Predicting Graduation Rates at 4-year Broad Access Institutions Using a Bayesian Modeling Approach

This study models graduation rates at 4-year broad access institutions (BAIs). We examine the student body, structural-demographic, and financial characteristics that best predict 6-year graduation rates across two time periods (2008–2009 and 2014–2015). A Bayesian model averaging approach is utilized to account for uncertainty in variable selection in modeling graduation rates. Evidence suggests that graduation rates can be predicted by religious affiliation, proportion of students enrolled full-time, socioeconomic status of the student body, enrollment size and institutional revenue and expenditures. Findings also demonstrate that relatively fewer variables predict institutional graduation rates for Latina/o and African American students at 4-year BAIs. We conclude with implications for policy and key recommendations for research focused on 4-year BAIs.     

Reasoning in Young Children: Fantasy and Information Retrieval

The present article examines 2 predictions concerning conditional reasoning in children derived from Markovits's model of conditional reasoning. The first claims that children under 12 years of age should be able to respond correctly to uncertain logical forms if the premises and context enable them to access pertinent counterexamples from memory. The second concerns the effect of reasoning in a fantasy context. Previous studies have established that young children can correctly respond to certain reasoning problems with empirically false premises when these are presented in a fantasy context. However, this model of reasoning predicts that presenting empirically true premises in a fantasy context should decrease performance on the 2 uncertain logical forms. In Study 1, a total of 48 8-year-olds, 78 10-year-olds, and 74 12-year-olds were given 4 reasoning problems involving familiar premises. These problems were embedded in either a fantasy or a realistic context and presented via video tape. Results were consistent with the predictions made. Study 2 attempted to determine whether these results could be due to context or problem formulation. A total of 40 7-year-olds and 46 8-year-olds were given reasoning problems with either no context or with a visual image preceding the problems. Results showed that children did equally well in these conditions, and that providing an image did not improve performance.     

Seeking Emergence Through Temporal Analysis of Collaborative-Group Discourse: A Complex-Systems Approach

Abstract

Research around problem solving in collaborative groups has made progress, but several conceptual and methodological issues remain. These issues include the appropriate choices of units of analysis; the ability of current theoretical sets of macrocognition codes to capture group dynamics; detection and identification of potentially emergent phenomena within groups; and the extent to which multiple dynamics are integral to understanding groups. Using data from a complex engineering challenge, we applied methods drawn from complex-systems analysis to offer insight into each of these issues, showing the need for multiple dimensions when studying group dynamics and highlighting methodological difficulties when dealing with emergent phenomena. We suggest future research to improve the understanding of the complex dynamics of collaborative groups.     

Educating force multipliers: constructing terrorism in a US public high school

ABSTRACT

This article ethnographically explores a specialized Homeland Security program at a US public high school, paying careful attention to the program’s discursive constructions of terrorism and national security. In particular, this analysis examines how the Homeland Security program framed its study of national security as both anti-racist and objective. I contend that the invocation of anti-racism and objectivity can advance Orientalist discourses in the classroom. Critical education scholars need to address how teachers and students rely on liberal precepts like anti-racism to maintain dominant understandings of war, terror, and security.     

Formatively assessing prospective teachers’ skills in leading mathematics discussions

Educational Studies in Mathematics - Mathematics discussions are important for helping students to develop conceptual understanding and to learn disciplinary norms and practices. In recent years,...     

Teaching Through Collaboration: Flexibility and Diversity in Caregiver–Child Interaction Across Cultures

Teaching supports the high-fidelity transmission of knowledge and skills. This study examined similarities and differences in caregiver teaching practices in the United States and Vanuatu (N = 125 caregiver and 3- to 8-year-old child pairs) during a collaborative problem-solving task. Caregivers used diverse verbal and nonverbal teaching practices and adjusted their behaviors in response to task difficulty and child age in both populations. U.S. caregivers used practices consistent with a direct active teaching style typical of formal education, including guiding children’s participation, frequent praise, and facilitation. In contrast, Ni-Vanuatu caregivers used practices associated with informal education and divided tasks with children based on difficulty. The implications of these findings for claims about the universality and diversity of caregiver teaching are discussed.     

“It was smart when:” Supporting prospective teachers’ noticing of students’ mathematical strengths

Learning to name and notice students’ mathematical strengths is a challenging process requiring time and multiple iterations of practice for prospective teachers (PTs) to adopt. Mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) can approximate and decompose the complex practice of naming and noticing students’ mathematical strengths so PTs learn to teach mathematics while emphasizing what students know and can do. This study uses two tools MTEs can use to support PTs as they learn to name and notice students’ mathematical strengths: A LessonSketch experience, a digital platform with comic-based storyboards showing children engaged in a mathematics task, and a strengths-based sentence frame. Our study presents the findings from the 111 noticing statements from 18 PTs as they engaged in the LessonSketch digital experience and practiced making noticing statements about what children know about mathematics. The study found that after a sentence-frame intervention, the PTs are more likely to use strengths-based language and more likely to identify mathematical evidence in their noticing statements. Uncommitted language (statements that do not align with a strength- or deficit-based coding scheme), suggests a fruitful, yet complex space for supporting more PTs as they learn to name and notice students’ mathematical strengths. The paper concludes with implications for future research in teacher education.

     

Connecting the Classroom and the Community: Exploring the Collective Impact of One District–Community Partnership

This study explored how one district–community partnership, comprised of seven nonprofit community partners that serve five elementary schools in a single urban school district, improved community literacy. This collective case study used semi-structured interviews to investigate the perspectives of 17 partners and analyzed student assessment data. Results revealed greatest benefits for first grade students and a need for consistent district leadership. This research is viewed through Hanleybrown, Kania, and Kramer’s (2012) collective impact framework.     

Gone viral: Content characteristics and relative quality of highly shared school psychology‐related content on Pinterest

Educational professionals, including school psychologists, are utilizing extant social media platforms to gather ideas, strategies, and resources to serve students with a variety of needs. The concern about the quality of resources remains a consistent reservation by proponents of adherence to best practices and evidence‐based programs. The present study examined a sample (n = 444) of the most highly shared pins in a random sample of content from followers of the National Association of School Psychologists Pinterest account. The research team conducted content‐coding for tool type, content type, the original source of the materials, and functionality and user‐friendliness. Results indicated that there was a high representation of social‐emotional, autism‐related, and intervention‐related material. Allied professionals (such as teachers) disseminated much of the content that was highly shared. Inferential analysis revealed that there were differential patterns of utility, functionality and content types across various original sources from the internet.