Guidelines for Language Classroom Instruction(Ⅰ)

InGuidelines for Language Classroom Instruction,Crookes and Chaudron review research and practice in both second and foreign language contexts.The main areas of classroom instruction described are:presentational modes and focus on form,types of activities and parameters of tasks and interaction,classroom organization,teacher control of interaction,and corrective feedback.     

An Ecosystemic Approach to Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties in Schools

The ecosystemic approach offers a new perspective on emotional and behavioural difficulties in schools by offering a particular analysis of the interactional patterns observable in social systems. The authors describe the origins of this approach in the realm of family therapy and the field of general system theory, and demonstrate its application to emotional and behavioural difficulties in schools through a survey of relevant literature and the presentation of case study material.     

Agency and conformity in school-based teacher training

Concern has been expressed that the current climate in schools militates against trainee teachers’ self-directed development. This article explores the issue of trainees’ capacity for self-direction through the analysis of interviews with 32 trainees, investigating their perceived proactive social strategies. Three proactive strategies were identified: ‘tactical compliance’, personalising advice, and seeking out opportunities to exercise control. It is argued that these strategies are indicative of trainees’ drive to establish a personal teaching identity through self-directed development and the creation of individual development agendas. The article concludes by emphasising the importance of the development of proactive social skills in beginning teachers.     

Staying with the text: the contribution of gender,achievement orientations,and interest to students’ performance on a literacy task

This study addresses concerns about boys’ underperformance on literacy tasks compared to girls, by investigating male and females students’ responses to narrative texts. Participants were 142 Grade 9 and 10 students. Achievement orientations, including goals, self‐efficacy, and self‐handicapping, were measured and approach and avoidance factors identified. Boys scored higher than girls on the avoidance factor. The task presented to participants involved reading sections from two narrative texts representing typically male or typically female reading interests. Interest ratings for the narrative text topics and interest levels while reading the texts were monitored, and students’ answers to multiple‐choice questions on text content recorded. Regression analyses confirmed that the influence of gender, achievement orientation, and on‐task text interest on reading performance varied with different patterns of task interest. The findings suggest that students’ achievement orientations and task interests are both important for understanding gender differences in students’ response to narrative texts.     

How schools and students respond to school improvement programs: The case of Brazil's PDE

This study uses rich empirical data from Brazil to assess how a government program (PDE) that decentralizes school management decisions changes what goes on in schools and how these changes affect student outcomes. It appears that the PDE resulted in some improvements in management and learning materials, but little change in other areas including evaluation and community relations. However, we find no evidence that schools’ participation in the PDE improved student achievement. The results for grade passing are stronger. Students in PDE schools saw greater increases in grade passing rates than students in non-PDE schools during the period of our study. We also estimate a positive relationship between PDE spending and student gains for those schools in the program, especially for spending on teaching and learning materials and furniture. We find no benefit of electronics spending or spending on teacher training, two of the three largest areas of school investment.     

Understanding motivational structures that differentially predict engagement and achievement in middle school science

Middle school has been documented as the period in which a drop in students’ science interest and achievement occurs. This trend indicates a lack of motivation for learning science; however, little is known about how different aspects of motivation interact with student engagement and science learning outcomes. This study examines the relationships among motivational factors, engagement, and achievement in middle school science (grades 6–8). Data were obtained from middle school students in the United States (N?=?2094). The theoretical relationships among motivational constructs, including self-efficacy, and three types of goal orientations (mastery, performance approach, and performance avoid) were tested. The results showed that motivation is best modeled as distinct intrinsic and extrinsic factors; lending evidence that external, performance based goal orientations factor separately from self-efficacy and an internal, mastery based goal orientation. Second, a model was tested to examine how engagement mediated the relationships between intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors and science achievement. Engagement mediated the relationship between intrinsic motivation and science achievement, whereas extrinsic motivation had no relationship with engagement and science achievement. Implications for how classroom practice and educational policy emphasize different student motivations, and in turn, can support or hinder students’ science learning are discussed.     

Time limits in testing: An analysis of eye movements and visual attention in spatial problem solving

Individuals with an aptitude for interpreting spatial information (high mental rotation ability: HMRA) typically master anatomy with more ease, and more quickly, than those with low mental rotation ability (LMRA). This article explores how visual attention differs with time limits on spatial reasoning tests. Participants were assorted to two groups based on their mental rotation ability scores and their eye movements were collected during these tests. Analysis of salience during testing revealed similarities between MRA groups in untimed conditions but significant differences between the groups in the timed one. Question‐by‐question analyses demonstrate that HMRA individuals were more consistent across the two timing conditions (κ = 0.25), than the LMRA (κ = 0.013). It is clear that the groups respond to time limits differently and their apprehension of images during spatial problem solving differs significantly. Without time restrictions, salience analysis suggests LMRA individuals attended to similar aspects of the images as HMRA and their test scores rose concomitantly. Under timed conditions however, LMRA diverge from HMRA attention patterns, adopting inflexible approaches to visual search and attaining lower test scores. With this in mind, anatomical educators may wish to revisit some evaluations and teaching approaches in their own practice. Although examinations need to evaluate understanding of anatomical relationships, the addition of time limits may induce an unforeseen interaction of spatial reasoning and anatomical knowledge. Anat Sci Educ 10: 528–537. © 2017 American Association of Anatomists.     

Separating patent wheat from chaff: Would the US benefit from adopting patent post-grant review?

This article assesses the impact in the US of adopting a patent post-grant review (PGR) procedure similar to one provided in the America Invents Act (AIA) of 2011. We employ novel methods for matching US patents to their European counterparts to find that opposition rates are about three times higher among European Patent Office (EPO) equivalents of US litigated patents as against control-group (unlitigated) patents. Contingent on reaching a final judgment in EPO post-grant opposition, we find that about 70% of these equivalents have challenged claims that are either completely revoked or amended. Using our empirical findings to inform a series of welfare estimates, we calculate benefit-to-cost ratios that the US may expect from implementing PGR in the range of 4:1–10:1. We also discover that these large social benefits result primarily from eliminating unwarranted market power in the current stock of granted patents, and much less so from litigation cost savings per se. Our results provide evidence that the US may benefit substantially from adopting the AIA post-grant review, but only provided that costs are controlled and that administration and appeals are not allowed to become too costly.