Assessing the strength of democratic institutions associated with modern universities: the case of the Greek university

Tertiary Education and Management - This paper proposes the establishment of a systematic framework for measuring dimensions of democracy within a university. It is shown that certain indicators...     

Beliefs of experienced and novice teachers about achievement

The aim of this study was to examine the beliefs that experienced and novice teachers hold about school achievement. It is important to investigate these beliefs and attributions because of the significant role that teachers play in the lives of most children. A group of Greek Cypriot elementary school teachers (n = 154) and a comparable group of teacher education students (n = 159) completed the Beliefs About School Achievement (BASA) scale. It was found that, in comparison to student teachers, experienced teachers tend to attribute achievement more to factors that are biologically determined, uncontrollable by the child, and stable over time – such as intellectual ability. They also believe significantly more than student teachers that factors such as gender and family background play an important role in child achievement. In contrast, novice teachers believe more in the role that teachers play in student learning and in the importance of student effort.     

Developmental Relations Between Home Literacy Environment,Reading Interest,and Reading Skills: Evidence From a 3-Year Longitudinal Study

We examined the bidirectional relations between home literacy environment, reading interest, and children’s emergent literacy and reading skills in a sample of 172 English-speaking Canadian children (M_age = 75.87 months) followed from Grade 1 to Grade 3. Results of cross-lagged analysis revealed that the reading comprehension activities (RCA) at home positively predicted children's reading skills at the end of Grade 2 and the reading skills negatively predicted the RCA in Grade 3. Parent-rated reading interest was bidirectionally related to reading skills, whereas child-rated reading interest was only predicted by earlier reading skills, but not vice versa. These findings suggest that parents are sensitive to their children’s reading performance and modify their involvement accordingly.     

Understanding Assessment in the Classroom: phases of the assessment process — the assessment episode

Many studies have shown that assessment in the classroom is a very complex procedure. As the first part of this paper explains, it is developed in four consecutive phases. That is, evidence collection, interpretation of this evidence, the teacher's responses and, finally, the impact of teacher's responses on children. Together these phases form the assessment episode framework. The second part of the paper illustrates the use of this framework in practice by exploring how Greek primary school teachers were carrying out assessments in the classroom, and considers the impact of these practices on children's learning. The paper draws upon evidence gathered by questionnaire and classroom observations of Greek primary school teachers. In order to clarify the complex issues of classroom assessment this article explores them in the light of the four developmental phases of the assessment episode. The quality of teacher comments, the assessment language used, the role of grading, and the relationship between policy and practice are also examined. The findings emphasise the importance of teachers being aware of the potential effects of assessment and the consequent need to use it properly for the benefit of teaching and learning.     

Examining the effects of PASS cognitive processes on Chinese reading accuracy and fluency

The purpose of this study was to examine the contribution of PASS (Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, and Successive) processes to Chinese reading accuracy and fluency. One-hundred-forty Grade 3 to 5 Mandarin-speaking children were assessed on measures of PASS processes, phonological awareness, and orthographic knowledge. A year later they were assessed on reading accuracy and fluency. The results indicated that successive processing predicted reading through the effects of phonological awareness and simultaneous processing predicted reading through the effects of orthographic knowledge. The results were similar for reading accuracy and fluency. Implications for the PASS theory are discussed.     

Meaning Making with Multiple Representations: a Case Study of a Preservice Teacher Creating a Digital Explanation

Research in Science Education - The construction of dynamic multimedia products requires the selection and integration of a range of semiotic resources. As an assessment task for preservice...     

Tracking the serial advantage in the naming rate of multiple over isolated stimulus displays

Reading and Writing - The serial advantage, defined as the gain in naming rate in the serial over the discrete task of the same content, was examined between grades and types of content in English...     

The contribution of executive functions to naming digits,objects, and words

Although it is established that reading fluency is more strongly related to serial naming of symbols than to naming of isolated items (serial superiority effect), the reason for the difference remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of executive functions in explaining the serial superiority effect. One hundred seven Grade 6 Greek children were assessed on serial and discrete naming (digits, objects, and words), executive (inhibition, shifting, and updating) and non-executive tasks (simple choice reaction), and on a serial Rapid Alternating Stimuli task. Reading fluency correlated more strongly with serial naming than with discrete naming, consistent with the serial superiority effect. In hierarchical regression analyses, executive measures failed to account for variance shared between serial naming and reading fluency. In confirmatory factor analyses, including a discrete and a serial factor for the naming tasks, variance in the executive tasks not shared with simple choice reaction was not associated with the serial factor. Thus, the executive tasks failed to account for the serial superiority effect. The high correlation between the simple choice factor and the discrete naming factor suggests that method variance partially underlies the observed relationship between executive function tasks and word reading. We argue that the distinction between serial and discrete dimensions indicates that internally regulated cognitive control is crucial for the serial superiority in naming symbols and words.     

RAN Components and Reading Development From Grade 3 to Grade 5: What Underlies Their Relationship?

We examined (a) how rapid automatized naming (RAN) components—articulation time and pause time—predict reading accuracy and reading fluency in Grades 4 and 5, and (b) what cognitive-processing skills (phonological processing, orthographic processing, or speed of processing) mediate the RAN–reading relationship. Sixty children were followed from Grade 3 to Grade 5 and were administered RAN (Letters and Digits), phonological processing, lexical and sublexical orthographic processing, speed of processing, reading accuracy, and fluency tasks. Pause time was highly correlated with reading fluency and shared more of its predictive variance with lexical orthographic processing and speed of processing than with phonological processing. Articulation time also predicted reading fluency, and its contribution was mostly independent from other cognitive-processing skills. Implications for the relationship between RAN and reading are discussed.