Teachers’ literacy-related knowledge and self-perceptions in relation to preparation and experience

After rating their own literacy-related knowledge in three areas (knowledge about reading/reading development, phonemic awareness/phonics, and morpheme awareness/structural analysis), graduate teacher-education students completed five tasks intended to measure their actual disciplinary knowledge in these areas. Teachers with high levels of prior background (i.e., course preparation and experience) rated themselves as significantly more knowledgeable than did low-background teachers in all areas; high-background participants also significantly outperformed low-background participants on all tasks. However, even high-background teachers scored well below ceiling on the tasks. Regression analyses indicated that teachers’ self-perceptions and knowledge were positively influenced by both level of preparation and teaching experience, although the influences on teachers’ knowledge differed by task. Teachers had some accurate perceptions of their own knowledge, especially in the area of phonics. Results suggest that differentiating levels of preparation may be useful in studying teacher knowledge, and also support the notion of a substantial gap between research on reading and teacher preparation in reading.     

Understanding Associations Between Low-Income Mothers' Participation in Education and Parenting

Maternal education is one of the strongest predictors of children's academic outcomes. One possible explanation for this is that more highly educated mothers more frequently engage in parenting practices that may promote children's later cognitive development; however, most of this evidence is correlational. This study uses Head Start Impact Study data (N = 1,953) to explore whether low-income mothers' participation in education affects their parenting practices and beliefs. Principal scores, which predict maternal educational participation based on covariates, were used for analysis. Principal score matching was used to identify mothers who we predicted participated in education because their children were randomly assigned to Head Start. We compared these mothers' outcomes to those of mothers we predicted would have participated in education if they were assigned to Head Start. For these mothers, participation in maternal education was associated with children watching fewer hours of TV, having more types of printed media at home, and more frequent participation in cultural activities, but it was not associated with a host of other parenting outcomes. Changing parenting is one potential pathway by which maternal educational participation may influence children's later academic outcomes.     

Vowel perception and production in adolescents with reading disabilities

Perception and production of the vowels /I/, /?/, /æ/ in the words pit, pet and pat were investigated in two groups of adolescents who differed significantly on measures of reading and phonological awareness. Perception performance was assessed using slope measurements between vowel categories. Duration measurements and a rating system based on first and second formant (F1 and F2) values were used to analyze production performance. As a group, the students with reading disabilities not only perceived but also produced less well-defined vowel categories than the control group of age-matched good readers. Perception and production performance, however, were not correlated. Results suggest that the speech processing difficulties of the students with reading disabilities include weak phonological coding for vowel sounds with similar phonetic characteristics. The implications of these findings for intervention are addressed.     

The anatomy of self‐defense

The following study describes a creative application of anatomical principles in the instruction of self‐defense. Undergraduates at the University of Kentucky were invited to a special lecture that featured a series of self‐defense moves introduced by a local police officer. Following a demonstration of each self‐defense tactic, the students were briefed on the anatomy of both the victim and the assailant that contributed to the overall effectiveness of each move. This approach was unique in that students learned critical knowledge of self‐defense while reinforcing anatomical principles previously introduced in class. Moreover, this integration of topics prompted students to think about their response to potentially dangerous situations on campus. Anat Sci Ed 1:130–132, 2008. © 2008 American Association of Anatomists.     

Emotion regulation as a scientific construct: methodological challenges and directions for child development research

Emotion regulation has emerged as a popular topic, but there is doubt about its viability as a scientific construct. This article identifies conceptual and methodological challenges in this area of study and describes exemplar studies that provide a substantive basis for inferring emotion regulation. On the basis of those studies, 4 methods are described that provide compelling evidence for emotion regulation: independent measurement of activated emotion and purported regulatory processes; analysis of temporal relations; measurement across contrasting conditions; and multiple, convergent measures. By offering this perspective, this article aims to engage thoughtful debate and critical analysis, with the goal of increasing methodological rigor and advancing an understanding of emotion regulation as a scientific construct.     

Ethnic Differences in Children's Intelligence Test Scores: Role of Economic Deprivation, Home Environment, and Maternal Characteristics

We examine differences in intelligence test scores of black and white 5-year-olds. The Infant Health and Development Program data set includes 483 low birthweight premature children who were assessed with the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence. These children had been followed from birth, with data on neighborhood and family poverty, family structure, family resources, maternal characteristics, and home environment collected over the first 5 years of life. Black children's IQ scores were 1 SD lower than those of white children. Adjustments for ethnic differences in poverty reduced the ethnic differential by 52%. Adjustments for maternal education and whether the head of household was female did not reduce the ethnic difference further. However, differences in home environment reduced the ethnic differential by an additional 28%. Adjustments for economic and social differences in the lives of black and white children all but eliminate differences in the IQ scores between these two groups.     

Maternal Responsiveness to Infants in Three Societies: The United States, France, and Japan

This study examines and compares prominent characteristics of maternal responsiveness to infant activity during home-based naturalistic interactions of mother-infant dyads in New York City, Paris, and Tokyo. Both culture-general and culture-specific patterns of responsiveness emerged. For example, in all 3 locales infants behaved similarly, mothers also behaved similarly with respect to a hierarchy of response types, and mothers and infants manifest both specificity and mutual appropriateness in their interactions: Mothers responded to infants' exploration of the environment with encouragement to the environment, to infants' vocalizing nondistress with imitation, and to infants' vocalizing distress with nurturance. Differences in maternal responsiveness among cultures occurred to infant looking rather than to infant vocalizing and in mothers' emphasizing dyadic versus extradyadic loci of interaction. Universals of maternal responsiveness, potential sources of cultural variation, and implications of similarities and differences in responsiveness for child development in different cultural contexts are discussed.     

The cost structure of higher education in further education colleges in England

This paper examines the cost of the increased provision of higher education courses within further education colleges in England. We believe this to be the first attempt to fit a cost function specifically to the further education sector. Cost functions for a sample of 96 colleges over a 2-year period, from 2000 to 2002, are fitted using a panel data methodology as well as stochastic frontier analysis. We compare and contrast our findings with a sample of 959 US colleges. Our findings indicate that most further education colleges are able to benefit from economies of scale. Results from both methodologies suggest the presence of product-specific economies of scale, substantial ray economies of scale and indicate that higher education classroom-based courses, such as business studies, as well as vocational courses display substantial economies of scope.     

Long-Term Memory for Context-Specific Category Information at Six Months

The ability of 6-month-old infants to remember a functional category acquired in a specific context was assessed in 3 experiments via an operant procedure in which infants learned to perform a specific action (a footkick) to activate an object suspended before them. In Experiment 1, infants trained with different exemplars in the same context transferred responding to a novel exemplar in the same but not a different context 24 hours later. Experiment 2 revealed that infants' reactivated memory of category training remained intact and context-specific after 3 weeks. In Experiment 3, a novel category exemplar was able to reactivate the forgotten memory of category training only in the encoding context. At 6 months, information about the place where categories are constructed is prerequisite for retrieval of a category concept from long-term memory. This requirement insures that early category concepts remain stable over relatively long periods.     

The impact of organizational capacity on voluntary engagement in sports clubs: A multi-level analysis

As volunteerism occurs in an organizational context, both individual factors and organizational characteristics affect (potential) volunteers in sports clubs. Whereas a number of researchers have studied individual-level determinants, knowledge on the role of organizational-level factors is limited. Based on the concept of organizational capacity, in the present study, the authors investigate whether and how human resources, financial, and structural capacities of sports clubs influence individual voluntary engagement. Using data from German football and track and field clubs (n = 296) and their members (n = 1222), the effects of organizational capacity on voluntary engagement within two subsamples, adult members and parents of underage members, are examined. The results of multi-level mixed effects regression analyses show that all capacity dimensions are significantly associated with voluntary engagement of both adult members and parents of underage members. A larger number of members and a greater share of volunteers reduce the amount of time a volunteer devotes to voluntary work; adult members are less likely to volunteer when their club has a balanced budget; and strategic planning increases the likelihood of individuals to volunteer informally. Overall, the results support the notion that the organizational context is more relevant to volunteering of adult members than individual characteristics and equally relevant to parents of underage members. Managerial implications to facilitate volunteering, such as shifting club goals towards youth development and sports for all provision, are discussed.