Curriculum Alignment with a Mission of Social Change in Higher Education

Institutions of higher education frequently acknowledge their role in contributing to the common good through their mission statements. The current literature suggests that in order to be effective mission statements must be clearly articulated and reflected in all the activities of the institution including its curriculum. Faculty members at Walden University developed a Curriculum Guide for Social Change that could serve as a tool for reviewing current course offerings and developing new courses to reflect its mission of “creating positive social change.” Those involved in piloting the Guide report on the process in this article. The general consensus is that it was time-consuming and frequently subjective; but the Guide gave substance to the institution’s mission, opening the way for its fuller implementation.     

Parent and Peer Predictors of Change in Attachment Security From Adolescence to Adulthood

Interview, self‐report, peer report, and observational data were used to examine parent and peer relationship qualities as predictors of relative changes in attachment security in a community sample of adolescents followed from ages 14 to 24. Early maternal supportive behavior predicted relative increases in attachment security from adolescence to adulthood, whereas psychological control and interparental hostile conflict predicted relative decreases. Peer predictors of relative increases in security included collaborative and autonomous behaviors and lack of hostile interactions, with peer predictions growing stronger for relationships assessed at later ages. Overall, models accounted for sufficient variance as to suggest that attachment security across this period is well explained by a combination of stability plus theoretically predicted change linked to social relationship qualities.     

Understanding the impact of guiding inquiry: the relationship between directive support,student attributes,and transfer of knowledge,attitudes, and behaviours in inquiry learning

Guiding inquiry learning has been shown to increase knowledge gains. Yet, little is known about the effect of guidance on attitudes and behaviours, its interaction with student attributes, and transfer of impact once guidance is removed. We address these gaps in the context of an interactive Physics simulation on electric circuits (https://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/circuit-construction-kit-dc). 49 students in the Non-Directive condition received a set of goals to focus their inquiry, in addition to implicit support built into the simulation. 48 students in the Directive condition received, in addition to these, also detailed directions and prompts. Log-file analysis found that directive support led to more formal testing and less exploration. Clustering identified two groups of learners: one with higher incoming knowledge (Higher Knowledge), the other with higher incoming perceptions of competence and control (Higher PoCC). Working with the simulation improved knowledge and attitudes across cluster groups, so that prior differences all but disappeared. With regard to guidance, adding directive support improved knowledge gains for the Higher Knowledge group, yet suppressed their attitudinal growth. The same support had no effect on knowledge gains for the Higher PoCC group, yet it boosted their attitudinal growth. A transfer activity, where directive support was no longer available, found that impact on attitudes carried forward, yet impacts on behaviours and knowledge were short-lived. Overall, the study highlights the complex interaction between guidance and student attributes. For some, supporting short-term knowledge gains may inadvertenly lead to longer term negative impact on attitudes towards inquiry.     

Teasing apart the child care conundrum: A factorial survey analysis of perceptions of child care quality, fair market price and willingness to pay by low-income, African American parents

Child care quality plays a crucial role in children's social and cognitive development. While child care quality is a critical issue for all children, it matters more for low-income children. Policy makers have increased the emphasis on allowing parents, not government, to make decisions about the type of care they want for their children. Yet most research on child care quality has focused on how child care professionals, not parents define high quality care. This study investigates how low-income families evaluate child care quality by examining the child care preferences of a sample of low-income African American parents. We employ the factorial survey method, a method used in sociological research to assess people's perceptions and rankings of individual attributes associated with complex multidimensional phenomena. The factorial survey method permits a simultaneous assessment of how respondents evaluate and make tradeoffs among multiple child care characteristics. We assess the impact of child care characteristics on respondents’ perceptions of child care desirability, fair market value, and willingness to pay. Findings indicate that parents’ definition of quality focused squarely on the care giving environment, specifically the qualifications, experience, training and behavior associated with the child care provider. The type of care facility—family, center, relative or neighbor care was largely irrelevant to this sample of parents. Parents believed that the characteristics they defined as desirable child care situations were worth more, and parents were willing to pay more for these characteristics. These parents also defined quality in terms of race and class, and they wanted racial and economic diversity. This research suggests parents may choose lower quality care, not because they do not know what quality is or because they define quality care differently, but because such care may be neither available nor affordable in their communities.     

Using semantics, grammar, phonology, and rapid naming tasks to predict word identification

This study investigated the relative importance of semantic, grammatical, phonological, and rapid naming abilities in predicting word identification in a large, representative sample of children enrolled in first through sixth grade, using correlation, factor analysis, multiple regression, and predictive outcome analysis techniques. Composite measures of these abilities were found to correlate significantly with word identification, even after controlling for the effects of nonverbal intelligence. Factor analysis indicated that the spoken language composites and the word identification composite loaded on one factor, whereas the perceptual speed composites loaded on a second factor. Multiple regression analyses showed that among younger children in the early stages of learning to read and children whose word identifying skills were below average, the phonology and rapid naming composites accounted for the most variance in predicting word identification skills. Among older children and children who were proficient in word identification, the semantics composite accounted for the most variance. The most important analyses in this study (i.e., the calculations of the sensitivity indexes, the specificity indexes, and the positive predictive values) evaluated the practical value of using the composites to predict poor word identification skills in children. To be considered practically useful, all predictive outcome values had to be .75 or greater. None of the composites studied, including an application of the double-deficit hypothesis, met this criterion. The results from this study question the accuracy and utility of using any of the abilities studied to predict which students are at risk for or have poor word identification skills.     

Object permanence in child and chimpanzee

In a repeated-measures design, two infant chimpanzees and three human infants were tested in like manner using the Uzgiris and Hunt (1975) stepwise assessment instrument for the development of object permanence in human infants. Comparisons between chimpanzee and human subjects showed similarities in the number of steps achieved, in the order and rate of achieving the steps, and in the detailed characteristics of searching behavior. These results suggest that the course of development of the concept of object permanence, as described by Piaget, is a very general one.     

以能力为本位的课程创新体系构建

合理的课程创新体系是突出高职特色的保证.针对我国高职课程模式在培养人才职业综合素质和职业道德方面存在的明显缺陷,结合中澳职业教育与培训国家项目的实践,打破传统学科体系框架,依照行业的能力标准,对课程设置、教学设计和授课方式等进行全方位的改革,形成了以能力为本位的课程创新体系.