A Survey of General and Special Education Teachers' Perceptions and Inservice Needs Concerning Inclusion

To improve educational services to students with disabilities, the United States government has mandated that each state develop a Comprehensive System of Personnel Development. The following article highlights the results of a state-wide needs assessment conducted by one state's Department of Education in order to tailor their system of personnel development. Four percent of the state's general educators, and 6% of the state's special education teachers completed the surveys for a total of 289 surveys. Perceptions of ability to positively affect students, understanding of inclusion, self-efficacy in serving students in inclusive settings, the need for inservice training in various areas, and the availability of supports to promote inclusion were examined for both special and general education teachers. In every area assessed, special education teachers rated their efficacy, ability, understanding, and resources higher than general education teachers. These results are discussed in terms of meeting professional development needs for both groups of teachers.     

Simulating the Use of Disclosed Items in Computerized Adaptive Testing

Regular use of questions previously made available to the public (i.e., disclosed items) may provide one way to meet the requirement for large numbers of questions in a continuous testing environment, that is, an environment in which testing is offered at test taker convenience throughout the year rather than on a few prespecified test dates. First it must be shown that such use has effects on test scores small enough to be acceptable. In this study simulations are used to explore the use of disclosed items under a worst-case scenario which assumes that disclosed items are always answered correctly. Some item pool and test designs were identified in which the use of disclosed items produces effects on test scores that may be viewed as negligible.     

Deviant Peer Factors During Early Adolescence: Cause or Consequence of Physical Aggression?

This study investigated reciprocal relations between adolescents' physical aggression and their perceptions of peers' deviant behaviors and attitudes. Analyses were conducted on four waves of data from 2,290 adolescents (ages 10–16) from three urban middle schools. Autoregression models revealed reciprocal relations between peer factors (i.e., friends' problem behavior, peer pressure for fighting, friends' support for fighting) and adolescents' reporting of their aggressive behavior. Bidirectional relations were also found between peer pressure for fighting and adolescents' frequency of physical aggression based on teacher ratings. Findings were consistent across sex, grade, and time. Findings suggest that multiple dimensions of peers' behaviors uniquely play a role in the development of adolescents' aggression and have important implications for interventions to reduce problem behaviors.     

库珀中心纵向研究：有氧运动的灵魂

目的：为肯尼斯·库珀（Kenneth H. Cooper）于1970年提出的库珀中心纵向研究（CCLS）提供详细历史。方法：对库珀中心纵向研究人群和库珀诊所所检查的重要参数,以及库珀诊所患者的各种疾病发病率和死亡率进行数据描述。并对近50年来已发表的库珀中心纵向研究的主要研究结果进行总结。结果：在库珀诊所检查期间,通过最大跑台运动测试客观地测量出的心肺功能（CRF）已成为各种疾病发病率和死亡率的强大且独立的风险因素。更具体地说,库珀中心纵向研究明确表明,中高水平的心肺功能与人体全因、心血管疾病和癌症死亡率有显著相关关系。此外,已经证明,中年人群的心肺水平是全因痴呆、Ⅱ型糖尿病、慢性肾病、癌症发病率和存活率以及一些其他慢性疾病的预测因子。因此,库珀中心纵向研究结果还表明,中年人群的心肺水平与老年时期的医疗保健成本呈显著相关。结论：除罕见情况以外,已经进行了近50年的库珀中心纵向研究的研究结果表明,相对于较低水平的心肺功能,中高水平的心肺功能可以有效预防许多疾病。     

Capacity building for school improvement: a case study of a New Zealand primary school

Capacity building is now mentioned synonymously with school improvement in much of the literature with an absence of debate on the implications of political, social and economic trends. This article explores capacity building in one low decile, multicultural, New Zealand primary school. The research, positioned within an interpretivist paradigm, utilises a case study and grounded theory approach to explore four aspects: 1. processes that enhance improvement; 2. internal and external influences on capacity building; 3. wider societal factors that influence the development of capacity; 4. links between capacity building and improvement. This article suggests that capacity building for school improvement is time and context dependent and is unique to the setting. It occurs in response to individual, collective and systemic need in ways that sustain equilibrium while moving towards improvement. The paper explores key attributes of capacity building: vision; stakeholders as change agents; school culture; professional development. Practices that are examined include knowledge production and utilisation; division of labour; roles and responsibilities; a switching-on mentality. These groups of factors lend themselves to a discussion of four important themes in the capacity building and school improvement process: situated activity; connectedness; leadership, governance and management; outcomes. This article concludes that the confluence of these contributing factors enables tensions and needs of context to be managed in ways that ensure equilibrium of people, school and system while moving in the direction of improvement.     

Facilitating learning in large lecture classes: testing the "teaching team" approach to peer learning

We tested the effect of voluntary peer-facilitated study groups on student learning in large introductory biology lecture classes. The peer facilitators (preceptors) were trained as part of a Teaching Team (faculty, graduate assistants, and preceptors) by faculty and Learning Center staff. Each preceptor offered one weekly study group to all students in the class. All individual study groups were similar in that they applied active-learning strategies to the class material, but they differed in the actual topics or questions discussed, which were chosen by the individual study groups. Study group participation was correlated with reduced failing grades and course dropout rates in both semesters, and participants scored better on the final exam and earned higher course grades than nonparticipants. In the spring semester the higher scores were clearly due to a significant study group effect beyond ability (grade point average). In contrast, the fall study groups had a small but nonsignificant effect after accounting for student ability. We discuss the differences between the two semesters and offer suggestions on how to implement teaching teams to optimize learning outcomes, including student feedback on study groups.