Coping with school failure: Development of the school failure coping scale

The present study describes the development of a self-report measure of coping with school failure for children and adolescents. A list of 56 items had been collected in the sample of 142 subjects aged from 9 to 18 years. The items were administered to 500 elementary and high school students. Factor analysis of the data produced seven coping strategies: Anger, Accepting Responsibility, Comfort and Forgetting, Seeking Social Support, Parents, Inadequate Reactions, and Disengagement. Internal consistencies were in the .59 to .76 range. Significant age effects were found for Accepting Responsibility, Comfort and Forgetting, and Parents, indicating that elementary school children, compared to high school students, accept greater responsibility, try harder to forget and take comfort, and seek help more from their parents. Significant gender effects were found for Accepting Responsibility, Seeking Social Support, and Inadequate Reactions, indicating that girls accept greater responsibility, more often use social support, and have fewer inadequate reactions than boys. Overall pattern of results also suggests that high achievers use more positive coping strategies (mainly accepting responsibility) and less negative strategies (anger, inadequate reactions and disengagement) than low or average achievers.     

Postcolonial Literature and the Politics of Representation in School Programs

This article explores theoretical and pedagogical frameworks for re-evaluating literary curricula and reading practices in contemporary school classrooms. Data from a study of students' responses to reading international literature in a multi-ethnic urban Canadian high school and conversations with South African high school students on their reading preferences ground this discussion of how students and teachers can cross borders constructed within discourses of race, gender, and ethnicity. Drawing on postcolonial literary theory, critical theory, and reader response theories, the article considers the questions, concerns, and dilemmas that emerge when students begin to deconstruct misrepresentations of "others" in literary texts and acknowledge challenges to their perceptions of self.     

The Dog's Tale: Chinese,Hungarian and Swedish children's narrative conventions L'Histoire du Chien: Les conventions narratives chez les enfants Chinois,Hongrois et Suedois El Cuento del Perro: Convenciones en la forma de narrar de niños Chinos,Hungaros y Suecos

The purpose of this study was to explore children's (6-7 years) making up of their own stories in different cultures (China, Hungary and Sweden). Ninety-three children were asked individually to tell a story about a dog. They were supposed to invent the story themselves. Qualitative differences in children's life worlds, which could be related to their cultural backgrounds, stood out in the results. The characters used in the children's stories could be summarised in terms of family members, ordinary humans, unusual persons, harmless animals, dangerous creatures, and fantastic characters. The most characteristic events were: play and co-operation, conflicts and fights, death, and exchange of commodities. The Chinese children focused mainly on play and co-operation, while the Hungarian children focused on conflicts and the exchange of commodities. The Swedish children focused on play and death. The results are discussed in relation to traditions and practices of retelling and telling of stories and children's life worlds in different cultures. L'objectif de cet étude est d'explorer la forme dont les enfants (de 6-7 ans) construisent des histoires dans des cultures différentes. On a demandé à 93 enfants de raconter une histoire de leur propre invention sur un chien. Les différences existantes dans l'expérience de vie des enfants, susceptibles d'être mises en rapport avec leur milieu culturel, apparurent dans les résultats. Les personnages des histoires racontées entrent dans les catégories de membres de la famille, personnes ordinaires ou extraordinaires, animaux inoffensifs ou dangereux et personnages de fantaisie. Parmi les actions les plus characteristiques se comptent le jeu et la coopération, les conflicts et les disputes, la mort et l'échange d'objets. Les enfants chinois se sont concentrés sur le jeu et la coopération, les hongrois sur les conflicts et l'échange d'objets et les petis suédois sur le jeu et la mort. On discute les résultats de l'étude à la lumière des traditions, des pratiques narratives et de l'expérience de vie des enfants dans des cultures différentes. El objetivo de este estudio es explorar la forma en que niños (de 6 y 7 años) construyen sus propias historias en diferentes culturas (China, Hungría y Suecia). Se solicitó a 93 niños por separado que contaran una historia de su propia invención sobre un perro. Las diferencias existentes en la experiencia vital de estos niños, pasibles de ser relacionadas con sus respectivos medios culturales, se hicieron evidentes en los resultados. El tipo de personajes que aparecen en las historias entran en las siguientes categorías: miembros de la familia, seres humanos ordinarios o inusuales, animales inofensivos o peligrosos y personajes de fantasía. Entre las acciones más características se cuentan el juego y la cooperación, los conflictos y peleas, la muerte y el intercambio de objetos. Los niños chinos se centran en el juego y la cooperación, los húngaros en los conflictos y el intercambio de objetos y los niños suecos en el juego y la muerte. Los resultados del estudio se analizan en relación a las tradiciones y prácticas narrativas así como a la experiencia vital de los niños en diferentes las culturas.     

Integrating Student Assessment Practices: the significance of collaborative partnerships for curriculum and professional development in a university department

The purposes and practices of student assessment in all sectors of education are contested. So when the members of a university department decide to collaborate in order to integrate their assessment requirements, what they enter into is a program of personal and collective review that begins to unmask the moral and political dynamics of curriculum and professional development. This article describes such a collaborative project, its processes and its products, as well as the dynamics of collective review as they relate to facilitation, organisational change, and comfortable versus critical collaboration.     

The influence of children's prior knowledge and previous experience on their spatial orientation skills in an urban environment

This study investigates the capacity of children to develop map-based skills in spatial orientation in an urban environment unknown to them. In this quantitative study, a total of 328 pupils of grades 3–5 had to achieve specific skills with regard to map-based skills in spatial orientation (such as turning-off skills, transformation from map to place, finding one's direction, navigation). These skills were tested by means of a map of Münster (Westphalia, Germany). This paper focuses on factors of potential influence, such as prior knowledge in the field of map reading as well as family- and school-related previous experience.     

Untapped Potential: A Study of Academic Online Legal Research Guides

This article explores the current state of online legal research guides. It surveys guides from 197 ABA-accredited law school libraries and (1) identifies four major types of guides and (2) calculates the total number of academic-law-library-produced online legal research guides. The article also takes a closer look at the content and format of online legal research guides, with immigration-focused guides as an illustration. After analyzing the survey results, the article suggests some best practices for format regardless of the guide type. Ideally, an awareness of the breadth and depth of existing online legal research guides will result in less duplication of efforts among law librarians and more current, accurate, and functional online legal research guides.     

Introverts,Extroverts, and Achievement in a Distance Learning Environment

Although difficulties that characterize distance learning (DL) clearly have differential effects on different learners, links between barrier research and individual differences remain relatively unexplored. This study examined the relationship between cognitive style, based on Jung's (1971) theory, and achievement levels among 77 university students in a videoconference-based learning environment. Clarifying this relationship enables educators to identify in advance students who may require additional instructional support in a DL context. Understanding student-related variables that affect learning also enables faculty to adapt instructions to meet the diverse needs of different students instead of adopting a “one-size-fits-all” approach to designing DL environments.     

Developing a Professional Identity as an Elementary Teacher of Nature of Science: A self-study of becoming an elementary teacher

This study explores the development of professional identity as a teacher of nature of science (NOS). Our research question was ‘How can a teacher develop a professional identity as an elementary teacher of NOS?' Through a researcher log, videotaped lessons, and collection of student work, we were able to track efforts in teaching NOS as part of regular classroom practice. A team of four researchers interpreted the data through the Beijaard et al. professional identity framework and found that it was not as simple and straightforward to teach NOS as we predicted. Development of professional identity as a teacher of NOS was influenced by contextual factors such as students, administration, and time, as well as personal struggles that were fraught with emotion. Development took place through an interpretation and reinterpretation of self through external factors and others' perceptions, as well as the influence of sub-identities.     

What Preservice Teachers and Knowledgeable Others Professionally Notice During Lesson Study

The purpose of this study was to understand what preservice teachers and knowledgeable others professionally notice as they engaged in repeated cycles of a modified version of lesson study, as a component of a field experience in a teacher education program. The study also centered on comparing the professional noticing practices of preservice teachers with other lesson study participants, including classroom teachers and university facilitators. Data analyzed included videos of weekly lesson study analysis meetings for seven weeks for each of four teams. Each team included six preservice teachers, a classroom teacher, and a university facilitator. Findings indicate that preservice teachers primarily noticed elements about the classroom environment and teacher pedagogy, but included instances of noticing centered on students' mathematical thinking. In contrast, classroom teachers and university facilitators, as knowledgeable others, typically noticed general events and were less focused on students' mathematical thinking. Analysis of noticing trends over the seven weeks indicated that noticing levels remained steady initially, dropped in the fourth and fifth week, and resumed original status in the final weeks. Results that the preservice teachers' noticing comments were at higher levels than the knowledgeable others are contrary to other research studies and indicate that incorporating lesson study with appropriate scaffolds into a field experience for preservice teachers may be a viable option for encouraging noticing of students' mathematical thinking.