Characterizing disability in Head Start programs: Not so clearcut

Head Start programs are required to set aside at least 10% of program slots for children with disabilities, but the percentage of children with disabilities served varies depending on the criteria used and source of the information. This study used the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) 2000 data for a nationally representative sample to identify subgroups of children meeting three different criteria for having a disability or developmental delay. Results indicated that about one-third of children in Head Start (33%) met one or more of the criteria for a disability or delay, about one-third of those children (33%) met criteria for two or for all three of the subgroups. However, only 8% of children in Head Start had an Individualized Education Program (IEP). Children with disabilities or delays, regardless of the subgroup criteria used, had higher levels of many other risk factors associated with poor developmental and school readiness outcomes. They also exhibited poorer performance on early literacy, social, and behavioral measures both at entry into Head Start and at the end of kindergarten compared with children not in each of those subgroups. Implications of the findings for screening and assessment, serving children in Head Start programs, and the need for linkages between Head Start programs and the preschool special education system are discussed.     

Educating Older Adults about Medicare: The Role of Cognitive Variables

ABSTRACT

A survey was conducted on 3,738 beneficiaries about their knowledge of the Medicare program as well as their reading habits, reading comprehension ability, and metamemory. Factor analysis yielded a reading and a metamemory factor. These factors explained variance in knowledge about Medicare above and beyond the variance explained by formal education. Individuals with good knowledge of memory processes, and those who reported high memory capacity and internal locus of control regarding their memory functioning, as well as frequent readers were more knowledgeable about Medicare. We suggest that cognitive variables be included in studies evaluating the effectiveness of educational materials for older adults.     

SUPPORTING STUDENTS IN FOSTER CARE

Students living in foster care are at risk for experiencing many challenges in school, spanning domains of social–emotional, behavioral, and academic functioning. They are twice as likely to be absent from school and to have received and out‐of‐school suspension and up to three and a half times more likely to receive special education services. Therefore, it is important for schools to recognize and respond to the unique needs of students in foster care to provide the necessary resources for school success. When working with students in foster care, school psychologists should be equipped to support the success of these students by determining what the needs of students in foster care are, and how to meet identified needs. The current paper will discuss the education‐related vulnerabilities and presenting problems for children in foster care and outline social–emotional, behavioral, and academic supports that school psychologists can offer.     

The relations between children's linguistic awareness and spelling: The case of the apostrophe

In a longitudinal study, we looked at the link between children'sunderstanding of a morphemically-based orthographic rule and theirawareness of morphemic distinctions. The orthographic rule in question wasthe use of the apostrophe to denote possession in English. Early on in thestudy, we gave the children phonological, semantic/syntactic and morpho-syntactic awareness tasks, and later we gave them a spelling task in whichthey had to write words which were either genitives (e.g., `boy's') ornominative or accusative plurals (e.g., `boys'). Eight- to 10-year-oldchildren found this task difficult, but their performance improved to someextent with age. The morpho-syntactic, but not the phonological orsemantic/syntactic, awareness tasks predicted how well the children placedapostrophes in genitive words and omitted them from plural words. Weconclude that different forms of linguistic awareness affect differentaspects of reading and spelling. Learning about spelling patterns based onmorphemes is heavily influenced by children's morpho-syntactic awarenessbut not, apparently, by other forms of linguistic awareness.     

Honesty on student evaluations of teaching: effectiveness,purpose, and timing matter!

Student evaluations of teaching (SETs) are an important point of assessment for faculty in curriculum development, tenure and promotion decisions, and merit raises. Faculty members utilise SETs to gain feedback on their classes and, hopefully, improve them. The question of the validity of student responses on SETs is a continuing debate in higher education. The current study uses data from two universities (n = 596) to determine whether and under what conditions students are honest on in-class and online SETs, while also assessing their knowledge and attitudes about SETs. Findings reveal that, while students report a high level of honesty on SETs, they are more likely to be honest when they believe that evaluations effectively measure the quality of the course, the results improve teaching and benefit students rather than the administration, and when they are given at the end of the term. Honesty on evaluations is not associated with socio-demographic characteristics.     

Cultivating environmental citizenship in teacher education

Research on environmental action projects in teacher education is limited. Furthermore, projects that emphasize the role of citizens and governments in environmental problem-solving are scarce. The purpose of this study was to explore how participating in a political environmental action project influenced pre-service teachers’ environmental citizenship. Following the steps of Project Citizen, an international civic education program, pre-service teachers learned about and proposed policy solutions to address excessive energy usage at their university. Analysis revealed growth in the pre-service teachers’ environmental citizenry, including their self-efficacy, values awareness, and ecological and civics literacy. Through critical appraisal of their local energy-yielding system, the pre-service teachers recognized energy conservation as a cultural problem with local and global implications, furthering their commitment to action-oriented environmental education.     

Identifying pedagogy and teaching strategies for achieving nationally prescribed learning outcomes

With the globalisation of university education, national frameworks are commonly used to prescribe standardised learning outcomes and achieve accountability. However, these frameworks are generally not accompanied by guiding pedagogy to support academics in adjusting their teaching practices to achieve the set outcomes. This paper reports the results of a scoping review of health science literature aimed at identifying pedagogy and teaching strategies relevant to achieve the learning outcomes specified by the Australian Qualifications Framework at a master's degree level. Eight practical teaching messages emerged from the review and three broad pedagogical trends were identified: the need to use authentic disciplinary-based learning activities; ensure that students are able to discover different perspectives about future practice and bring student reflection about their own knowledge into curricula. More critically, the review highlights that academics attempting to translate national learning outcome frameworks into their teaching practices face a complex and time-consuming task which may involve searching beyond their own disciplinary focus to identify practical teaching strategies to meet prescribed learning outcomes.     

A systematic review and meta-analysis of implicit theory research in sport,physical activity,and physical education

The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to gather, catalogue, assess, and evaluate the available evidence examining implicit beliefs about ability in the sport, physical activity, and physical education contexts. A total of 43 studies were found, of which 39 were subjected to meta analyses. With only 7 experimental studies, the strength of evidence is moderate, and the field would benefit from greater experimental work. Overall, incremental beliefs were moderately associated with a small group of theoretically derived correlates, while entity beliefs were only weakly associated. The field would benefit from expanding these outcomes to include a wider range of pertinent outcomes. Researchers should focus their efforts on systematically exploring the most powerful ways of inducing adaptive implicit beliefs with the aim of providing solutions to significant problems such as preventing dropout from organised sports, improving academic grades in and beyond physical education, and increasing levels of physical activity.