Children with dyslexia show an inhibition domain-specific deficit in reading

Reading and Writing - Children with dyslexia face persistent difficulties in acquiring reading skills, often making guessing errors characterized by the replacement of a word by an orthographic...     

The needs of postbirth parents: an international, multisite study

Health care reform has moved postbirth care into the community without assessment of how this may change parents' needs. Mother-father pairs (n = 117) in six sites in four countries were interviewed at 5 to 10 days postbirth and again between 6 and 8 weeks postbirth to determine their needs. Content analysis revealed both parents in all sites had a strong focus on self-needs throughout the postbirth period. Postpartum programs oriented solely to family-centered care may not meet the specific needs of contemporary parents.     

DETERMINANTS OF GIRLS' CHOICE OF MATHEMATICS

Questionnaires concerning the self‐concept and evaluations of maths and French, as well as an intelligence test, were administered to secondary school students more than six months before they had to decide whether or not to take maths courses during the following school year. At the same time their school grades for maths and French were recorded. Students’ decisions were related to self‐concept, evaluations of maths and French, and aptitude measures, by means of discriminant analyses. Results indicated that sex, in combination with students’ (positive) evaluations of mathematics, their achievements in mathematics and their intellectual abilities, as well as a focus on French and self‐concept of French abilities, could adequately predict their choice of mathematics courses. No interaction effects were found between sex and the other predictor variables. These results suggest that stimulating more girls to choose mathematics during their secondary school years should focus upon achievement, self‐concept and evaluations of mathematics in comparison with other options.     

Instructional systems development in the schools

The authors of this commentary take exception to several points made in an article that appeared in the most recent issue of this journal (ETR&D, Vol. 38, No. 2). Following this explanation of their concerns is a reply by the authors of the original article.     

The Use of Film in Marriage and Family Counselor Education

The authors introduce an innovative technique that can be included in marriage and family counselor education curricula. Feature films are discussed as an educational technique for the instruction and development of perceptual, conceptual, and executive counseling skills. They also outline the advantages for using film in counselor education, present various strategies for using them in the classroom, and offer examples of how they have integrated movies into introductory marriage and family courses.     

数字技术支持的教师学习:研究与项目综述(下)

本文在系统回顾教师知识与教师学习本质的基础上,讨论了数字技术与教师学习活动之间的关系,主张将数字技术的效用描述为教师学习中有目的的一组活动,即：知识建构、分布式认知、社群与沟通以及约定,通过对五个技术支持的教师学习的典型案例,分析了数字技术对教师学习的支持作用。最后指出了数字技术支持的教师学习与专业发展之方向。     

Providing transparency and credibility: the selection of international students for Australian universities. An examination of the relationship between scores in the International Student Admissions Test (ISAT), final year academic programs and an Australian university’s foundation program

Throughout 2003–04 five cohorts of students in their final year of school studies in various Malaysian colleges and a group of students completing an Australian university foundation year in Malaysia sat the International Student Admissions Test (ISAT). The ISAT is a multiple‐choice test of general academic abilities developed for students whose first language is not English. Both sets of scores were examined to investigate the relationship between skills measured by the academic programs and the generic reasoning skills measured by the ISAT. The data were examined by looking at correlations and patterns of the ISAT scores, and the total academic program scores and individual subject scores. As well, multiple regression was used to examine if the ISAT could act as a predictor for academic program scores. Although the ISAT and measures of achievement in the academic programs are two completely different instruments, the study showed that: (i) the scores were positively and significantly correlated; (ii) patterns of co‐variation of the ISAT and academic program scores demonstrate a positive relationship; and (iii) there is evidence that achieving a high score in the academic programs requires high reasoning skills, as measured by the ISAT. The findings of this study indicate that the ISAT is a useful predictor of student ability for use in the university selection process for international applicants.     

In search of good citizenship education: A normative analysis of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS)

In the last two decades, calls to place citizenship education (CE) at the top of national and European educational policy and research agendas have been gaining in prominence. Large‐scale comparative studies, such as the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS), are often considered the main evidence base for setting these agendas and improving CE policies and practices. This article therefore considers the ICCS study as an inherent part of the process of translating general, educational aims into curricular policies and practices of CE. However, while critical voices about comparative educational studies have become paramount, a detailed analysis of their contents, of what and how they measure and what they promote as the aims of education is often lacking. This article aims to fill this gap by analysing the main research documents, design and items of the 2009 ICCS study. To find out what ICCS promotes as the goals of citizenship education, we examined its normative assumptions in terms of qualification, socialisation and/or subjectification. Our analysis shows that the qualification and socialisation functions are dominantly validated in all aspects of the study, whilst there is only marginal attention to subjectification. This implies that ICCS misses an important potential to document and/or promote pupils becoming autonomous and critical democratic citizens, whilst this is often considered a central aim of citizenship education by policymakers, practitioners and teachers.