Using National Education Longitudinal Data Sets in School Counseling Research

National longitudinal databases hold much promise for school counseling researchers. Several of the more frequently used data sets, possible professional implications, and strategies for acquiring training in the use of large‐scale national data sets are described. A 6‐step process for conducting research with the data sets is explicated: determining research questions, accessing the data set, understanding the study's sample design, determining an analytic sample, considering pertinent data analysis issues, and understanding the limitations of using the data sets. Suggestions for preparing school counseling researchers and potential themes for future research are outlined.     

Preparing beginning teachers for inclusion: designing and assessing supplementary fieldwork experiences

Inclusive education requires restructuring educational provision so that mainstream schools are able to provide for the needs of all students in their communities. To help realise this goal, initial teacher education programmes need to better prepare new graduates for teaching students with complex special education needs, including students with intellectual disability. Concerns about the capacity of current school-based placements to prepare new teachers for inclusive classrooms have led some teacher education institutions to develop supplementary fieldwork experiences. The current study involved an investigation into such an experience and looked at the benefits to pre-service teachers (PSTs) of tutoring a young adult with intellectual disability. The findings indicate that PSTs learned effective strategies for differentiating a programme of work and, in their first year of study, were developing a teacher identity. The importance of aligning experiences with coursework units is highlighted and the need for valid assessments of how well initial teacher education programmes are preparing beginning teachers for inclusion, and what these assessments may look like, is discussed.     

An examination of psychosocial variables moderating the relationship between life stress and injury time-loss among athletes of a high standard

Based on Williams and Andersen's model of stress and athletic injury, six psychosocial variables were assessed as possible moderators of the relationship between life stress and injury among 121 athletes (65 males, 56 females) competing in a variety of sports at state, national or international level. No significant effects of the sex of the participants were evident. Correlational analyses revealed moderator effects of several variables. Specifically, dispositional optimism and hardiness were related to decreased injury time-loss in athletes when positive life change increased, and global self-esteem was associated with decreased injury time-loss when both negative life change and total life change increased. The results indicate that athletes with more optimism, hardiness or global self-esteem may cope more effectively with life change stress, resulting in reduced injury vulnerability and recovery rates.     

The role of effort in moderating the anxiety – performance relationship: Testing the prediction of processing efficiency theory in simulated rally driving

Abstract

We tested some of the key predictions of processing efficiency theory using a simulated rally driving task. Two groups of participants were classified as either dispositionally high or low anxious based on trait anxiety scores and trained on a simulated driving task. Participants then raced individually on two similar courses under counterbalanced experimental conditions designed to manipulate the level of anxiety experienced. The effort exerted on the driving tasks was assessed though self-report (RSME), psychophysiological measures (pupil dilation) and visual gaze data. Efficiency was measured in terms of efficiency of visual processing (search rate) and driving control (variability of wheel and accelerator pedal) indices. Driving performance was measured as the time taken to complete the course. As predicted, increased anxiety had a negative effect on processing efficiency as indexed by the self-report, pupillary response and variability of gaze data. Predicted differences due to dispositional levels of anxiety were also found in the driving control and effort data. Although both groups of drivers performed worse under the threatening condition, the performance of the high trait anxious individuals was affected to a greater extent by the anxiety manipulation than the performance of the low trait anxious drivers. The findings suggest that processing efficiency theory holds promise as a theoretical framework for examining the relationship between anxiety and performance in sport.     

The microstructure of practice activities engaged in by elite and recreational youth cricket players

Abstract

Practice plays an important role in skill acquisition, although not all practice is of equal quality. We examined the types of team practice activities in four groups of youth cricket players. The groups were recreational- and elite-children (9 to 12 years of age) and recreational- and elite-adolescent players (13 to 17 years of age). Time motion analysis recorded the duration in two types of practice activities, namely, Training Form and Playing Form. Training Form is mainly drill-type activities, whereas Playing Form is mainly games-based activities. Training Form activity is thought to contain fewer opportunities to develop the perceptual, cognitive and motor skills required for successful performance in competition when compared to Playing Form. Session duration was a mean value of 95, s?=?29?min. All players combined spent 69% of session time in Training Form activity and 19% in Playing Form, with the remaining percentage of time spent in transition between activities. Recreational-children spent around half of their time in Playing Form activity, whereas both elite and adolescent groups spent little or no time in this activity. Findings from this research highlight a gap between research and practice that may not be optimal for skill acquisition.     

Creativity, Mathematizing, and Didactizing: Leen Streefland's work continues

This reaction to the papers in this PME Special Issue of Educational Studies in Mathematics draws a wider perspective on the issues addressed and some of the constructs used in research in Realistic Mathematics Education (RME). In particular, it tries to show that while the problems addressed existed within the world-wide arena of mathematics education and were not unique to the Dutch educational system, the methods used at the Freudenthal Institute to address them were uniquely adapted to that system yet foreshadowed developments in the wider field of mathematics education. The predictive aspects of mathematizing, didactizing, and guided reinvention, in which models-of become models-for on various levels, resonate with trends in mathematics education in recent years, including those promoted by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics in the USA. Research methodologies, too, have broadened to include more humanistic qualitative methods. Developmental research as epitomized in the RME tradition makes the distinction between quantitative and qualitative research obsolete, because there is no restriction on research methods that may be useful in investigating how to improve the teaching and learning of mathematics, and in the designing of mathematics curricula. Thus some aspects of this research resonate with what have come to be known as multitiered teaching experiments. However, in RME there is also a special content-oriented didactical approach that harmonizes with an emphasis on didactics (rather than pedagogy)in several other European countries. Some implications are drawn for future research directions. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

EMPIRICAL SYNTHESIS OF THE EFFECT OF STANDARD ERROR OF MEASUREMENT ON DECISIONS MADE WITHIN BRIEF EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSES OF READING FLUENCY

Intervention researchers often use curriculum‐based measurement of reading fluency (CBM‐R) with a brief experimental analysis (BEA) to identify an effective intervention for individual students. The current study synthesized data from 22 studies that used CBM‐R data within a BEA by computing the standard error of measure (SEM) for the median data point from the baseline and intervention data. The median CBM‐R score from the intervention that the authors of each study identified as most effective fell within the SEM (68% confidence interval) of the baseline data approximately 30% of the time, but the ranges for the two author‐identified most effective interventions overlapped over 75% of the time. Extended analyses were consistent with the BEA results for approximately three‐fourths of the instances after considering the SEM of the baseline and intervention phases. Using matched passages did not improve the overlap of the ranges, but there was less overlap when the study used three data points per condition. Results emphasize the importance of considering SEM of CBM‐R data when comparing interventions within a BEA. Further implications for practice and future research are included.     

A new paradigm for teaching Histology laboratories in Canada's first distributed medical school

To address the critical problem of inadequate physician supply in rural British Columbia, The University of British Columbia (UBC) launched an innovative, expanded and distributed medical program in 2004–2005. Medical students engage in a common curriculum at three geographically distinct sites across B.C.: in Vancouver, Prince George and Victoria. The distribution of the core Histology course required a thorough revision of our instructional methodology. We here report our progress and address the question “How does one successfully distribute Histology teaching to remote sites while maintaining the highest of educational standards?” The experience at UBC points to three specific challenges in developing a distributed Histology curriculum: (i) ensuring equitable student access to high quality histological images, (ii) designing and implementing a reliable, state‐of‐the‐art technological infrastructure that allows for real‐time teaching and interactivity across geographically separate sites and (iii) ensuring continued student access to faculty content expertise. High quality images—available through any internet connection—are provided within a new virtual slide box library of 300 light microscopic and 190 electron microscopic images. Our technological needs are met through a robust and reliable videoconference system that allows for live, simultaneous communication of audio/visual materials across the three sites. This system also ensures student access to faculty content expertise during all didactic teaching sessions. Student examination results and surveys demonstrate that the distribution of our Histology curriculum has been successful. Anat Sci Ed 1:95–101, 2008. © 2008 American Association of Anatomists.