Shifting gears: consequences of including two negatively worded items in the middle of a positively worded questionnaire

A questionnaire used in student evaluations of interdisciplinary courses during six semesters contained two Likert items stated in a direct negative mode which were embedded in a questionnaire (14–18 items) in which the remaining items were phrased in a direct positive mode. In the seventh semester and thereafter, the two negative items were restated as direct positive stems. Item‐analysis demonstrated that in the direct negative mode, the two items had low item‐to‐total correlations and that the internal consistency reliability of the sum score could be improved by eliminating the two negatively phrased items. Also, the two negatively worded items defined a separate factor. After they were reworded into a direct positive mode, these two items showed markedly improved item‐to‐total correlations. Moreover, the unique factor disappeared, which suggests that it was a methodological artefact probably attributable to respondent carelessness. Including a few negative items in an otherwise positively stated questionnaire leads to ambiguity of results rather than controlling for response sets. We therefore recommend against the practice.     

Classroom materials

Social Studies for the Young Child Science for the Young Child Creative Movement for the Developing Child Telling Stories Through Movement by Dorian and Gulland Fearon Pitman Publishers, Inc. 6 Davis Drive Belmont, CA 94002

Friendly Dragons, From the Best In Children's Literature — Level 3, Edited by Dr. Walter Loban and Lillian M. Watklns, Bowmar/Noble Publications Inc., 4563 Colorado, Los Angeles, CA 90039

“Discovering Nature” “Earth Science” Published by Educational Insights. Inc., 20435 S. Tillman Ave., Carson, California 90746

Nutrition: Food and Health, Science and Mankind, Inc., Communications Park, Box 200, White Plains, New York, 10802     

TRAINING IN SUPPORT OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN ELDERCARE CAMPAIGN: REPLICATION OF AN AMERICAN INDIAN HOME‐CARE TRAINING PROGRAM

In 1991, the federal Administration on Aging initiated the National Eldercare Campaign to broaden the base of commitment and societal involvement to assist today's vulnerable elderly. With Administration on Aging funding, the project described in this study sought to enhance services to American Indian elders by training individuals as home‐care workers. The project replicated a previously developed American Indian paraprofessional home‐care worker curriculum at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College in Cloquet, Minnesota. This program, which is transferable to Indian and non‐Indian communities, addressed three contemporary aging issues. First, it addressed the need to incorporate diversity and minority aging knowledge into the curriculum of postsecondary education. Second, it provided more accessible and better quality community‐based in‐home care to meet the needs of frail elderly. Third, this training program confronted the pervasive lack of employment opportunities in many American Indian and other minority communities.     

Editorial

As the incoming editorial team we would like to introduce ourselves to our readers. We are looking forward to doing all we can to further the high standard of the journal and its relevance as an international forum for sharing research and scholarship on teaching, learning and curriculum, and the conditions and policy environment of higher education that impinge on academic work. In an effort to ensure that our processes are efficient and transparent, we have revised the Notes to Contributors, which you will find on the back page. Next year the journal goes to four issues which will together form a somewhat larger volume, but will mean that each issue is smaller. The intent is to publish more frequently so that relevance and currency is enhanced. For this reason we will need to put more stress on observing the general rule that papers are to be 5000–7000 words in length. We are also committed to a more rapid turnaround time for submitted papers and have been working to streamline our management systems with the help of our able administrator, Karen Sanecki.     

Development of a Measure to Assess Youth Self-reported Experiences of Activity Settings (SEAS)

There is a need for psychometrically sound measures of youth experiences of community/home leisure activity settings. The 22-item Self-Reported Experiences of Activity Settings (SEAS) captures the following experiences of youth with a Grade 3 level of language comprehension or more: Personal Growth, Psychological Engagement, Social Belonging, Meaningful Interactions, and Choice & Control. Forty-five youth aged 14–23 years (10 with severe disabilities) completed the SEAS in 160 leisure activity settings. The SEAS has good to excellent internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha from 0.71 to 0.88) and moderate test–retest reliability (mean scale intra-class correlation coefficient = 0.68), as expected due to changes in activity settings over time. The SEAS was able to differentiate various types of activity settings and participation partners. The SEAS can be used to gain greater understanding of situation-specific experiences of youth participating in various types of recreation and leisure activity settings, including youth with different types of disabilities and those without disabilities.     

Lexical inference in L2: predictive roles of vocabulary knowledge and reading skill beyond reading comprehension

The current study examined the predictive roles of L2 vocabulary knowledge and L2 word reading skills in explaining individual differences in lexical inferencing in the L2. Participants were 53 Israeli high school students who emigrated from the former Soviet Union, and spoke Russian as an L1 and Hebrew as an L2. L2 vocabulary knowledge and decoding accuracy predicted L2 reading comprehension, which in turn was strongly related to lexical inferencing abilities in the L2. In addition, decoding accuracy predicted additional variance in lexical inferencing, beyond the role of reading comprehension. These findings support the idea that beginning L2 readers with more precise and efficient lexical representations demonstrate better lexical inferencing abilities, most likely due to the increased automatization of word reading, which frees up resources for higher level processing. These results suggest that lexical inferencing from text in the L2 might be limited not only by vocabulary knowledge and higher order comprehension processes, but also by basic decoding skills.     

From speed dating to intimacy: methodological change in the evaluation of a writing group

This paper explores an innovative approach to evaluating the effectiveness of a writing group in an Australian research-intensive university. Traditional qualitative and quantitative methods typically applied in higher-education research may be effective in analysing the output of writing groups; however, they do not always address the affective domain of writing and giving and receiving feedback in a small-group context. The group had previously evaluated its practice with a speed-dating activity, itself an innovative approach designed for efficiency and to take advantage of the size and diversity of the group. The changing membership of the group, from eight to four participants, warranted a methodology appropriate to the intimacy of the group. In this paper, three theoretical frameworks are used to conceptualise the practice of the smaller group: communities of practice, peer mentoring and affect theory. The methodologies of critically reflective practice and memory work described here emerged from these theoretical frameworks.     

Development from within academe: Eschewing imperialism,managerialism and missionary zeal?

Abstract

In the current turbulent environment as we face pressures for efficiency and commercialization, good intentions will not be sufficient. Reflection on what the future holds for us is timely. In this article two case examples of academic development, drawn from the experience of staff at The Australian National University's Centre for Educational Development and Academic Methods, are presented and analysed. A key issue for the field of academic development emerging from this critical examination of the cases is how units and those working in them are positioned in relation to academic colleagues, academic practitioners, and senior officers who are university leaders and managers. Through the case studies and discussion the article explores issues of our location; it concludes that reflection on our models and theories, and critical rethinking of our practice, are essential first steps in deciding on our own professional development.     

The Importance of Structure in Providing Uniform Quality in Mentoring/Induction Programs

This case‐study research investigated mentroing interactions at five elementary schools within a district‐wide, state‐mandated induction program. The subjects of the study were five mentor teachers and their five first‐year colleagues. A literal replication of cases described both the objective and subjective features of mentor/first‐year teacher interactions. Typologies were developed to illustrate types of interactions and mentoring styles. Results indicate that school and district administration, in order to facilitate successful mentoring, should develop a formally structured approach to the selection, training and assignment of mentors.     

Associations of Resource and Service Utilization, Risk Level, and College Outcomes

We tracked resource and service utilizations and first-year college outcomes for the entering first-year class (n = 1,534) at a traditional 4-year postsecondary institution. We grouped specific resources and services offered by the institution into four general categories (academic services, social resources, recreational resources, and advising sessions). We investigated the interrelation of risk, resource and service utilization, and first-year GPA and retention. We found that utilization of each resource/service category was positively associated with GPA and/or retention. Of particular interest, we tested whether the associations of resource and service utilization and outcomes were moderated by risk. We found that the associations of academic services and advising sessions with GPA were more pronounced for higher-risk students. We discuss the implications of the findings, including how the differential associations of resource and service utilizations and outcomes can affect intervention decisions with high-risk students. This research was a collaborative project between ACT and NAU. Steven Robbins, Jeff Allen, Alex Casillas, and Adaeze Akamigbo are members of ACT Research. Margot Saltonstall is Assessment Coordinator, Enrollment Management and Student Affairs, Rebecca Campbell is Associate Professor of Educational Psychology, and Eileen Mahoney is Director of the Gateway Student Success Center, all at Northern Arizona University. Paul Gore is Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Utah and former director of the Career Transitions Research Department at ACT.