Linking literacy teaching with assessment: a continuing professional development initiative for secondary schools

As part of a professional development initiative helping secondary school teachers use assessment data to guide their instruction, teachers in this study changed their knowledge, skills and dispositions. Over time, they were able to identify assessments, administer these assessments, interpret the results and plan instruction. As a result, the students who were tutored by these teachers increased their achievement compared with a control group.     

Activity theory in empirical higher education research: choices,uses and values

This paper contributes to discussion of theory application in higher education research. We examine 59 empirical research papers from specialist journals that use a particular theory: activity theory. We scrutinise stated reasons for choosing the theory, functions played by the theory, and how the theory is valorised. We find that the theory is usually chosen for its direct empirical applicability; used for abstraction, explanation and contextualisation; and valorised for apprehending complex situational dynamics. It is rarely chosen to challenge conceptualisation of the research object; used to establish investigative paradigms; or valorised in ways that implicate wider bodies of knowledge or potential theory development. We argue that higher education researchers should reconsider how their application of activity theory is interwoven with interpretative processes, how the theory might frame research design rather than simply data analysis, and how they account for the range of roles that the theory actually plays across research endeavours.     

Occupational counselling in Czechoslovak enterprises

This paper presents the history, theoretical framework, organization, and methods of occupational counselling in Czechoslovak enterprises. Particular attention is payed to a program of occupational co-worker counselling which utilizes a mentorship model within an industrial setting.     

Instructional Communication Competence: Lessons Learned from Award-Winning Teachers

Responding to calls for more holistic views on instructional communication, this study used interpretive methods to examine award-winning instructor's communicative practices to assess and to refine a definition of instructional communication competence. After observing and interviewing recipients of the Central States Communication Association Outstanding New Teacher Award, we describe how these award-winning teachers (a) understand the ebb and flow of the classroom, (b) use a wide repertoire of communication skills, (c) create relationships with students, and (d) effectively manage their classroom climates.     

Drugs in the classroom: A historical approach to drug education

This article suggests various techniques and strategies for integrating historical research methods into the drug education classroom. While most criminal justice programs offer courses on drug education, instruction has typically concentrated on policy issues. With little historical perspective on the roots of the drug problem, students are too often left with a one-dimensional perspective: that all illegal drug use should be criminalized. Like many recent historical events, the roots of the drug problem remain a distant abstraction to the current generation of criminal justice students. A historical approach to this subject using historiographic methods can lead to a better understanding of the cyclic nature of the U. S. drug problem and policies over the past century.     

The effect of a role model project upon the attitudes of ninth-grade science students

This article will describe an in-school intervention project that used female role models to change the attitudes of 964 Iowa girls and boys in 57 ninth-grade science classes toward science, math, and technical curricula and careers. The differences between the students' mean pretest and posttest scores on each of six factors found to be associated with students' attitudes toward science and math and technical careers were analyzed to determine which of five experimental groups responded most positively to the intervention. Higher difference scores indicated that the attitudes of girls and boys who participated in the intervention improved more than the attitudes of girls and boys in the control groups, suggesting that the use of female role models in the science classroom is an effective way to change students' attitudes toward science, math, and related careers.     

Student Transfer-Out Behavior at Four-Year Institutions

While abundant studies on college student departure exist, few studies focus on student transfer-out behaviors. One may reasonably believe that transfer students leave their institutions at different times for different reasons. Coupled with the national dataset, this study longitudinally investigated transfer students who left their initial 4-year institutions. Results suggest that student characteristics, such as race and family income, had varying effects on the timing of transfer. Social integration was found to have significant effects on reducing the likelihood of transfer.