Predictors of Delinquent Behaviors Among Latino Youth

This study used an ecological framework to examine predictors of delinquent behaviors among 91 sixth-grade Latino youth. Both proximal and distal contextual factors were assessed to determine their impact on various forms of delinquency, such as violent behaviors, violent thoughts, substance abuse, and general delinquency (e.g., skipping school). Attitudes toward school, mobility (number of moves to new schools and neighborhoods), and exposure to community violence were distal variables, whereas attachment to parents and attachment to peers were considered more proximal variables. Environmental experiences or exposure to distressing community violence was the strongest predictor of delinquent outcomes. The results were discussed in terms of school officials' developing linkages with the community to promote safe environments for youth.     

The partial-reinforcement extinction effect in 4–5-day-old guinea pigs

The partial-reinforcement extinction effect was demonstrated at 4–5 days of age in the precocial guinea pig and was related to the appearance of this effect at 12–14 days in the altricial rat. We suggest that the maturity of the septohippocampal system at birth in the guinea pig, relative to the immaturity of this system in the rat, is a possible basis for this difference.     

Reading Rescue: A follow-up on effectiveness of an intervention for struggling readers

The authors examined whether Reading Rescue continues to be an effective literacy intervention and factors that impact its effectiveness. Data were collected on 143 first-grade students, tutored by 104 tutors at 38 schools. There was significant growth on all foundational skills (ps?ps?d?=?1.62 sight words, d?=?1.68 oral reading/comprehension). Student-level factors of Individualized Education Program status, program completion, number of session, and invented spelling; tutor-level factors of sessions delivered and years of experience; school level factors of school size and percentage of language minority students all predicted grade-level passage or word reading (all ps?2007 Ehri, L. C., Dreyer, L. G., Flugman, B., &; Gross, A. (2007). Reading rescue: An effective tutoring intervention model for language-minority students who are struggling readers in first grade. American Educational Research Journal, 44(2), 414–448.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) study. Efforts should focus on ensuring program completion and increasing program exposure in neediest schools.     

A large-scale test of the relationship between procrastination and performance using learning analytics

Abstract

Many studies have found a relationship between students’ self-reported procrastination and their grades. Few studies have used learning analytic data as a behavioural measure of procrastination in order to predict performance, and there is no systematic research on how this relationship may differ across assessments or disciplines. In this study we analyse nine years’ worth of institutional electronic submission records, a total of 73,608 assignment submissions, to examine the relationship between submission time and grades across assignments, students, courses, and disciplines in higher education. A significant negative relationship was found overall, with students who submitted closer to the deadline obtaining lower grades, however the size of the relationship was negligible, accounting for less than 1% of the variance in grades. The relationship varied significantly depending on student, assignment, course and discipline.     

Learning by Doing: Teaching Decision Making through Building a Code of Ethics

Applying abstract ethical principles to the practical business of building a code of applied ethics for a technical communication department teaches students that they share certain unarticulated or even unconscious values that they can translate into ethical principles. Combining abstract theory with practical policy writing can teach technical communication students to become increasingly aware of ethical actions without restricting ethics solely to abstractions or rules.     

Possible role of confounded taste stimuli in conditioned taste aversions

In many publications, Sjödén, Archer, and their colleagues have studied conditioned taste aversions and found that in addition to taste, the bottle and/or spout containing a solution exerts strong control over the expression of an aversion. For example, Sjödén and Archer claim that this bottle stimulus will support a bottle-illness association even with long delays between the bottle and illness and after only a single conditioning trial. They have interpreted their results as indicating that contextual effects are important in taste-aversion learning. However, a confound in their procedure, stemming from the bottles they used, could explain their results in a simple way. Sjödén and Archer have emphasized that the bottle stimuli they used to distinguish between contexts consisted of one of two different sizes of drinking spouts, the larger of which made a clicking noise when licked. However, the larger spouts were always attached to plastic bottles and the smaller spouts were always attached to glass bottles. If discriminable tastes from the plastic bottles existed, then taste may have been inadvertently manipulated. Support for the likelihood of a plastic taste includes the seminal work on taste-aversion learning that stemmed from the serendipitous use of plastic bottles in the cage that rats were irradiated in and glass bottles in the home cages (see Garcia, McGowan, & Green, 1972). In these early demonstrations, rats learned to avoid the taste of water in the plastic bottles but not the taste of water in the glass bottles.     

Using a Problem-Solving Approach to Teach Classroom Skills to a Student with Moderate Intellectual Disabilities within Regular Classroom Settings

We examined the use of a problem-solving intervention to teach classroom skills to a student with moderate intellectual disabilities. She was receiving her education in regular classrooms at her local primary school. The student was taught the targeted skills in a resource room removed from the regular classroom. She successfully generalised the skills to regular classrooms. The problem-solving intervention was evaluated using a multiple baseline design across classrooms. Regular classroom teachers indicated that the student's behaviour significantly improved during the intervention.     

Field research methodology for the study of Latin American ministries of education

In Third World countries a key to the course of nation-building is the modernization of the organizational and administrative infrastructures which drive the development process. Increasing the operational capabilities, effectiveness, and efficiency of the ministry of education, and hence the quality and quantity of school outcomes, is typically a high priority item in the development plans of a nation. In order to promote the modernization of management activities in ministries, however, it is first essential to understand their existing patterns of operation. Toward this objective, the paper presents a methodological framework for a field study approach to the examination of the working of a ministry of education in Latin America. Several issues are introduced which influence the process of inquiry, such as: (1) examining the impact of historical traditions on contemporary management procedures; (2) exploring concerns for ethics and academic colonialism; (3) distinguishing between anthropological and sociological participant-observation field methods; (4) gathering and analyzing data on complex ministries; and (5) exploring the task of Third World theory building.

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Zusammenfassung Einen Schlüssel zum Verlauf des nationalen Aufbaus in der dritten Welt liefert die Modernisierung der organisatorischen und administrativen Infrastrukturen, die den Entwicklungsprozess vorantreiben. Im allgemeinen wird der Verbesserung der Handels-Fähigkeiten, der Wirksamkeit und Effizienz des Bildungsministeriums eine hohe Priorität in den Entwicklungsplänen eines Landes beigemessen. Um jedoch die Modernisierung der Führungsarbeit von Ministerien beschleunigen zu können, müssen zunächst ihre jetzigen Operationsweisen untersucht werden. Zu diesem Zweck wird in diesem Artikel ein methodologischer Rahmen für einen Feldstudienansatz zur Prüfung der Arbeit eines Bildungsministeriums in einem lateinamerikanischen Staat vorgelegt. Verschiedene Fragen, die den Untersuchungsprozeß beeinflussen, werden erörtert, zum Beispiel; (1) die Auswirkung historischer Traditionen auf derzeitige Leitungsverfahren; (2) Grad der Beachtung von Ethik und akademischem Kolonialismus; (3) Unterschied zwischen anthropologischen und soziologischen Methoden zur Beobachtung von Beteiligten in der Praxis; (4) Sammlung und Analyse von Daten über komplexe Ministerien; und (5) die Aufgabe, in der dritten Welt eine Theorie aufzubauen.

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Résumé L'un des éléments essentiels de la course à l'intégration nationale, dans les pays du Tiers Monde, est la modernisation des infrastructures administratives et organiques qui guident le processus du développement. L'une des premières priorités à respecter est typiquement le développement des moyens d'action, de la compétence et de l'efficacité du ministère de l'éducation, et par voie de conséquence, la qualité et l'importance des résultats scolaires. Toutefois, afin de moderniser judicieusement les activités du management dans les ministères de l'éducation, il est primordial de comprendre leur mode actuel de travail. Ayant cet objectif en vue, l'auteur de cet article propose un cadre méthodologique permettant d'aborder sur le terrain l'examen du fonctionnement d'un ministère de l'éducation en Amérique Latine. Il expose plusieurs démarches qui influent sur le processus de l'enquête: (1) examiner l'impact des traditions historiques sur les procédés contemporains du management; (2) déterminer les préoccupations relatives à l'éthique et au colonialisme académique; (3) faire la distinction entre les méthodes anthropologiques et sociologiques de l'observation participante sur le terrain; (4) rassembler et analyser les données concernant les ministères complexes; et (5) explorer la tâche de l'élaboration de théories relatives au Tiers Monde.

     

Integrating storytelling and quantitative career assessment

International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance - Combining quantitative career assessment with narrative career counselling is a career counselling challenge. The Integrative...