The Effects of Peer‐Assisted Literacy Strategies for First‐Grade Readers With and Without Additional Mini‐Skills Lessons

In this research, we sought to replicate findings of our previous research examining the efficacy of 1st‐Grade Peer‐Assisted Literacy Strategies (1st‐Grade PALS) with children of different achievement levels in naturally constituted general education classrooms. We also examined the impact of adding skills‐focused mini‐lessons conducted along with 1st‐Grade PALS with the 3 lowest‐achieving readers in some of these classrooms. First‐Grade PALS sessions were conducted for 30‐minutes session 3 times a week for 14 weeks. Mini‐lessons were also conducted 3 times per week for 15 to 20 minute sessions during the final 6 weeks of 1st‐Grade PALS implementation. During 1st‐Grade PALS, all students within a class were paired with other students from within the same class (1) to practice phonological awareness, phonological recoding, and reading of connected text built on previously mastered phonological elements, and (2) to make predictions about a book prior to reading it, share the experience of reading a story with a peer, have repeated exposure to text, and summarize the story through verbal retelling. The skills‐focused mini‐lessons mirrored the content of 1st‐Grade PALS and were designed to provide additional instruction and integrated practice of the orthophonemic elements of English text. Results indicate that 1st‐Grade PALS, on average, enhanced reading performance of students both in terms of statistical significance and in terms of educational relevance, although not equally for all learner types, closely replicating findings from our previous studies. Results also suggest that there was some benefit to students who participated in the small‐group mini‐lessons. However, conclusions about the true impact of the mini‐lessons are limited because teachers resisted implementing these lessons.     

An Exploratory Analysis of the Attitudinal Impact of Awarding Athletic Scholarships to Women

The impact on women athletes of receiving or not receiving scholarships was investigated in this study. The subjects were 61 women participating in 10 intercollegiate sports. Attitudes were assessed by administering a questionnaire prior to, and after, scholarships had been awarded. The questionnaire items were grouped into three subsets which reflected different attitudes about the “impact” of awarding athletic scholarships. A 4 × 2 × 2 repeated measures design was used to test for significant statistical interaction between the three independent variables: (a) wanting a scholarship, (b) receiving a scholarship, and (c) reacting to the awarding of scholarships.