Play, Language, and Maternal Responsiveness: A Longitudinal Study of Deaf and Hearing Infants

Language, maternal responsiveness, and developmental play levels were investigated in 43 middle-class dyads at 9, 12, and 18 months: hearing child/hearing mother (hH), deaf child/deaf mother (dD), deaf child/hearing mother (dH). Group dH provides information about play when language is delayed and maternal responsiveness decreased. Group dD provides information on developmental effects of diminished audition. There were no 9-month group play differences. At 12 months, hH infants displayed more representational play than infants in either deaf group ( p < .001). At 18 months, hH and dD children displayed more preplanned play than dH children ( p = .01). At 12 and 18 months, language was associated only marginally with play levels. Maternal responsiveness was significantly associated with 18-month-olds' preplanned play ( p = .01).     

“I Hope to Remain the Same”: Continuity and Change in College Students' Sexual Possible Selves across the First Semester

This study replicates and extends research on college students’ sexual possible selves by longitudinally examining their sexual expectations, fears, and behavioral strategies at the beginning and end of the first semester in college. Open-ended responses were collected at two time points (T1, N?=?78; T2, N?=?40) and were analyzed using directed content analysis. First semester students’ salient expectations and fears focused on abstinence, interpersonal relationships, quantity, conditional sex, decreasing/avoidant behaviors, and fears related to sexual health/well-being, sexual assault/coercion, self-focus, and increased sexual risk at both T1 and T2. However, two new themes emerged at T2: maintain (expected) and partner-focus (feared). At both time points, behavioral strategies included abstinence, making opportunities, restricting boundaries, sexual health/well-being, thoughtful/informed decisions, and self-assertion/protection. Quantitative frequency comparisons were also conducted to examine changes in the prevalence of the reported categories and indicated shifts in salient expectations, fears, and strategies across the first semester. Implications for sexual education are discussed.     

Cooperating Teaching as a Professional Development Activity

This study examined cooperating teachers’ perceptions of how student teacher supervision is aligned with the standards of the National Staff Development Council (NSDC). The conceptual framework of this research advanced that serving as a cooperating teacher is equivalent to a professional development activity. The researcher adapted an instrument from the NSDC to measure cooperating teachers’ perceptions in grades K-12. The survey was completed by 181 out of the 287 sample population. Cooperating teachers moderately agreed that student teacher supervision aligned with the standards of the NSDC. This role used the three categories needed for effective professional development: context, process, and content.     

A model for using a concept inventory as a tool for students' assessment and faculty professional development

This essay describes how the use of a concept inventory has enhanced professional development and curriculum reform efforts of a faculty teaching community. The Host Pathogen Interactions (HPI) teaching team is composed of research and teaching faculty with expertise in HPI who share the goal of improving the learning experience of students in nine linked undergraduate microbiology courses. To support evidence-based curriculum reform, we administered our HPI Concept Inventory as a pre- and postsurvey to approximately 400 students each year since 2006. The resulting data include student scores as well as their open-ended explanations for distractor choices. The data have enabled us to address curriculum reform goals of 1) reconciling student learning with our expectations, 2) correlating student learning with background variables, 3) understanding student learning across institutions, 4) measuring the effect of teaching techniques on student learning, and 5) demonstrating how our courses collectively form a learning progression. The analysis of the concept inventory data has anchored and deepened the team's discussions of student learning. Reading and discussing students' responses revealed the gap between our understanding and the students' understanding. We provide evidence to support the concept inventory as a tool for assessing student understanding of HPI concepts and faculty development.     

Revisiting the 1990 special issue on minority children: an editorial perspective 15 years later

The 2006 Special Issue on Race, Ethnicity, and Culture in Child Development occurs 15 years after the 1990 Special Issue on Minority Children and marks roughly 50 years since the historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. This issue provides an assessment of how researchers have represented development of America's diverse youth. This commentary provides a perspective of the progress and needs inferred from the 1990 special issue. A consistent theme is the necessity to link research and developmental theorizing with the intentions of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, as the relevant integration is often left to legal scholars, Whiteness studies theorists, and a few child-development-focused researchers (e.g., Cross, 1991; Spencer, 2005).