Teaching HOTS in the middle and high school: A district‐level initiative in developing higher order thinking skills

The call for the teaching of thinking skills has been underscored by national reports on educational reform. This report describes a school district initiative addressing thinking skills instruction through inservice education.     

The influence of parents on undergraduate and graduate students’ entering the STEM disciplines and STEM careers

This research examines the influence of parents on students’ studying the STEM disciplines and entering STEM careers. Cases of two graduate students (one female, one male) and one undergraduate student (male) are featured. The first two students in the convenience sample are biology and physics majors in a STEM teacher education programme; the third is enrolled in computer science. The narrative inquiry research method is used to elucidate the students’ academic trajectories. Incidents of circumstantial and planned parent curriculum making surfaced when the data was serially interpreted. Other themes included: (1) relationships between (student) learners and (teacher) parents, (2) invitations to inquiry, (3) modes of inquiry, (4) the improbability of certainty, and (5) changed narratives?=?changed lives. While policy briefs provide sweeping statements about parents’ positive effects on their children, narrative inquiries such as this one illuminate parents’ inquiry moves within home environments. These actions became retrospectively revealed in their adult children’s lived narratives. Nurtured by their mothers and/or fathers, students enter STEM disciplines and STEM-related careers through multiple pathways in addition to the anticipated pipeline.     

Hesitant hopes: How a comprehensive approach to learning impacts on the transition hopes of marginalised young people in an alternative learning programme in regional Australia

Concerns have been raised internationally about whether alternative learning programmes are producing low-skilled labourers for rapidly disappearing twenty-first-century jobs. Researchers claim that learners in alternative programmes are more at risk due to the focus on low-level vocational and basic skill attainment, with a lack of formal academic pathways available to them. This article questions whether and in what ways an alternative learning programme supports young people to achieve successful transitions to sustainable social mobility for informed citizenship through a holistic approach to learning; or if class stratification is being re/enforced through systems’ accountability discourses. Hesitant hopes in alternative learning are explored through an ethnographic study of one alternative learning programme across five sites in regional Australia. Contextually, not-for-profit community agencies provide physical infrastructures as well as youth workers and volunteers, while a publicly funded School of Distance Education provides teacher oversight of the curriculum. Findings suggest that the theme of ‘hesitant hope’ is constructed through the analysis of the discourses of supporting wellbeing, life skill development and academic learning. These discourses facilitate further analysis of the concept of social mobility, suggesting a conceptual starting point for an engaging critique of the differing perspectives on how support could be providing these marginalised young people with a sense of hope for a socially mobile future.     

Comparing dropout predictors for two state-level panels using Grade 6 and Grade 8 data

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of dropout predictors across time. Two state-level high school graduation panels were selected to begin with the seventh and ninth grades but end at the same time. The first panel (seventh grade) contained 29,554 students and used sixth grade predictors. The second panel (ninth grade) included 31,641 students and used eighth grade predictors. The predictors studied were age, poverty, attendance, gender, and standardized test scores. The data were analyzed using logistic regression. All variables were predictors of dropping out of high school. Age and poverty proved to be the most effective at discriminating between dropouts and graduates within each panel. Age became more effective with time. Attendance and test scores were stable indicators between panels. Gender predicted dropouts for only the ninth grade panel. Eighth graders that were female were approximately 22% less likely to drop out.     

The influence of self-efficacy and metacognitive prompting on math problem-solving efficiency

A regression design was used to test the unique and interactive effects of self-efficacy beliefs and metacognitive prompting on solving mental multiplication problems while controlling for mathematical background knowledge and problem complexity. Problem-solving accuracy, response time, and efficiency (i.e. the ratio of problems solved correctly to time) were measured. Students completed a mathematical background inventory and then assessed their self-efficacy for mental multiplication accuracy. Before solving a series of multiplication problems, participants were randomly assigned to either a prompting or control group. We tested the motivational efficiency hypothesis, which predicted that motivational beliefs, such as self-efficacy and attributions to metacognitive strategy use are related to more efficient problem solving. Findings suggested that self-efficacy and metacognitive prompting increased problem-solving performance and efficiency separately through activation of reflection and strategy knowledge. Educational implications and future research are suggested.     

Measuring newspaper readership: A qualitative variable approach

Abstract

Newspaper readership is usually measured by a single variable such as frequency of use, amount of use, etc. This article argues that readership cannot be fully described by a single measure and suggests treating it as a latent variable reflecting the time, frequency, and completeness of readership on both Sundays and weekdays. This study uses data from 101 newspaper markets in the US. The latent variable can be either quantitative or qualitative. Factor analysis is used to define the quantitative variable and latent class analysis, the qualitative variable. The relationship between the approaches is studied with principal components analysis, profiling, and hierarchical linear models. The two approaches are shown to produce complementary conclusions when relating readership to demographics and content interests. Media consumption studies can examine both qualitative and quantitative latent variables and thereby enhance the interpretability and the scope of the results.     

Cognitive efficiency: A conceptual and methodological comparison

Cognitive efficiency (CE) is generally defined as qualitative increases in knowledge gained in relation to the time and effort invested in knowledge acquisition. Across disciplines, limited consensus exists concerning the conceptual and measurement properties of CE partly because some researchers indiscriminately use the construct of CE to describe neurological, instructional, performance, and learning efficiency. In this study, two models of measuring CE, the likelihood model (Hoffman & Schraw, 2010), and the deviation model ( [van Gog and Paas, 2008] and [Paas and van Merri?nboer, 1993]) were used to compare problem-solving outcomes and determine if different conceptual models of CE measure the same or different efficiency constructs. The two models yielded uncorrelated scores using the same data. Further, regression analysis revealed that unique variance associated with effort, self-efficacy judgments, and background knowledge differed according to the measurement model used, suggesting that either each measurement approach assessed a different facet of CE, or the efficiency constructs measured were altogether different. Practical applications of CE research for teaching and learning are discussed.     

Identification of a Rare Hemoglobin Variant HbJ-Rajappen [alpha90 (FG2) Lys?→?Thr] Using Mass Spectrometry

Hemoglobin J-Rajappen (alpha)90 Lys → Thr is an alpha chain variant found in heterozygous state and presents normal hematological blood picture. Due to the ambiguity in results obtained while analyzing by HPLC and alkaline gel electrophoresis, we report this rare case of HbJ-Rajappen using non denaturing gel electrophoresis and matrix assisted laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry. Though HbJ-Rajappen has earlier been reported using different techniques, this is the first report being validated using mass spectrometry technique.