Federal student financial aid awards as subsidies for higher education: What kinds of institutions are we supporting?

This paper attempts to shed light on the following question: What kinds of four-year institutions of higher learning benefit the most from federal student financial aid programs? We address this question by investigating how institutional quality, institutional mission, and the student's average net cost of attendance covary with average Pell grant, SEOG grant, GSL loan, and college work-study financial aid awards. Our sample is comprised of 254 nonproprietary four-year public institutions of higher learning and 499 nonproprietary four-year private institutions of higher learning.     

What Counts? Sources of Knowledge in Children’s Acquisition of the Successor Function

Although many U.S. children can count sets by 4 years, it is not until 5½–6 years that they understand how counting relates to number—that is, that adding 1 to a set necessitates counting up one number. This study examined two knowledge sources that 3½- to 6-year-olds (N = 136) may leverage to acquire this “successor function”: (a) mastery of productive rules governing count list generation; and (b) training with “+1” math facts. Both productive counting and “+1” math facts were related to understanding that adding 1 to sets entails counting up one number in the count list; however, even children with robust successor knowledge struggled with its arithmetic expression, suggesting they do not generalize the successor function from “+1” math facts.     

The Implications of COVID-19 for Early Childhood Education in Ethiopia: Perspectives from Parents and Caregivers

Early Childhood Education Journal - Recent research on the effects of COVID-19 on school closures has mainly focused on primary and secondary education, with extremely limited attention to early...     

Bending the rules: when deaf writers leave college

On-the-job writing of deaf college graduates at all degree levels was investigated. Institutional databases and questionnaires to alumni and employers were the sources for information. Respondents were asked about editing assistance, sources and types of assistance, and perceptions of such assistance by employers and employees. Results of the study confirmed that deaf employees did considerable writing regardless of degree or type of job. Their self-reports indicated grammar as the major weakness. Additionally, employers stated that clarity, organization, and spelling were serious writing problems. The study also showed that deaf employees asked for and received editing assistance and that employers were willing to support the improvement of writing skills. Because error-free texts are expected in the workplace and editing assistance is sought and received, postsecondary institutions should mimic these practices by providing copyediting services and instruction in the ethics and practices of working with editors.     

Children participating as researchers in primary schools: what’s in it for the teachers?

Whilst within universities, research on rather than with children/pupils is a well-established methodology, this paper reports on teachers’ responses to a schools and university-based partnership project, ‘Pupils as Research Partners in Primary (PARPP), which works to co-create pupil-led research opportunities for pupils in research projects informed by pupils’ experiences in primary schools. A previous paper, French and Hobbs, [(2017). “‘So How Well Did It Really Go’? Working with Primary School Pupils as Project Evaluators: A Case Study.” TEAN Journal 9 (1): 56–65] reported on how one PARPP project had a beneficial effect on pupils and their school environment. For this paper the project team interviewed a number of teachers whose pupils in the partner schools were involved in the pilot study phase of the project. Specifically, the teachers were interviewed to ascertain if the involvement of pupils, as lead researchers in projects exploring various aspects of the school environment, had impacted on their perceptions of pupil-led research. Findings suggest that the experiences of teachers in schools where PARPP projects had taken place had led them to re-evaluate the practicality and desirability of encouraging pupils to actively to research their school environments.     

Evaluation of a randomized intervention to delay sexual initiation among fifth-graders followed through the sixth grade

US adolescents initiate sex at increasingly younger ages, yet few pregnancy prevention interventions for children as young as 10-12 years old have been evaluated. Sixteen Washington, DC schools were randomly assigned to intervention versus control conditions. Beginning in 2001/02 with fifth-grade students and continuing during the sixth grade, students completed pre-intervention and post-intervention surveys each school year. Each year, the intervention included 10-13 classroom sessions related to delaying sexual initiation. Linear hierarchical models compared outcome changes between intervention and control groups by gender over time. Results show the intervention significantly decreased a rise over time in the anticipation of having sex in the next 12 months among intervention boys versus control boys, but it had no other outcome effects. Among girls, the intervention had no significant outcome effects. One exception is that for both genders, compared with control students, intervention students increased their pubertal knowledge. In conclusion, a school-based curriculum to delay sexual involvement among fifth-grade and sixth-grade high-risk youths had limited impact. Additional research is necessary to outline effective interventions, and more intensive, comprehensive interventions may be required to counteract adverse circumstances in students' lives and pervasive influences toward early sex.ClinicalTrials. gov identifier: NCT00341471.     

ORIENTATIONS TO PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION: UNDERSTANDING THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO PD OUTCOMES ACROSS MULTIPLE PROJECTS

Given the large investment in teacher professional development (PD), further understanding of the factors that impact PD success is needed. In a previous study, the authors established a framework for categorizing PD projects using the notion of orientations. A PD orientation is comprised of project characteristics that drive the PD design and implementation for that project. In this study, we applied this orientation framework to 14 science and mathematics PD projects and examined the relationship between projects of differing orientations and PD outcomes (e.g. perceived improvement in teaching practices). The results provide support for the value of the framework and demonstrate that PD projects with different orientations exhibit differing participant outcomes. This study also provides evidence of the value of this research framework for understanding how PD implementation characteristics are related to PD outcomes, as well as points to the value of a “balanced” orientation where both content and pedagogy are addressed in equal parts.     

Ontogeny of long-term,nonassociative memory in the rat

The primary purpose of the present study was to assess the ontogeny of nonassociative learning and memory in 16-, 30-, and 75-day-old rats. In each of three experiments, habituation of the orienting response to a novel auditory stimulus was measured. The orienting response is an unconditioned reaction elicited by innocuous environmental stimulation that habituates with repeated stimulus presentations. Both an autonomic component (heart-rate deceleration) and a behavioral index (head jerk) of the orienting response were recorded in this study. Although no age differences in rate of habituation (i.e., rate of nonassociative learning) were found (see Experiment 1), a marked effect of age on retention of habituation was observed. Preweanling rats retained habituation of the orienting response to an auditory stimulus for less than 4 h (Experiment 2), whereas adult animals exhibited no forgetting even after a 1-week interval (Experiment 3). These results are discussed in terms of (1) demonstrations of age-related differences in associative memory, (2) the persistence of nonassociative memories in adults, and (3) the significance of the orienting response as a measure of retention of nonassociative learning.     

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.