Integrating data in a complex mixed-methods classroom interaction study

Mixed-methods (MM) designs have gained increasing interest in educational research. Still, many studies collect quantitative and qualitative data but report these data separately and do not attempt to integrate them in practice. The aim of this article is to discuss the purposes and processes of integrating qualitative and quantitative data in an MM classroom interaction study. Issues regarding mixing and integration, including how to overcome integration barriers, are discussed. Based on this outline, the study then presents details about the various integration processes adopted in a recent MM study on classroom interaction in Norway. The possibilities and challenges of integration to produce new knowledge and a deeper understanding throughout the research process in classroom studies are illustrated with a specific focus on points of interface. A key issue is whether the new knowledge obtained in an MM study is more than the sum of the individual quantitative and qualitative parts. Using selected questions from the MM alphabet proved a helpful heuristic for guiding the iterative processes of integration and provided richer explanations and an enhanced understanding of the implementation and impact of a complex classroom intervention initiative. The study provides a new methodological contribution to the MM literature by examining the integration processes and challenges faced in a specific study.     

Examining the impacts of the structures writing intervention for teaching fourth-grade students to write informational text

Reading and Writing - Expository writing may be especially difficult for elementary grade students due to lack of background knowledge and unfamiliar text structures. A text structure writing...     

The Value-Added Nature of Service-Learning

This research explores the benefits of service-learning among a group of Midwestern college students. Students enrolled in a section of a Juvenile Delinquency course served as volunteers at a juvenile detention facility and were studied using a pre-test/post-test survey design. This pilot project also included a comparison group of students in a section of the course which did not involve service-learning. The study compared service-learning to non-service-learning students in terms of attitudes regarding juvenile delinquency, punishment, and attributions of criminal behavior. We also examined any possible effects of service-learning on student academic skills, career goals, and comfort level with delinquents. Overall, we found that the service-learning project was a valuable educational tool having a positive impact on a number of student outcomes. We discuss the implications of these findings for service-learning research and practice.     

The Cognitive Predictors of Computational Skill with Whole versus Rational Numbers: An Exploratory Study

The purpose of the present study was to explore the 3rd-grade cognitive predictors of 5th-grade computational skill with rational numbers and how those are similar to and different from the cognitive predictors of whole-number computational skill. Students (n = 688) were assessed on incoming whole-number calculation skill, language, nonverbal reasoning, concept formation, processing speed, and working memory in the fall of 3rd grade. Students were followed longitudinally and assessed on calculation skill with whole numbers and with rational numbers in the spring of 5th grade. The unique predictors of skill with whole-number computation were incoming whole-number calculation skill, nonverbal reasoning, concept formation, and working memory (numerical executive control). In addition to these cognitive abilities, language emerged as a unique predictor of rational-number computational skill.     

Conditioned cardiac and behavioral response topography to an olfactory CS dissociates with age

Conditioned cardiac and behavioral responses to an olfactory stimulus (CS) paired with electric shock (US) were studied in 16-, 23-, and 75-day-old rats. Heart rate and behavior were recorded during a single 15-trial training session in which a 10-sec olfactory stimulus (amyl acetate) was either paired or explicitly unpaired with the US. In the preweanling rats, the conditioned cardiac response consisted of anincrease in heart rate (tachycardia) and a slight increase in investigatory behaviors. In contrast, the conditioned cardiac response in the adult rats consisted of adecrease in heart rate (bradycardia) and a striking increase in behavioral immobility (freezing). The 23-day-old rats showed a dichotomous pattern of responding; some showed preweanling-like conditioned responses and some showed adultlike responses. Developmental changes in neural organization and degree of learning are discussed as possible determinants of the transition from infant to adult modes of responding.     

Critical action learning – rituals and reflective spaces

This paper is written to outline our ideas on rituals and reflective places and how this thinking has emerged through our writing, facilitation and reflections around critical action learning and critical leadership. We attempt to show the conceptual framework that underpins our vision of Critical Leadership and how out of this work we have begun to develop new action learning techniques which we believe help to make the action learning we teach and practise, more critical. In describing these concepts of criticality we consider the tripartite elements of each of the three concepts we call Critical Leadership. That is ‘knowing, being, doing’; ‘space, place and pace’ and ‘thinking, feeling, willing’. We then go on to demonstrate how these three concepts helped us to shape our new action learning technique entitled ‘The Coliseum’. We believe that this new action learning technique enhances the likelihood of critical action learning taking place by underscoring key elements such as encouraging feedback, initiating deep listening, promoting challenge and, perhaps, in the end, precipitating enlightenment.     

Home and Parental Influences on the Achievement of Lower Primary School Children in Singapore

This study investigated the effects of home environment and parental involvement in the achievement of pupils in the lower primary classes in nine schools found in four zones in Singapore. In total, 3,759 pupils and their parents participated in the study. The study was designed to answer four main questions relating to the effects of the home environment (SES, time engaged in television viewing, reading, school work and ethnicity of parents) and parental involvement in the children's school work and in other school matters. The findings indicated that significant differences in achievement were found for all combinations of SES categories and between most ethnic groups. A higher percentage of high-achieving pupils spent more time on television viewing, reading and school work. Parents of high-achieving children were more anxious about maximising every opportunity for their children including those not directly related to school work.     

Understanding Categorical Hierarchies: The Earliest Levels of Skill

2 categorization skills necessary for understanding hierarchies are the ability to form categories at different levels of generality and the ability to include the same objects into multiple categories. 2-year-olds appear to have the first skill, but some theoretical and empirical work suggests that the second may be a later acquisition. Yet, in 3 studies, 2- and 3-year-olds applied familiar basic level and superordinate labels to the same objects, even when reminded of basic labels before being tested with superordinates. They did not reserve superordinates for objects with unfamiliar basic level names (Study 2), and they were willing to apply superordinates to objects presented singly rather than in groups (Study 3). Thus, contrary to the implications of some previous work, 2- and 3-year-olds appear to have both of the categorization skills necessary for forming categorical hierarchies.     

Gaps in Mind: Problems in environmental knowledge-behaviour modelling research

For decades, researchers in the social sciences and in education have sought to understand and map the factors that lead people to move (or to fail to move) from environmental knowledge to 'pro-environmental behaviour'. In this article, we explore some conceptual, epistemological, methodological and practical 'gaps' that seem to reproduce themselves in successive instantiations of this quest. The purpose of this article is to help build the critical perspective that comes with problematizing the very project of knowledge-behaviour modelling, identifying the positivistic residues still present in the enterprise, and suggesting that modelling may be more useful in domains of greater scale. Focusing on the 'Mind Gap' model developed by Kollmus and Agyeman (2002), we discuss the 'gap' between contemporary educational research and knowledge-behaviour modelling research that is the cumulative effect of (1) the critical thinking - 'behaviour change' gap; (2) the 'reflective practitioner - 'researcher as authority' gap; (3) the two literatures gap; (4) the conscious - non-conscious gap (tied to reason and habit in moral agency); (5) the direct action - indirect action gap (tied to privatizing environmental morality); (6) the gender gap; and (7) the internal - external gap (tied to ignoring the complexity of moral agency and cultural identity).