Multiple Dimensions of Instructional Effectiveness in Reading: A Review of Classroom Observation Studies and Implications for Special Education Classrooms

The purpose of this study was to review and analyze effective classroom reading practices for early graders, using information gathered from the existing content-general and content-specific observation protocols measuring teachers’ classroom reading practices. Dimensions and constructs from 28 observation studies were synthesized to identify classroom instructional practices that have positive impacts on student achievement. Findings revealed that (a) instructional support, emotional support, and classroom management have positive impacts on student achievement, (b) the degree to which instructional practices are effective depends on students’ particular learning needs, and (c) students’ entering skills and primary language are associated with instructional effectiveness in reading. Challenges and implications for future research on effective instructional strategies for special education and the development of an observational protocol for special education teacher effectiveness are discussed.     

Moving Towards a Fair Start: equal gender opportunities and the careers service

Although there is now a considerable literature on gender inequality in education and employment, there is virtually no research on the Careers Service which provides a bridge between the two. Based on a national survey of all Careers Services conducted in 1987, this paper explores the significance afforded to gender discrimination and the nature and content of equal opportunities policies designed to counter it. It draws attention to the differences in meaning which the term ‘equal opportunities’ can have and to the changing context in which equal opportunities policies now operate.     

Environmental print and word reading

The nature of the earliest stage of reading was examined by comparing two views about the importance of environmental print in children’s learning experiences. One theory holds that environmental print leads to the acquisition of reading through developing rudimentary representations of specific words and logos, while the second theory concerns assembled phonology and asserts that reading begins with knowing letters and their sounds. Supporters of this theory hold that knowledge of environmental print and logos is reading the environment and may not directly facilitate the acquisition of word reading. Two studies were conducted with non-reading preschool children in which environmental print knowledge was assessed and related to word recognition training. In the first session of each study children were presented with accurate representations of environmental print and logos such as ‘McDonalds’ and ‘Stop’ to find the ones they were able to identify and the ones they failed to identify. In the second session learning trials were conducted with those words from the logos that the children identified and also those that they failed to identify and with matching control words. Both studies found that the words from the known logos were more readily learned than the matching control words, but only in Study 1 were the known logo words learned more readily than the ones the children did not know. The results were discussed in terms of Gibson’s (1969) theory of perceptual learning, and supported the view that environment print and logo knowledge facilitated word reading.     

Teaching the design and interpretation of graphs through computer-aided graphical data analysis

Graphs are one of the primary means of exploration and communication in the practice of science, but students in science laboratories are customarily taught only the low-level mechanics of constructing a single kind of graph when given a table of information. The use of a microcomputer can relieve the drudgery of plotting, allowing students to pursue higher-level issues in the design and interpretation of graphs through repeated “thought experiments.” We introduced computer-assisted graphical data analysis to inner-city high school students with weak math and science backgrounds, emphasizing the dynamic manipulation of various kinds of graphs to answer specific questions. Drawing on extensive recordings and classroom observations, we describe examples of the performance of these students on open-ended problem-solving tasks in which graphs can be used to arrive at meaningful answers to applied data analysis problems.     

Student outcomes and perceptions of instructors' demands and support in online and traditional classrooms

In this study, seven graduate students were interviewed and 187 (91 online; 96 traditional) graduate students were surveyed about perceptions of differences in instructors' demands and support and student' motivation, self-regulation, satisfaction, and perceptions of learning in these environments. Results indicated significant differences in students' perceptions on all variables except self-efficacy. Results indicated a strong effect for differences between perceived instructor affective support in online and traditional classrooms. Although students in traditional classrooms ranked instructors' affective support higher, the variable had a stronger relationship with online students' satisfaction. Differences between online and traditional students' reports of instructors' academic support, instructors' demands, and students' satisfaction were significant with medium effect sizes. Results are important because they provide information about students' perceptions of the differences in environments created by instructors that relate to students' affective outcomes.     

Student beliefs and learning environments: Developing a survey of factors related to conceptual change

This paper presents a model for the type of classroom environment believed to facilitate scientific conceptual change. A survey based on this model contains items about students' motivational beliefs, their study approach and their perceptions of their teacher's actions and learning goal orientation. Results obtained from factor analyses, correlations and analyses of variance, based on responses from 113 students, suggest that an empowering interpersonal teacher-student relationship is related to a deep approach to learning, a positive attitude to science, and positive self-efficacy beliefs, and may be increased by a constructivist approach to teaching. Specializations: secondary school science learning environments, writing in science, alternative frameworks, the language of science.     

ICPSR meets OAIS: applying the OAIS reference model to the social science archive context

This paper reviews the archival process at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), a repository of digital social science data, and maps ICPSR’s Ingest and Access operations to the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model. The paper also assesses ICPSR’s conformance with the archival responsibilities of “trusted” OAIS repositories, with the proviso that audit criteria for archival certification are still under development. The ICPSR to OAIS mapping exercise has benefits for the larger social science archiving community because it provides an interpretation of the reference model in the quantitative social science environment and points to preservation-related issues that may be salient for other social science archives. Building on the archives’ long tradition of shared norms and cooperation, we may ultimately be able to design a federated system of trusted social science repositories that provides access to the global heritage.