Fathers and mothers at play with their 2- and 3-year-olds: contributions to language and cognitive development

Father-child and mother-child engagements were examined longitudinally in relation to children's language and cognitive development at 24 and 36 months. The study involved a racially/ethnically diverse sample of low-income, resident fathers (and their partners) from the National Early Head Start evaluation study (n=290). Father-child and mother-child engagements were videotaped for 10 min at home during semistructured free play, and children's language and cognitive status were assessed at both ages. Fathers' and mothers' supportive parenting independently predicted children's outcomes after covarying significant demographic factors. Moreover, fathers' education and income were uniquely associated with child measures, and fathers' education consistently predicted the quality of mother-child engagements. Findings suggest direct and indirect effects of fathering on child development.     

Authority and ethics: A case for estrangement in educational research and research education

This article focuses attention on an underexamined issue in the literature on educational research ethics: how ethical authority is established in educational research. We address this from a perspective that disrupts naturalised approaches to ethics, arguing that rather than seeking ‘rights’ or ‘wrongs’, researchers are always tasked with constructing ethical stances. Attention can then be placed on the array of embodied and objectified resources that might be recruited in establishing these. Through an engagement with published academic accounts of ethical reflection and decision-making, the article explores the ways that educational researchers achieve or sometimes question their ethical security in respect of their research activity. The analysis we present draws out the referential strategies that constitute ethical subjectivity and maps the diversity of anchoring points that might be recruited in this action. We also draw attention to the process of recontextualisation that is inevitable when one activity (or aspect of an activity) regards another, introducing necessary incoherence into ethical practice. The case we present celebrates rather than seeking to conceal or repair such disruption.     

The author as agent of information policy: The relationship between economic and moral rights in copyright

A historical and theoretical analysis of the copyright environment demonstrates that both the economic rights associated with copyright and the moral rights often associated with copyright perform social functions. The latter have not been as universally embraced or adopted as the former. The lack of enthusiasm for moral rights is argued to be because the social utility of this aspect of the copyright regime has gone largely unrecognized. In fact, moral rights ensure that the information needs of the public are being met because they enhance the ability to assess the authority and reliability of information. While historically this has not been as important as enhancing the supply of information, a function performed by the economic rights of copyright, in the context of the new information environment, the role played by moral rights is becoming increasingly important. Our thesis also defines the appropriate scope of moral rights protection in copyright.     

From External Regulation to Self-Regulation: Early Parenting Precursors of Young Children's Executive Functioning

In keeping with proposals emphasizing the role of early experience in infant brain development, this study investigated the prospective links between quality of parent–infant interactions and subsequent child executive functioning (EF), including working memory, impulse control, and set shifting. Maternal sensitivity, mind-mindedness and autonomy support were assessed when children were 12 to 15 months old ( N  =   80). Child EF was assessed at 18 and 26 months. All three parenting dimensions were found to relate to child EF. Autonomy support was the strongest predictor of EF at each age, independent of general cognitive ability and maternal education. These findings add to previous results on child stress-response systems in suggesting that parent–child relationships may play an important role in children's developing self-regulatory capacities.     

A measure of emergent literacy for students with severe developmental disabilities

This study examined the underlying structure of the Nonverbal Literacy Assessment (NVLA), an instrument designed to measure emergent literacy for K–fourth‐grade students with severe developmental disabilities. The NVLA was conceptualized as having six constructs that reflected emergent literacy skills: (a) phonemic awareness, (b) phonics, (c) comprehension, (d) vocabulary, (e) listening comprehension, and (f) text awareness. Confirmatory factor analysis using data from 207 student administrations was used to examine the six‐factor model and two alternative models. Results suggested that all three models fit the data, but the high corrections coefficients among the constructs suggested that a one‐factor model of emergent literacy was the best‐fitting model. Implications and limitations are discussed. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Three-dimensional anthropometric analysis: Differences between elite Australian rowers and the general population

Abstract

The aim of this study was to quantify the anthropometric differences between elite senior Australian rowers and the Australian adult population using three-dimensional (3D) whole-body scanning. The dimensions of senior rowers competing at the 2007–2008 Australian Rowing Championships were compared with those of an age-matched sample of Australian adults. Mass, height, and sitting height were measured before the participants underwent a 3D whole-body scan, with lengths, breadths, girths, cross-sectional and surface areas, and volumes extracted from each scan. Differences in means and variability between the two groups were expressed as standardized effect sizes and ratios of coefficients of variation. Heavyweight rowers were generally much larger than the general population in absolute size, with 3D dimensions and height and mass showing the largest effects. In contrast, lightweight rowers were generally similar or smaller in absolute and proportional size. The dimensions of rowers, especially the lightweights, were also generally less variable than those of the general population. The greatest differences between elite rowers and the general population were seen in dimensions that could not be captured without 3D scanning, such as segmental volumes and cross-sectional areas.     

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Shia Ismaili Muslim Girls Negotiate Islam in the Classroom

ABSTRACT

This case study investigates the experiences of Shia Ismaili Muslim girls as they encounter themselves as subjects of social studies curriculums on Islam. A postcolonial lens is used to examine differently empowered subjectivities and curricular epistimes within the high school world history context. In an effort to understand their experiences, this study focuses on how the students position themselves in relation to the curriculum, and ultimately asks, to what extent do students from minority communities of interpretation appropriate or resist the authoritative narrative of Islam offered in their classrooms, particularly around the question, “Who is a Muslim?” The central finding revealed a paradox of representation and participation for these students, who found their practice and interpretation of Islam silenced in the classroom curriculum, and yet felt obliged to defend Islam and educate others against stereotypes of Muslims. The implications of this study compel educators to explore decolonial approaches to teaching about the religious other.     

Evaluating metacognitive scaffolding in Guided Invention Activities

Invention and Productive Failure activities ask students to generate methods that capture the important properties of some given data (e.g., uncertainty) before being taught the expert solution. Invention and Productive Failure activities are a class of scientific inquiry activities in that students create, implement, and evaluate mathematical models based on data. Yet, lacking sufficient inquiry skills, students often do not actualize the full potential of these activities. We identified key invention strategies in which students often fail to engage: exploratory analysis, peer interaction, self-explanation, and evaluation. A classroom study with 134 students evaluated the effect of supporting these skills on the quality and outcomes of the invention process. Students in the Unguided Invention condition received conventional Invention Activities; students in the Guided Invention condition received complementary metacognitive scaffolding. Students were asked to invent methods for calculating uncertainties in best-fitting lines. Guided Invention students invented methods that included more conceptual features and ranked the given datasets more accurately, although the quality of their mathematical expressions was not improved. At the process level, Guided Invention students revised their methods more frequently and had more and better instances of unprompted self-explanations even on components of the activity that were not supported by the metacognitive scaffolding. Classroom observations are used to demonstrate the effect of the scaffolding on students’ learning behaviours. These results suggest that process guidance in the form of metacognitive scaffolding augments the inherent benefits of Invention Activities and can lead to gains at both domain and inquiry levels.     

Impacts of Student Categorization of Their Online Discussion Contributions

A case study examined the collaborative experiences of students in an online business writing classroom. The purpose was to examine the same groups of students working on collaborative writing assignments in both a synchronous (real-time) and an asynchronous (non-real-time) discussion forum. This study focused on examining the amount, pattern, and focus of interactions, as well as assessing students' attitudes toward communicating in the two different environments.