Do troublesome pupils impact teacher perception of the behaviour of their classmates?

The widely supported wish for more inclusive education places ever greater expectations on teachers’ abilities to teach all children, including those with special needs and challenging behaviours. The present study aimed at the question whether teachers judge pupil behaviour more negatively if there are more children with difficult behaviour in class. The teachers of 184 classes in 31 regular primary schools were asked to complete the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ-L) for 3649 pupils. Six linear mixed models were carried out with as independent variable the number of pupils that teachers perceived to have ‘abnormal behaviour’, and the class mean without these pupils as the dependent variable. For all SDQ-L subscales – emotional problems, behavioural problems, problems with hyperactivity, problems with peers, poor prosocial behaviour and total problems – the number of pupils perceived as problematic was associated with less favourable teacher perceptions of the rest of the class. The results of this study are a plea for a contextual perspective on pupil behaviour in class, both where teachers are asked to report on individual pupils, as well as where interventions are done on emotional and behavioural problems in class.     

Goal‐Directed Correlates and Neurobiological Underpinnings of Adolescent Identity: A Multimethod Multisample Longitudinal Approach

This multimethod multisample longitudinal study examined how neurological substrates associated with goal directedness and information seeking are related to adolescents’ identity. Self‐reported data on goal‐directedness were collected across three biannual waves in Study 1. Identity was measured one wave later. Study 1 design and measurements were repeated in Study 2 and extended with structural brain data (nucleus accumbens [NAcc] and prefrontal cortex gray matter volume [PFC]), collected across three biannual waves. Study 1 included 497 adolescents (M_{age T1} = 13.03 years) and Study 2 included 131 adolescents (M_{age T1} = 14.69 years). Using latent growth curve models, goal directedness, NAcc, and PFC volume predicted a stronger identity one wave later. These findings provide crucial new insights in the underlying neurobiological architecture of identity.     

Redesigning regular education support in The Netherlands

In The Netherlands new policy guidelines have resulted in grouping regular and special schools in school clusters, in redistributing the funding of special needs and in appointing a support coordinator in every school. Since the support coordinator, or interne begeleider, is a rather new phenomenon in most schools, data about their roles and tasks were not available. This study attempted to gather such data. The results indicate that support coordinators in The Netherlands are involved in making individual educational programmes, in supporting the class teacher and in coordinating special needs education in their school. The coordinators in this research state that the available time for these tasks is insufficient.     

大规模学生评估的影响力与重要性:德国视角

二十年来,大规模学生评估对教育研究、学校体系和教育政策产生了深远影响."国际中学生评估项目"(PISA)、"国际学生数学与科学能力动态项目"(TIMSS)和"国际学生阅读能力进步研究项目"(PIRLS)使各个国家学生成绩值具有一定可比性,由此,人们能更细致地从学校内部来观察不同国家学校工作的差异度.大规模学生评估还为学校发展、教育领导以及学生成绩的改进提供必要数据.本文以PIRLS为例,旨在从德国视角为中国今后开展大规模国际学生评估提供借鉴.     

Technology with Cognitive and Mathematical Fidelity: What it Means for the Math Classroom

Technology according to the National Council of Mathematics plays a special role in teaching and learning mathematics. Technology when used effectively can deepen mathematical understanding and lead to greater abstraction. But, not all uses of technology lead to this desired result. Defining cognitive and mathematical fidelity and using it to determine which Web-based formats lead to greater generalizing and abstraction will help in understanding why interactive math objects empower teachers to build a better, deeper understanding of math concepts.     

Letter processing in dyslexic subgroups

Hypothesized cognitive strengths and weaknesses of three dyslexic subgroups (Boder and Jarrico 1982) were examined in two reading related experiments. The first experiment tested the prediction that auditorily presented letter sets should be processed better by dyseidetic than by dysphonetic readers. The prediction was not confirmed. The results did not show any modality of presentation-specific recall differences between the three dyslexic subgroups. Overall, dyslexic children’s scores were significantly lower than those of age-matched control groups. The second experiment tested predictions of differential performance of dyseidetic and dysphonetic readers in a task in which the name identity of letters in pairs had to be indicated. Predicted patterns were not confirmed. Compared to the control groups all three dyslexic subgroups (whose means did not differ significantly) made significantly more errors in the condition in which it was essential to activate phonetic representations of the letters. The experimental results of this study suggest a greater similarity in the nature of letter processing problems in dyslexic children than is assumed in Boder and Jarrico’s (1982) subtyping test. This research was supported by grant 634301 from the Department of Special Education, State University of Groningen, and a travel grant from the Netherlands Organization for the Advancement of Pure Research (Z.W.O.). Based on a presentation at the 32nd Annual Conference of The Orton Dyslexia Society, Baltimore, Maryland, November 1982.     

Lesen Mädchen anders?

Zusammenfassung Die Gender bezogene Forschung der letzten Jahre setzte sich insbesondere mit Differenzen in mathematischen und naturwissenschaftlichen Kompetenzen auseinander, w?hrend die Unterschiede im Leseverst?ndnis weniger Beachtung fanden. Dabei sind national wie auch international die Befunde von gro? angelegten Schulvergleichsstudien konsistent: M?dchen lernen schneller und besser lesen, und auch wenn die Jungen in der Sekundarstufe aufholen, so erreichen sie den Stand der M?dchen auch im Jugendalter noch nicht. Anhand der 2001 durchgeführten Internationalen Grundschul-Lese-Untersuchung (IGLU) wird untersucht, ob der Vorsprung der M?dchen im Leseverst?ndnis schon in der Grundschule angelegt ist. Anhand differenzieller Item Analysen wird der Frage nachgegangen, ob sich auch bei einzelnen Fragen systematische Unterschiede zwischen M?dchen und Jungen nachweisen lassen. Anhand der Analysen kann gezeigt werden, dass geringe Geschlechtsdifferenzen bezüglich des Frageformats (offenes Antwortformat vs. Multiple Choice) und den Leseleistungen bei literarischen und Informationstexten bestehen. Bei Betrachtung der in IGLU getesteten Verstehensaspekte ergeben sich keine Differenzen zwischen Jungen und M?dchen. Hingegen ist bezüglich der Aufgabenschwierigkeiten ein Zusammenhang mit geschlechtsspezifischen L?sungsh?ufigkeiten festzustellen, was ?ltere Befunde stützt, die gezeigt haben, dass M?dchen routinierter lesen. Als m?gliche Konsequenz dieser Untersuchung k?nnte die Anregung gegeben werden, im Unterricht vermehrt Leseanreize zu geben, welche Jungen eher ansprechen, um sie so zum vermehrten Lesen zu führen. In sp?teren Untersuchungen w?re dann zu kl?ren, ob die Jungen so mehr Sicherheit bei routinierten Leseaufgaben erreichen k?nnten und ggf. zu dem von M?dchen gezeigten Niveau des Leseverst?ndnisses aufschlie?en k?nnten.

---

Summary Over the last few years research has particularly concerned itself with gender differences between competencies in mathematics and natural sciences, whilst differences in reading comprehension have had little attention. At the same time, national and international evidence from large-scale school comparisons has shown consistently that girls learn to read faster and better. Even when boys catch up at secondary level, they do not reach the girl’ standard in their teens. On the basis of the international reading study IGLU carried out in 2001, this contribution will ask whether the girl’ head-start can already be observed at primary school level. Using differential item-analysis, the question of whether answers to individual questions show systematic differences will be investigated. The analysis shows only small gender differences regarding question format (open questions vs. multiple choice) and reading performance for literary and informational texts. Also, no differences between boys and girls can be found in the aspects of comprehension tested for in the IGLU-study. However, there is a connection between the level of task difficulty and the frequency of solving tasks by gender, which supports previous evidence that girls read more proficiently. A possible consequence of this study could be the using of reading incentives in class, which are particularly aimed at boys, to encourage their reading. Further studies would have to investigate whether boys achieve an improved confidence in tasks calling for reading proficiency and are therefore able to reach the standards of reading comprehension set by the girls.

     

Work-based antipoverty programs for parents can enhance the school performance and social behavior of children

We assess the impact of the New Hope Project, an antipoverty program tested in a random assignment experimental design, on family functioning and developmental outcomes for preschool- and school-aged children (N = 913). New Hope offered wage supplements sufficient to raise family income above the poverty threshold and subsidies for child care and health insurance to adults who worked full-time. New Hope had strong positive effects on boys' academic achievement, classroom behavior skills, positive social behavior, and problem behaviors, as reported by teachers, and on boys' own expectations for advanced education and occupational aspirations. There were not corresponding program effects for girls. The child outcomes may have resulted from a combination of the following: Children in New Hope families spent more time in formal child care programs and other structured activities away from home than did children in control families. New Hope parents were employed more, had more material resources, reported more social support, and expressed less stress and more optimism about achieving their goals than did parents in the control sample. The results suggest that an anti-poverty program that provides support for combining work and family responsibilities can have beneficial effects on the development of school-age children.     

High School Students' Critical Evaluation of Scientific Resources on the World Wide Web

This research explores a new web-based curriculum idea, that of having students write and publish critical web reviews of scientific resources as a means of both practicing critical evaluation of web resources, and of making an authentic value-added contribution to the web. This paper presents content analyses of selected sections of 63 web reviews published by eleventh grade students in a project-based science class. Two aspects of critical evaluation are focused upon: summarization of content and evaluation of credibility. Content analyses show that student summaries were usually accurate, but had room for improvement especially in areas of comprehensiveness and level of detail. An ideal model of a content review is developed from analysis of a second set of reviews. When asked to evaluate credibility, students struggled to identify scientific evidence of claims in web resources, but analysis of web documents shows that this is often because such evidence is missing. Students could accurately determine the publishing source of web documents, but challenges arose in identifying potential biases. Recommendations for future iterations of this curriculum idea are presented throughout. A companion paper that will appear in this journal will examine how student reviews serve the function of social filtering on the web.     

Perceptions and knowledge of preservice and inservice educators about early reading instruction

A major conclusion from research regarding children with poor reading performance is that early, systematic instruction in phonological awareness and phonics improves early reading and spelling skills and results in a reduction of the number of students who read below grade level. The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions and knowledge of presevice and inservice educators about early reading instruction. The results indicated that these educators expressed positive attitudes toward explicit and implicit code instruction, with inservice educators more positive about explicit code instruction than preservice educators and preservice educators more positive about implicit code instruction. Preservice and inservice educators demonstrated limited knowledge of phonological awareness or terminology related to language structure and phonics. Additionally, they perceived themselves as only somewhat prepared to teach early reading to struggling readers. These findings indicate a continuing mismatch between what educators believe and know and what convergent research supports as effective early reading instruction for children at risk for reading difficulties. Implications support continuing efforts to inform and reform teacher education. Just prior to publication, the editorial office was informed of the untimely death of the first author, Candace Bos, who died on August 13, 2001.