Seven Years After the Call: Students’ and Graduates’ Perceptions of the Re-envisioned Ed.D.

Given continued confusion about the Ed.D.degree, universities affiliated with the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED) have re-envisioned it using a set of guiding principles and design features. In this study, we investigated why students and graduates chose to pursue the Ed.D., what and how they learned, how they viewed themselves, and whether they perceived their programs to be aligned with CPED’s principles. Data were collected from 296 participants at 14 CPED institutions using an online survey. Results indicated respondents agreed that their programs were aligned with CPED principles, helped them meet their professional and personal goals, and developed them as scholarly practitioners.     

Learning from distance‐teaching materials: a study of students’ mediating responses

It has been suggested that improvements in the quality of distance‐teaching materials could be effected if the mental responses that mediate study of and learning from such materials were known. This project aimed at identifying the types and origins of students’ convert mediating responses to distance‐teaching materials during study sessions. Three one‐half hour study sessions were videotaped for each of four student volunteers in a room set up on the campus. Immediately following each study session stimulated‐recall interviews were conducted, the data from these being audiotaped and then transcribed for further analysis. Interview protocols revealed that approaches to study were influenced by a set of interdependent factors, which, when combined with a set of study strategies, resulted in two broad classes of study orientation. Twenty different types of mental processes were identified, seven of which were used more frequently than the others. Furthermore, textual features which activated mental processes were identified using the stimulated‐recall technique, and promising suggestions for textual design were gleaned from the data. Areas for further research were also identified.     

The relations between disciplinary and pedagogical knowledge and the length of teaching experience of biology and geography teachers

Concept mapping was used to tap the conceptual disciplinary and pedagogical knowledge of seven biology and six geography teachers with short or long teaching experience. Based on five knowledge structure dimensions, the results were that (1) the disciplinary and pedagogical knowledge of teachers of both biology and geography is quite unsatisfactory; (2) the two types of knowledge did not improve with experience and the latter slightly deteriorated; and (3) the teachers mastered their disciplinary knowledge better than their pedagogical knowledge. The results are discussed in relation to the nature of the instructional activities and the different status of the disciplinary and pedagogical knowledge in teaching.     

The factor structure and criterion validity of a test for assessment of cognitive abilities. Comparing students in special and regular education

As a consequence of a recent reform of junior secondary education in the Netherlands, instruments for the assessment of cognitive abilities of students who are eligible for special educational support must be designed. In constructing a new test battery contemporary theory on crystallized and fluid intelligence (Gf-Gc theory) was considered. Complete coverage of the factors in Gf-Gc theory was not striven for, because the status of some of these factors in relation to referral to education with special educational support is not entirely clear. The sample in the study consisted of students from regular and special primary as well as secondary education, aged between 11 and 15 years. Approximately two-thirds of the sample was of Dutch origin, whereas the remaining third was of a different ethnic origin. Results show that the factors verbal-crystallized ability, fluid-reasoning ability, spatial-visualization ability and memory capacity can explain the positive correlations between the tests in the battery for the greater part. Students from regular and special education can be distinguished on the basis of their cognitive profiles reasonably accurate, thus supporting the criterion validity of the test battery. Students requiring special educational support are characterized by a significant discrepancy between short-term recall and long-term retention and retrieval.     

Interaction Patterns in Teaching and Learning with Live Interactive Television

Live Interactive Television is a popular medium for delivering educational programs to students in remote areas in Australia. The medium uses television to deliver a live one‐way video signal and standard telephony to provide two‐way audio communication between the instructor and students. Much of the potential of this medium is derived from the interactivity that it supports and the ensuing educational advantages to be derived. Because all interactions are ultimately student‐initiated, the medium has a number of unique and characteristic features. This paper describes a study that investigated the form and nature of the interactions evident in LIT programs. The purpose of this investigation was to establish the impact of the interactivity on the form and scope of the instructional sequences used. The study sought to identify different kinds of interactivity employed by instructors and students and to investigate the impact and role of these interactions on the ensuing instructional activities.     

The nature and use of prediction skills in a biological computer simulation

The primary goal of this study was to examine the science process skill of prediction using qualitative research methodology. The think-aloud interview, modeled after Ericsson and Simon (1984), let to the identification of 63 program exploration and prediction behaviors. The performance of seven formal and seven concrete operational high-school biology students were videotaped during a three-phase learning sequence on water pollution. Subjects explored the effects of five independent variables on two dependent variables over time using a computer-simulation program. Predictions were made concerning the effect of the independent variables upon dependent variables through time. Subjects were identified according to initial knowledge of the subject matter and success at solving three selected prediction problems. Successful predictors generally had high initial knowledge of the subject matter and were formal operational. Unsuccessful predictors generally had low initial knowledge and were concrete operational. High initial knowledge seemed to be more important to predictive success than stage of Piagetian cognitive development. Successful prediction behaviors involved systematic manipulation of the independent variables, note taking, identification and use of appropriate independent-dependent variable relationships, high interest and motivation, and in general, higher-level thinking skills. Behaviors characteristic of unsuccessful predictors were nonsystematic manipulation of independent variables, lack of motivation and persistence, misconceptions, and the identification and use of inappropriate independent-dependent variable relationships.     

Sexual harassment in Jewish and Arab public schools in Israel

OBJECTIVE: Current empirical literature on sexual harassment in schools is mostly based on nonrepresentative samples of middle-class high-school Caucasian female students. Thus the scope of research regarding gender, age, and cultural differences is very limited. This article reports on findings on sexual harassment in Jewish and Arab schools in Israel with regard to gender, age, and cultural differences. METHOD: The study is part of the first national survey on school violence in Israel. The representative sample includes 10,400 students in grades 7 through 11 attending public schools in Israel. Students were asked to report whether they were victims of specific acts of sexual harassment in school during the month before the survey. RESULTS: Overall, 29.1% of the students were victims of at least one act of harassment. The more common acts were to show offensive pictures or to send obscene letters, to take off or to try to take off part of the student's clothing, and to try to kiss a student. The most vulnerable groups are the Arab boys and 8th grade students. Report rates were the lowest among Arab girls. CONCLUSIONS: Sexual harassment is prevalent in Israeli schools. The pattern of victimization is different for boys and girls and for students in Jewish and Arab schools. These patterns are a complex phenomenon that must be considered in the intervention and policy measures addressing sexual harassment at school.