Teacher Efficacy Research 1998–2009: Signs of Progress or Unfulfilled Promise?

This review investigates the state of teacher self- and collective efficacy research conducted from 1998 to 2009. Two hundred and eighteen empirical articles published in 1998–2009 were examined for key characteristics and compared to research published in the previous 12 years (i.e., 1986–1997). Results from the review show increases in overall teacher efficacy research, methodological diversity, domain specificity, internationalization, and focus on collective efficacy. Continuing problem areas were a lack of attention to the sources of teacher efficacy, continued measurement and conceptual problems, a lack of evidence for the links between teacher efficacy and student outcomes, and uncertain relevance of teacher efficacy research to educational practice. An outline of directions for future teacher efficacy research is provided.     

Principal Recruitment: An Empirical Evaluation of a School District’s Internal Pool of Principal Certified Personnel

Applicant pools for principal vacancies are shrinking nationwide. This shortage of job applicants requires school districts to evaluate their internal pools of principal certified personnel. In this study, 194 certified individuals from a large school district responded to a survey measuring attraction to the job of principal, current job satisfaction versus expected satisfaction in the job of principal, barriers to pursuing the job, and recommended changes in the job. Few participants intended to apply for principal vacancies due to age (median=51), lack of self-reported capability to do the job, and satisfaction with the current job. Participants perceived their job satisfaction would decrease on assuming the job of principal relative to factors such as time with family and job security, and increase relative to factors such as salary and opportunity to experience varied activities. Implications for principal recruitment and recommendations for restructuring the job are discussed.     

Environmental print and word reading

The nature of the earliest stage of reading was examined by comparing two views about the importance of environmental print in children’s learning experiences. One theory holds that environmental print leads to the acquisition of reading through developing rudimentary representations of specific words and logos, while the second theory concerns assembled phonology and asserts that reading begins with knowing letters and their sounds. Supporters of this theory hold that knowledge of environmental print and logos is reading the environment and may not directly facilitate the acquisition of word reading. Two studies were conducted with non-reading preschool children in which environmental print knowledge was assessed and related to word recognition training. In the first session of each study children were presented with accurate representations of environmental print and logos such as ‘McDonalds’ and ‘Stop’ to find the ones they were able to identify and the ones they failed to identify. In the second session learning trials were conducted with those words from the logos that the children identified and also those that they failed to identify and with matching control words. Both studies found that the words from the known logos were more readily learned than the matching control words, but only in Study 1 were the known logo words learned more readily than the ones the children did not know. The results were discussed in terms of Gibson’s (1969) theory of perceptual learning, and supported the view that environment print and logo knowledge facilitated word reading.     

Paired Reading: a study of process and outcome

A peer tutored Paired Reading (PR) project was organised involving 10 and 11 year old pupils at two primary schools. Outcome was assessed by reading age. Tutor and tutee behaviour during PR was analysed by sessional tape recordings. The study indicates that many of the tutors involved in this project failed to follow PR procedures closely, that all tutors employed reinforcement at very low rates, that many important errors were left uncorrected, and that tutors were consistent in their adherence to (or neglect of) the procedures in which they had been trained.

There appeared to be no influence of tutees’ initial reading age on either tutee or tutor behaviour during PR sessions. No aspect of either tutee or tutor behaviour during PR was associated with size of reading gain.

Mechanisms underlying the apparent effectiveness of PR (and a number of other tutoring techniques for oral reading) are discussed in the context of the apparent absence of any relationship between tutor adherence to PR and tutee reading gains.     

Is students’ energy literacy related to their university’s position in a sustainability ranking?

Abstract

University rankings are increasingly important internationally, and in the UK include a sustainability ‘Green League’. However, there is little evidence about experiences of studying in ‘sustainable universities’. We report an empirical study at five universities in varied positions in the Green League, exploring students’ energy literacy, environmental attitudes and perceptions of their institution’s energy-saving efforts. Although the link to energy literacy is not clear, findings suggest that there are significant differences between students’ environmental attitudes at universities placed at different points in the league. In addition, students at higher ranked universities are more positive about their university’s energy-saving efforts, suggesting that these institutions may exhibit more overt manifestations of sustainability. This is important since students report being more likely to choose energy-conservation behaviours if there is visible representation of energy use. The study is the first to attempt a comparison between universities at different positions in a sustainability ranking.     

Effects of a two-phase reading intervention on three orthographic-phonological code connections

According to the Multiple Connections Model, children bring to the task of learning to read varying degrees of skill in three orthographic coding procedures for written words (whole words, single letters, and letter clusters) and in three phonological coding procedures for spoken words (phonetic or name codes, phonemes, and syllables) and thus in ability to form connections between corresponding orthographic and phonological codes: whole word-phonetic/semantic code, letter-phoneme, and letter cluster-syllable/subsyllable. In Phase I of this intervention study only orthographic and phonological coding were remediated. In Phase II explicit teaching in reading was provided that emphasized the multiple orthographic-phonological connections above. Overall the group improved from about one standard deviation below the mean to approximately the mean standard score for grade in reading real words (whole word and subword connections) and in reading nonwords (subword connections only) after an average of 28.7 sessions of about 40 minutes each. Overall 70% of the individuals showed significant gains in reading real words and 90% of the individuals showed significant gains in reading nonwords. The intervention was most effective in creating whole word-phonetic/semantic connections and least effective in creating letter-phoneme connections. These results demonstrate that theory-driven intervention during a critical developmental period in reading acquisition may prevent more serious reading disabilities.     

The dyadic nature of bullying and victimization: testing a dual-perspective theory

For this study, information on Who Bullies Who was collected from 54 school classes with 918 children (M age = 11) and 13,606 dyadic relations. Bullying and victimization were viewed separately from the point of view of the bully and the victim. The two perspectives were highly complementary. The probability of a bully-victim relationship was higher if the bully was more dominant than the victim, and if the victim was more vulnerable than the bully and more rejected by the class. In a bully-victim dyad, boys were more often the bullies. There was no finding of sex effect for victimization. Liking reduced and disliking increased the probability of a bully-victim relationship.     

Educational Resilience at Risk? The Challenges of Attending an Early College High School

The Urban Review - This study sought to explain student success at an Early College High School. Guided by previous research on Early College High Schools as well as by the construct of educational...