Consulting About Consulting: Young people’s views of consultation

The increasing recognition that children and young people should be consulted and involved in decision‐making about their lives is reflected in national and international legislation. A great deal of this legislation, stemming from the UN convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), requires education authorities to consult children and young people when making decisions about their education. However, little is known about how children and young people themselves would like consultation to proceed. This study held four focus groups of young people with and without Additional Support Needs (ASN) to address this question. The young people came up with many suggestions which can be used to guide future consultation work, but the main message was one of individual choice. Children and young people want to be consulted but the consultation should be tailored to their individual needs if it is to be truly successful. There are lessons to be learned for EPs and other professionals who regularly seek the views of children and young people.     

Evaluation of an Embedded Program Through the Embedded Ecosystem Framework and Toolkit

This article provides a theoretical model for understanding embedded librarianship by introducing an Embedded Ecosystem Framework (EEF) and toolkit to evaluate the health of an embedded program in an academic setting. The toolkit measures the tangible services and the intangible relationships with users in embedded programs under the framework's four facets: Actions, Awareness, Perceptions, and Impact. The Actions facet is measured by traditional library reference metrics, while Awareness, Perception, and Impact measures such as program awareness, self-reported academic gains, or service satisfaction are measured by a survey as well as individual and class evaluations. Analysis of data trends can indicate gaps in services provided or utilization of services by specific user groups to encourage more active engagement with their communities. The toolkit is customizable to fit other embedded librarian programs.     

Using Postinoculation Talk to Strengthen Generated Resistance

This study builds on the burgeoning concept of integrating a vocal component into inoculation-generated resistance. Specifically, this research attempts to isolate the vocal and subvocal components of the inoculation process to clarify recent research that has raised questions about the long-standing proposition that inoculation-motivated counterarguing is an exclusively subvocal process. Furthermore, it separately measures belief levels and belief certainty. The pattern of results indicates that postinoculation talk (PIT) following exposure to the inoculation message can boost belief certainty. These findings complement recent work that suggests that the content of PIT serves reassurance and advocacy purposes.     

A Comparison of Special,General and Support Teachers’ Controllability and Stability Attributions for Children’s Difficulties in Learning

The study aimed to explore teachers’ attributions for learner difficulties in their schoolwork. In order to explore their attributions of controllability and stability, three groups of teachers, general mainstream class teachers (N = 39), mainstream learning support teachers (N = 35), and special school teachers (N = 25) were asked to rate vignettes about children’s difficulties. The results showed that the two groups of teachers working in the mainstream settings viewed learners with identified support needs as having less control over their performance than those with no specific support needs, while special school teachers viewed both learner groups similarly. Similar findings were found for teacher attributions of controllability in high‐ and low‐ability learners. Stability attributions across all conditions showed that special school teachers viewed children’s difficulties as more amenable to change than did the two groups of mainstream teachers. The implications of these findings for inclusion in mainstream schools are discussed.     

Associations between Fine Motor and Mathematics Instruction and Kindergarten Mathematics Achievement

Research Findings: This study investigates the role of fine motor and mathematics instruction in mathematics achievement in an international sample of kindergarteners from the United States and China. Multilevel modeling was used to assess the interaction between students’ entering skills and classroom time spent on basic math, higher-order math and fine-motor instruction. For American children, the effect of basic math and higher-order math instruction on student achievement depended on entering skills; however, fine motor instruction had negative average effects on student achievement and did not depend on students’ entering skills. Instruction time was not a significant predictor of achievement for Chinese students. Practice or Policy: Though fine motor skills have a robust correlation with mathematics achievement, a causal link has not been established. Our study indicates that time spent in fine motor instruction does not advance mathematics achievement in kindergarten and in fact may weaken mathematics achievement, given the limited time in the instructional day. American teachers in our sample who spent more time in fine-motor instruction tended to spend less time on basic math and higher-order mathematics instruction. Educators should weigh instructional trade-offs carefully and work to tailor instruction to students’ skill levels.     

The Effects of Liberal Arts Experiences on Liberal Arts Outcomes

Despite scholars’ praise of liberal arts education as a model form, very little research has examined the actual impact of liberal arts education on learning outcomes. The elaborate rhetoric and anecdotal support, long used to advance liberal arts education as the premier type of education with value for all, is no longer sufficient. The practices and conditions that lead to outcomes of a liberally educated student remain an empirical black box. Guided by the work of Pascarella et al. [2005, Liberal arts colleges and liberal arts education: New evidence on impacts. ASHE Higher Education Report, 31(3)], this study examined the extent to which an institutional ethos, that values student–student and student–faculty interaction within a supportive environment characterized by high expectations for developing the intellectual arts, manifests in the lived experiences of students and predicts the development of outcomes theoretically associated with the liberal arts. Specifically, we investigated the construct and predictive validity of the liberal arts experience scale relative to liberal arts outcomes. Using data from the first phase of the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education, net of student background characteristics and institution attended, we found liberal arts experiences had a positive effect on four of six liberal arts outcomes, including intercultural effectiveness, inclination to inquire and lifelong learning, well-being, and leadership.

Student and school SES,gender, strategy use,and achievement

A multilevel mediated regression model was fit to Programme for International Student Assessment achievement, strategy use, gender, and family‐ and school‐level socioeconomic status (SES). Two metacognitive strategies (i.e., understanding and summarizing) and one learning strategy (i.e., control strategies) were found to relate significantly and positively to achievement. These strategies were used more by females and students attending higher SES schools. In contrast, males and students attending lower SES schools tended to use a greater number of learning strategies that did not relate to achievement, including memorization and elaboration. In addition, the strategies that did not relate to achievement were used more frequently by students from higher SES families. The findings suggest that schools, as opposed to families, may be the primary vehicle for developing effective strategy use practices for students and thus, targeted interventions may be particularly useful for male students attending low SES schools.