An examination of the research and training needs in the field of deaf education

THE NATIONAL CENTER on Low-Incidence Disabilities conducted a needs assessment of the research and training needs in the field of deaf education. A total of 331 professionals, parents, administrators, and university faculty responded to the survey. Overall, respondents indicated that the number-one priority was to educate administrators about services that are appropriate for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. The second most important concern was how to work within the education system to change it. The third priority was teaching reading strategies. Additional priorities are reported for all respondents, as well as comparisons among the different respondent groups. Implications of the results are presented.     

Cultural and School-Grade Differences in Korean and White American Children's Narrative Skills

A great deal of ethnographic research describes different communicative styles in Asian and Western countries. Asian cultures emphasise the listener's role in assuring successful communication, whereas Western cultures place the responsibility primarily on the speaker. This pattern suggests that Asian children may develop higher-level receptive skills and Western children may develop higher-level expressive skills. However, the language of children in formal education may develop in certain ways regardless of cultural influences. The present study quantifies the cultural and school-grade differences in language abilities reflected in middle-class Korean and white American children's story-telling and story-listening activities. Thirty-two Korean first- and fourth-grade children and their American counterparts were individually asked to perform two tasks: one producing a story from a series of pictures, and one involving listening to and then retelling a story. The individual interview was transcribed in their native languages and analysed in terms of ambiguity of reference, the number of causal connectors, the amount of information, and the number of central and peripheral idea units that were included in the story retelling. The data provided some empirical evidence for the effects of culture and school education in children's language acquisition.     

Researching the Transition to High School for Adolescents with a Disability: Qualitative Action-Project Method as an Exemplar Approach

ABSTRACT

The transition from elementary to middle or high school is an important experience common to most adolescents in North America. However, very little research has been conducted to understand the experiences of students with a disability status and the stakeholders involved in the transition. Clearly, there is a need to generate information that views the transition as a process between students and stakeholders that takes place over time. This investigation illustrates the utility of the action-project method for studying the transition to middle or high school. Three cases involving Canadian adolescents with different disabilities (learning, sensory/motor and emotional/behavioural) and their parents, as key stakeholders, are presented.     

Supporting International Students: Enhancing College Counselors’ Multicultural Counseling Competence

International students experience significant difficulties as they adjust to the dominant culture in the United States. However, there is a substantial gap between the reported academic and sociological distress these students experience and their help‐seeking behaviors. This article reviews international students’ distinctive challenges in seeking professional help and proposes guidelines to effectively support these students by enhancing college counselors’ multicultural counseling competence.     

Specification Search for Identifying the Correct Mean Trajectory in Polynomial Latent Growth Models

This study investigated the optimal strategy for model specification search under the latent growth modeling (LGM) framework, specifically on searching for the correct polynomial mean or average growth model when there is no a priori hypothesized model in the absence of theory. In this simulation study, the effectiveness of different starting models on the search of the true mean growth model was investigated in terms of the mean and within-subject variance-covariance (V-C) structure model. The results showed that specifying the most complex (i.e., unstructured) within-subject V-C structure with the use of LRT, ΔAIC, and ΔBIC achieved the highest recovery rate (>85%) of the true mean trajectory. Implications of the findings and limitations are discussed.     

Latent class analysis of non-formal learners’ self-directed learning patterns in open educational resource repositories

Open educational resources (OERs) are increasingly adopted in non-formal education contexts. However, little research has been conducted to investigate the self-directed learning patterns of non-formal learners using OERs. A lack of knowledge about non-formal learners precludes discussions on how to support their self-regulated learning in open learning environments. We explored the self-directed learning patterns of 1892 non-formal online learners who were using OER repositories. In addition, we examined whether differences existed in future intentions to use OERs between learners with different learning patterns. Four latent classes were identified, and learners’ age was found to affect class membership. We also found that non-formal learners’ use of self-directed learning strategies predicted their future intentions to use OERs. This study advanced our understanding of the subpopulations of non-formal learners using OERs. Future research will benefit from the findings related to designing OER environments that can accommodate diverse self-directed learners.     

Student Engagement in Research,Scholarship, and Creative Activity (SERSCA) Program: Sharing a Program Model from Design and Development through Evaluation

The Student Engagement in Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity (SERSCA) Program at California State University, Stanislaus provides support for student engagement in these areas from idea conception through dissemination. Through assistantships, mini-grants, the Student Research Competition, and travel grants, the Program is designed to improve the overall quality of education and increase retention, GPA, the number of units completed, degree completion, and enrollment in graduate or professional school. In this article we provide an overview of the SERSCA Program and preliminary evaluation findings from the first year of implementation.     

Predicting children’s academic achievement from early assessment scores: a validity generalization study

Although there have been numerous studies investigating the predictive validity of early assessment, observed predictive validity coefficients across studies are not stable. A validity generalization study was conducted in order to answer the question of whether the relationship between early assessment of children and later achievement is generalizable or situation-specific. This study examined 716 predictive correlation coefficients from 44 studies using Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM). The findings of this study revealed that predictive validity of early assessment is not generalizable. Additional analyses indicated that predictive validity differ across assessments as a function of test type, specific construct being assessed, length of prediction, and administration procedures. The most impressive finding in this study was the variability of effect sizes across different test administration types. In particular, tests that were scored through ratings were found to be most effective. These findings suggest that instead of addressing a broad predictive validity between a test and a criterion measure, it is necessary to understand early assessment procedures as a whole system by including considerations of various variables related to testing conditions.     

Challenges of designing and carrying out laboratory experiments about Newton's second law

Science & Education - Experiment is understood as a core activity in science education as well as science in general. Despite many efforts to improve science education in the laboratory, a...