Predicting student self-concept,anxiety, and responsibility from self-evaluation and self-praise

Nineteen elementary teachers were observed for the frequency with which they modeled self-praise for their students and taught their students to praise and evaluate themselves. Measures of student self-concept, anxiety, and achievement responsibility were taken at the end of the year. It was found that teacher modeling of self-praise correlated negatively with boys' selfconcept and positively with girls'. Teacher encouragement of students to praise other students correlated positively with boys' anxiety and negatively with girls'. Teacher modeling of self-praise and teacher encouragement of students to praise other students were the best predictors of self-concept.     

A new role for the school psychologists— who needs it?

Educators are expressing concern over the wide and growing gap which they perceive to exist between research and practice in our nation's schools. A review of the literature reveals that this important, long-standing concern is well founded. It is proposed that the school psychologist with his/her specialized training in research theory and methodology and unique role as a practitioner in the school setting is the ideal professional to effect a linking of formal knowledge to educational practice. Presumably, the provision of such a vitally needed function will serve to enhance school psychologists' often less than favorable image with their educator colleagues. A paradigm is offered for effecting research into practice utilizing the school psychologist in the role of knowledge-linker.     

Art instruction and the Goodenough-Harris drawing test in fifth-graders

The experiment was conducted to assess the effect of ordinary school art instruction in human figure drawing on scores of the Goodenough-Harris Drawing Test. Subjects consisted of 44 fifth-grade students attending a suburban parochial school who were members of two preexisting, randomly assigned homeroom classes. Both classes were taught two lessons in art by their regular teachers. The treatment group was taught human figure drawing, and the control group had art lessons excluding figure drawing instruction. The Drawing Test was administered three times, one preinstruction and two postinstruction administrations. Absenteeism reduced treatment and control groups to 14 and 17 subjects, respectively. As predicted, no differences were found in the control group between pretest and postests. The treatment group showed significant gains on both posttests, as well as a significant decline from the first posttest to the second posttest.     

Alignment and Implications for Test Takers

The use of assessment results to inform school accountability relies on the assumption that the test design appropriately represents the content and cognitive emphasis reflected in the state's standards. Since the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act and the certification of accountability assessments through federal peer review practices, the content validity arguments supporting accountability have relied almost exclusively on the alignment of statewide assessments to state standards. It is assumed that if alignment does not hold, the scores will not provide valid inferences regarding the degree to which test takers have performed. Although alignment results are commonly used as evidence of test appropriateness, Polikoff (this issue) would argue that given the importance of alignment in policy decisions, research related to alignment is surprisingly limited. Few studies have addressed the adequacy of alignment methodologies and results as support for the inferences to be made (i.e., proficient on state standards). This paper uses an example of test taker performance (and common performance indicators) to investigate to what extent the degree of alignment impacts inferences made about performance (i.e., classification into performance levels, estimates of student ability, and student rank order).     

当加油站无油可加时

1 　　当你看到越来越多的加油站的油泵空空时别觉得奇怪,也别惊慌,因为并没有发生像20世纪70年代那样的石油短缺的危机.……     

Using Academic Journals to Help Students Learn Subject Matter Content, Develop and Practice Critical Reasoning Skills, and Reflect on Personal Values in Food Science and Human Nutrition Classes

ABSTRACT:  It has been reported that students learn best when they use a wide variety of techniques to understand the information of the discipline, be it visual, auditory, discussion with others, metacognition, hands-on activities, or writing about the subject. We report in this article the use of academic journals not only as an aid for students to learn about content knowledge needed in an Experimental Foods course, but also as a way to have students think about and reflect on their own personal values. The topics of these journal entries cover several of the core competencies in the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Undergraduate Education Standards for Degrees in Food Science. These are basic principles of food science, as well as address several "Success Skills" (written communication, critical thinking, professionalism, life-long learning, interaction skills, and organizational skills). While there are no quantitative "measurements" of gains in learning, comments from the students indicate that learning took place, critical reasoning occurred, and personal values were analyzed. A guideline for writing and grading academic journals and a simple rubric for scoring the quality of the writing are included.