A Comparison of Science Performance and Uptake by Fifteen‐year‐old Boys and Girls in Co‐educational and Single‐sex schools—APU survey findings

A naive analysis of the science performance of pupils attending single‐sex and mixed schools shows that, on average, pupils attending the former achieved higher scores. However, since many of the pupils in single‐sex schools attend either independent or grammar schools, the performance difference may have little to do with the attendance at single‐sex schools but more to do with the preselection by ability of pupils in these schools. When comprehensives only are considered, there are no statistically significant differences in the mean performance on the APU tests between single‐sex and mixed schools for either boys or girls. Also there is no evidence that there was a large increase in the take‐up of science subjects for girls attending single‐sex schools. The paper describes why it is not sensible to attribute differences directly to the separation of pupils in schools by sex.     

Deaf children's informal knowledge of multiplicative reasoning

Multiplicative reasoning is required in different contexts in mathematics: it is necessary to understand the concept of multipart units, involved in learning place value and measurement, and also to solve multiplication and division problems. Measures of hearing children's multiplicative reasoning at school entry are reliable and specific predictors of their mathematics achievement in school. An analysis of deaf children's informal multiplicative reasoning showed that deaf children under-perform in comparison to the hearing cohorts in their first two years of school. However, a brief training study, which significantly improved their success on these problems, suggested that this may be a performance, rather than a competence difference. Thus, it is possible and desirable to promote deaf children's multiplicative reasoning when they start school so that they are provided with a more solid basis for learning mathematics.     

Relationships among loneliness,communication competence,and career success in a state bureaucracy: A field study of the ‘lonely at the top’ maxim

This field study investigates associations among loneliness, career success, and communication competence in an effort to account for the finding of Bell, Roloff, Van Camp, and Karol (1990) that individuals who occupy low positions in organizational hierarchies may be more prone to loneliness. Subjects were 182 employees at a state government agency. Each subject's level in the organization was assessed by assigning him or her to one of five ordinal categories, ranging from Clerical (Level 1) to Director (Level 5). In addition, the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale and a measure of communication competence were completed. Hypothesis 1, which predicted a negative relationship between organizational level and loneliness, was supported for male subjects only. The second hypothesis, which anticipated a positive correlation between organizational level and communication competence, was again supported only for males. The third prediction that loneliness would be inversely related to competence received strong support for both sexes. The final hypothesis predicted that the inverse relationship between level and loneliness expected in Hypothesis 1 would become positive when controlling for baseline differences in communication competence between higher‐and lower‐positioned employees. No evidence was found that greater communication competence among employees at higher organizational levels masked a real tendency for career success to be accompanied by more loneliness. These results are discussed in terms of gender differences in the interface of work life and personal relationships.     

‘We matter just the same’: students and pre-service teachers working together in an alternative educational setting

This paper examines how a clinical experience in an alternative educational setting impacted both pre-service secondary teachers and the students with whom they worked. The participants were pre-service secondary teachers completing a clinical experience at a local agency that served a population of students for whom traditional school settings were not effective, as well as students at the agency. The results indicate that for the pre-service teachers, the experience allowed them to develop a deeper understanding of learner diversity and the importance of connecting to students. For the agency students, the interactions with the pre-service teachers provided them with additional academic support, as well as resources for post-secondary education. The agency students also recognized that they had the power to show pre-service teachers how to work effectively with students for whom traditional school settings are a challenge. The authors conclude with implications for pre-service teachers, agency students, and university and clinical site instructors, as well as practical considerations for developing such partnerships.     

Social-Emotional Learning Profiles of Preschoolers' Early School Success: A Person-Centered Approach

Examined how aspects of social-emotional learning (SEL)-specifically, emotion knowledge, emotional and social behaviors, social problem-solving, and self-regulation-clustered to typify groups of children who differ in terms of their motivation to learn, participation in the classroom, and other indices of early school adjustment and academic success. 275 four-year-old children from private day schools and Head Start were directly assessed and observed in these areas, and preschool and kindergarten teachers provided information on social and academic aspects of their school success. Three groups of children were identified: SEL Risk, SEL Competent-Social/Expressive, and SEL Competent-Restrained. Group members differed on demographic dimensions of gender and center type, and groups differed in meaningful ways on school success indices, pointing to needed prevention/intervention programming. In particular, the SEL Risk group could benefit from emotion-focused programming, and the long-term developmental trajectory of the SEL Competent-Restrained group requires study.