Examining organizational learning in schools: The role of psychological safety, experimentation, and leadership that reinforces learning

This study draws upon theory and methods from the field of organizational behavior to examine organizational learning (OL) in the context of a large urban US school district. We build upon prior literature on OL from the field of organizational behavior to introduce and validate three subscales that assess key dimensions of organizational learning that build upon and extend prior education research: psychological safety, experimentation, and leadership that reinforces learning. Data from 941 teachers across 60 schools in this urban district suggest that organizational learning is an underlying condition which is expressed by teacher perceptions of subfactors of psychological safety, experimentation, and leadership that reinforces learning. Implications for adopting the conceptual framework and methods employed in this research for studying organizational learning and school change are discussed.     

Are all teenagers emotionally illiterate? Charting a neuroscientific storying of normative deficit

Defining ‘emotional illiteracy’ is a task located within the broader context of expert (and subsequently public) assumptions regarding the normally expectable competencies of the age group concerned. In the late 1990s a series of neuroscientific studies reporting adolescents' limited ability to recognize emotional states from facial expressions seemed to present radically new developmental benchmarks. Although these studies were subsequently subjected to considerable methodological and interpretive criticism, some incautious assertions regarding teenagers' general inability to respond appropriately, especially in emotionally charged situations, continued to flourish. This paper charts the creation and maintenance of these ideas over the past decade to illustrate how, when primary sources are not carefully checked, powerful messages for which there is dubious empirical evidence can become incorporated into expert advice. It also suggests the importance of linking neuroscientific claims to other strands of contemporary Western efforts to define and contrast normative and disordered emotional behaviour in adolescence.     

Teachers and tests: assessing pupils' reading achievement in primary schools

The purpose of the present study was to examine validity aspects of teachers’ judgements of pupils’ reading skills. Data come from Sweden's participation in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2001, for Grades 3 and 4. For pupils at the same achievement levels, as measured by PIRLS 2001 test, teachers’ judgements of pupils’ achievement levels varied from one teacher to another. Moreover, there were significant differences between teachers’ judgements in Grades 3 and 4. Teachers in Grade 3 who had taught their pupils for almost 3 years showed higher correspondence between their judgements and pupil achievement within classrooms than 4th-grade teachers who, typically, had only taught their pupils for approximately 1 semester at the time of the data collection. The results indicate that teachers’ judgements and tests can be useful within classrooms, but that teachers may need external assessments to calibrate judgements over classrooms.     

Making Students Talk about Expository Texts

This study presents a comparison between how six teachers and their 17‐year‐old students talked about texts in civics and nursing science during regular lessons and during two lessons where structured text talk in smaller groups was used. The majority of students were poor readers and attended vocational programmes. The text talks were videotaped. During the regular lessons, most of the teachers asked purely factual questions where the students just had to retrieve information from the text to be able to answer them. The students made few inferences and reflections. After the regular lessons, the teachers were invited to participate in seminars led by the investigator. In these seminars, a special model of structured text talk was practiced before videotaping a second and a third time. The results demonstrate that during the structured text talks the teachers' question types had undergone a change. The number of purely factual questions had decreased. Instead there was an increase in the number of inferences and half‐open questions. The students read more actively during the structured text talks. They clearly made an effort to explore ideas in the text and made numerous inferences and reflections.     

Reading Achievement and Social Selection in Independent Schools in Sweden: Results from IEA PIRLS 2001

The study investigates the mean difference in reading achievement between third‐graders in public and independent schools in Sweden. The data come from the Swedish participation in PIRLS 2001 conducted by IEA. Variables from the home questionnaire mainly indicating possession of cultural capital are used as independent variables. A total IRT score of reading achievement is used as outcome variable. It is shown that students in independent schools have on average better reading results and also a more advantageous socio‐economic background than have students in public schools. Social selection hence characterises independent schools. In addition, indicators of students' cultural capital account for the major part of the mean difference between school types.     

Who Is the Tattletale? Linking Individual Differences in Socioemotional Competence and Anxiety to Tattling Behavior and Attitudes in Young Children

Although tattling is a common practice among young children, there is little systematic research about its socioemotional correlates. The current study focused on children’s tattling between the ages of 5 and 7, assessing both their explicit attitudes toward tattling and their actual reporting of a transgression and relating them to individual differences in socioemotional competence and trait anxiety. Research Findings: About half of the children reported an adult’s transgression freely or when generally prompted about the event, whereas the other half either reported only when confronted with a directly incriminatory question or completely concealed the adult’s transgression. There was a minor congruence between the actual tattling behavior and children’s explicit attitudes toward tattling (obligation to report a major transgression), measured via their reaction to a series of vignettes. A favorable attitude toward tattling was positively related to children’s ability to recognize basic emotions and their external causes, yet it was negatively associated with the understanding of more complex components, such as the possibility of hiding an emotion. Moreover, tattling behavior was negatively related to understanding internally (belief-based) generated emotions and positively related to individual levels of anxiety. Practice or Policy: Educational practices should take into account individual differences in children’s socioemotional development when relating to their tattling behaviors, preferably decreasing the amount of ambivalence a child experiences in this situation.     

Health information in Italian public health websites: moving from inaccessibility to accessibility

AIMS: In January 2004, the Italian government passed new legislation designed to give people with disabilities access to online services. Starting from the new legislation requirements, the purpose of this study is to investigate whether Italian Local Health Authorities websites are accessible to users with different abilities. METHODS: One hundred and seventy websites were analysed evaluating their compliance to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Priority 1 guidelines via a combination of appropriate accessibility testing methods. This review was carried out twice: the first time it took place between the end of 2003 and May-June 2004. The same survey was repeated again in December 2004, after the issuing of the draft of the Implementation Regulations for The Stanca Law in July 2004. In this second survey, all the websites analysed before were checked again to establish if some measures to make those sites accessible were taken. RESULTS: Seventy-six per cent of the analysed websites fail to satisfy the most basic W3C requirements, but Italian Local Health Authorities websites are likely to present significant improvements to access for some disabled user groups: the number of accessible websites increased consistently between the first and the second review. CONCLUSIONS: It seems that awareness of web accessibility issues is increasing among developers of health information websites because of law enforcement. Recommendations for future research and development are offered.