The Influence of Instructor-Student Rapport on Instructors’ Professional and Organizational Outcomes

Students and teachers have relational goals and needs, yet little research has examined the relational goals of instructors and how achieving those goals may affect instructor outcomes. This study examined instructors’ perspectives on instructor-student rapport. Results revealed that instructors who build rapport with students are likely to experience teaching satisfaction, affective commitment to the institution, and enhanced teaching efficacy. However, instructor-student rapport was not related to instructor morale. The findings in this study highlight the importance of positive instructor-student relationships in the classroom and the implications for both instructors and administrators.     

Estimating High School GPA Weighting Parameters With a Graded Response Model

The high school grade point average (GPA) is often adjusted to account for nominal indicators of course rigor, such as “honors” or “advanced placement.” Adjusted GPAs—also known as weighted GPAs—are frequently used for computing students’ rank in class and in the college admission process. Despite the high stakes attached to GPA, weighting policies vary considerably across states and high schools. Previous methods of estimating weighting parameters have used regression models with college course performance as the dependent variable. We discuss and demonstrate the suitability of the graded response model for estimating GPA weighting parameters and evaluating traditional weighting schemes. In our sample, which was limited to self‐reported performance in high school mathematics courses, we found that commonly used policies award more than twice the bonus points necessary to create parity for standard and advanced courses.     

Behavioural disorders in Danish schools: a qualitative analysis of background factors

A national survey has shown that the incidence of serious behavioural problems in Danish schools stands at 10 per cent. The present qualitative study makes use of a broad-spectrum ecological model in the search for aetiological factors underlying behavioural disturbance. The study covers 34 typical Danish schools matched in pairs on the basis of degree of disturbance in the national survey. The results indicate behavioural problems to be related more to system factors than to purely individual factors.     

Curriculum and the idea of a cosmopolitan inheritance

The ancient idea of cosmopolitanism is a topic of renewed interest today. Scholars and practitioners in many fields are examining what it means to conceive all human beings as linked by their membership in a shared cosmos. Some people focus on political cosmopolitanism, others on moral, cultural, or economic cosmopolitanism. This paper examines educational cosmopolitanism by elucidating the idea of curriculum as a cosmopolitan inheritance. It argues that curriculum can generate a cosmopolitan sensibility, by which one means an outlook that regards life experience as universally educational. It suggests that a cosmopolitan sensibility can assist people in working through some of the tensions that accompany global and local change in our time. It can position them to reconstruct creatively cultural and individual values rather than abandon them in the face of the ceaseless pressure of globalization. A cosmopolitan sensibility edifies human beings by helping them perceive why all persons, in principle, can be creative guardians and practitioners of creativity itself.     

Connecting Theories to Practice: A Model for Categorizing Theories According to Use

In modernist fashion, counseling theories are ordinarily categorized according to their common conceptual features. This system of classification generally does not serve counseling practitioners, who use theories to help clients. The author proposes a practitioner-based, postmodernist model of classification that organizes theories according to the ways that they can be used.     

Implementing Research‐Based Instruction to Prevent Reading Problems Among Low‐Income Students: Is Earlier Better?

It is currently considered imperative to introduce reading instruction as early as possible. This proposition was tested by assigning groups of kindergarteners (N = 256) to two conditions differing in their emphasis on prevention. In the first, teacher‐implemented research‐based interventions were implemented during kindergarten and first grade. In the second, only the first‐grade intervention was implemented. Analyses were conducted separately for students not at risk, at low risk, and at high risk of reading problems. In the short term, the kindergarten intervention was highly effective for both low‐risk and high‐risk students, but it is only for the latter group that early gains translated into better reading skills at the end of first grade. Not‐at‐risk students did not benefit from the early introduction of reading instruction.