins, 2012). In the fall of 2011, more than one third (36%) of all students enrolled in postsecondary education and almost half (46.7%) of all students enrolled in a public postsecondary institution were enrolled at a community college (Knapp, Kelly-Reid, & Ginder, 2012). However, community colleges have struggled to match the persistence rates at other institutional types. The 2011 2-year public community college national 3-year persistence-to-degree rate was 26.9% (American College Testing [ACT], 2011). The purpose of this paper is to review the literature regarding the most prominent theoretical frameworks for community college student persistence and suggest a new theoretical construct. The resultant framework is termed the Collective Affiliation Model because it views the student’s sense of belonging with the college as only one of many senses of belonging in the student’s life (e.g., family, work). The Collective Affiliation Model does not view student dropout as the student’s inability to integrate into the life of the institution; rather, it views it as the institution’s inability to collectively affiliate with the student. This model’s strength is that it does not work from a student deficit model. Instead, it provides a new framework for researchers and practitioners to better understand and address student drop-out at community colleges.