Science at the Center: An Emergent, Standards-Based, Child-Centered Framework for Early Learners

This article will describe an approach to planning and assessment that is designed to support an emergent, play-based curriculum while helping teachers make informed instructional decisions. Using assessment that supports curriculum allows early childhood professionals to infuse early learning content standards into meaningful, relevant and connected topics of study. Through a combined effort among teachers, administrators and university faculty, one demonstration school developed a method of integrating and evaluating content standards and developmental skills into an emergent curriculum model. While this remains a work in progress, it does show promise for being an effective way to address state standards while maintaining recommended developmentally appropriate practices.     

Reformulating the depression model of learned hopelessness for academic outcomes

This review explores developments in the construct of learned hopelessness, which originated in the clinical literature dealing with depression. In that context, the model developed by Abramson, Metalsky, and Alloy [Abramson, L. Y., Metalsky, G. I., & Alloy, L. B. (1989). Hopelessness depression: A theory-based subtype of depression. Psychological Review, 96, 358–372] has been particularly influential. The purpose of this review is to reformulate this model in the context of academic outcomes and to consider its relevance to learning and achievement. As a means of specifying the variables and paths in the reformulated model of academic learned hopeless, correlates from relevant motivational theories and research, including value-expectancy, self-efficacy, and learning strategies, will be considered.     

The PRET A Rapporter framework: Evaluating digital libraries from the perspective of information work

The strongest tradition of IR systems evaluation has focused on system effectiveness; more recently, there has been a growing interest in evaluation of Interactive IR systems, balancing system and user-oriented evaluation criteria. In this paper we shift the focus to considering how IR systems, and particularly digital libraries, can be evaluated to assess (and improve) their fit with users’ broader work activities. Taking this focus, we answer a different set of evaluation questions that reveal more about the design of interfaces, user–system interactions and how systems may be deployed in the information working context. The planning and conduct of such evaluation studies share some features with the established methods for conducting IR evaluation studies, but come with a shift in emphasis; for example, a greater range of ethical considerations may be pertinent. We present the PRET A Rapporter framework for structuring user-centred evaluation studies and illustrate its application to three evaluation studies of digital library systems.     

Psychometric Characteristics of the Revised Procrastination Inventory

The Procrastination Inventory developed for use with doctoral students in clinical psychology was modified for use with ABD students and doctoral graduates in a College of Education. The original Procrastination Inventory contained 43 items with 11 subscales. The structure of the revised measure was analyzed both through factor and Rasch analyses and three subscales that were more generalized were found instead of the eleven originally posited. The three subscales were: (1) procrastination, 20 items, alpha = .88, (2) perfectionism, 9 items, alpha = .64, and (3) graduate school comfort, 6 items, alpha = .59. Eight items were deleted after Rasch and factor analyses, resulting in a 35-item scale. Validity was demonstrated by the measure's ability to predict dissertation completion and through correlations with related measures. The Procrastination Inventory is useful in the study of attrition from doctoral programs, particularly at the dissertation stage.     

Metaphonological Abilities of Phonologically Disordered Children

There is currently a great deal of interest in the underlying metaphonological abilities of children with phonological output impairment and their possible relationship with both the continuing speech problem and later literacy development. We present data from 61 children with phonological output problems and 59 normal speakers on a range of metaphonological, speech output, language and cognitive assessments. While supporting an overall group difference in metaphonological ability, the range of individual variation is highlighted. Some weak relationships were found between metaphonological skills and other language and cognitive performance, but not between metaphonological ability and severity of speech performance. The accepted developmental order of phonological awareness tasks was not entirely supported; rather, subgroups of children were found who were showing quite different orders of difficulty. A distinction between segmentation and rhyming skills was confirmed.