Cultural‐competence considerations for contemporary school‐based threat assessment

Threat‐assessment procedures are advanced for their utility in reducing racial disparities in punitive and exclusionary school discipline outcomes. Generally unexamined, however, is bias in who gets referred for school‐based threat assessment and under what circumstances. Cultural‐competence considerations hold promise for addressing sources of bias in the evaluation of threats made in the school setting. Using a quantitative approach, this systematic literature review examines the degree to which contemporary cultural‐competence considerations are embedded in 24 school‐based threat‐assessment articles published between 2007 and 2017. Results indicate generally poor coverage of considerations for cultural competence both within and across threat‐assessment articles. An analysis of change in cultural‐competence considerations by year of publication suggests that more recently published threat‐assessment literature has generally not integrated concurrent advancements in concepts of cultural competence. Preliminary guidance for incorporating contemporary cultural‐competence considerations into school‐based threat‐assessment procedures are provided.     

Family Interaction Patterns,Career Planning Attitudes,and Vocational Identity of High School Adolescents

The purpose of the current study was to examine how perceptions of family interaction patterns as defined along three dimensions of family environment (quality of family relationships, family goal-orientations, and degree of organization and control within the family system) predict vocational identity and career planning attitudes among male and female adolescents living at home. One hundred twenty three high school students completed measures of family environment, vocational identity, and career planning attitudes. Analyses revealed that the quality of family relationships (i.e., degree to which family members are encouraged to express feelings and problems) played a small, yet significant role in predicting career planning attitudes of adolescents.     

Author Correction: Digital Citizenship: you Can’t Go Home Again

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. Figure 3 on the published version of the article was wrong. The correct Fig. 3 is now presented below.     

Generalizability, Validity, and Examinee Perceptions of a Computer-Delivered Formulating-Hypotheses Test

The Formulating-Hypotheses (F-H) item presents a situation and asks examinees to generate as many explanations for it as possible. This study examined the generalizability, validity, and examinee perceptions of a computer-delivered version of the task. Eight F-H questions were administered to 192 graduate students. Half of the items restricted examinees to 7 words per explanation, and half allowed up to 15 words. Generalizability results showed high interrater agreement, with tests of between 2 and 4 items scored by one judge achieving coefficients in the .80s. Construct validity analyses found that F-H was only marginally related to the GRE General Test, and more strongly related than the General Test to a measure of ideational fluency. Different response limits tapped somewhat different abilities, with the 15-word constraint appearing more useful for graduate assessment. These items added significantly to conventional measures in explaining school performance and creative expression.     

The case for scenario-based assessment of written argumentation

Reading and Writing - This paper presents a theoretical and empirical case for the value of scenario-based assessment (SBA) in the measurement of students’ written argumentation skills....     

Strategies for enhancing learning in the “blow-off” course

Lower division courses are typically perceived by students as blow-off courses. We can overcome this image. This paper contrasts active and passivelearning environments, and describes efforts to create an active, critical learning environment in both Introduction to Sociology and The Family System-typical lower division courses in Sociology. A review of grade distributions, quantitative course evaluations, qualitative course evaluations, and a survey asking students to subjectively compare the active learning course structure to the typical multiple choice format provide evaluation data. Finally, the paper discusses problems in using these innovations.Randy Stoecker recently received a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Minnesota, and has been exploring alternative pedagogies since 1982. He has published in the areas of social theory and social movements. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Midwest Sociological Society Annual Meetings, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1988. Many thanks for insightful comments by Tuck Green, Ron Berger, and an anonymousInnovative Higher Education referee.