Sources of Individual Differences in Children's Understanding of Fractions

Longitudinal associations of domain‐general and numerical competencies with individual differences in children's understanding of fractions were investigated. Children (n = 163) were assessed at 6 years of age on domain‐general (nonverbal reasoning, language, attentive behavior, executive control, visual‐spatial memory) and numerical (number knowledge) competencies; at 7 years on whole‐number arithmetic computations and number line estimation; and at 10 years on fraction concepts. Mediation analyses controlling for general mathematics ability and general academic ability revealed that numerical and mathematical competencies were direct predictors of fraction concepts, whereas domain‐general competencies supported the acquisition of fraction concepts via whole‐number arithmetic computations or number line estimation. Results indicate multiple pathways to fraction competence.     

Teaching as a 'research-based profession': encouraging practitioner research in special education

Richard Rose is head of the Centre for Special Needs Education and Research at University College Northampton as well as being Research Section Editor for BJSE. In this article, he reviews aspects of the relationship between teaching, special education and research. He argues that 'educational research, and consequently policy making, has too often taken insufficient account of teachers' professional credibility and expertise'. He proposes that teachers should be encouraged to become more involved in research activities and that practitioners and researchers should work together 'in determining the agenda for a research-based profession'.
Richard Rose and I hope that the Research Section in BJSE will have a key role to play in promoting this kind of partnership. It is our shared intention to publish a series of examples of practitioner or partnership research, showing the influence that systematic, practice-focused enquiry can have on the evaluation, review and development of practice and the formulation of improved policy. We hope that many practitioner researchers will wish to put forward their work for publication in this series. Contact Richard Rose to discuss this possibility and watch for further guidance in future issues of BJSE.     

Universal Service in a Ubiquitous Digital Network

Before there was the digital divide there was the analog divide– and universal service was the attempt to close that analogdivide. Universal service is becoming ever more complex in terms ofregulatory design as it becomes the digital divide. In order to evaluatethe promise of the next generation Internet with respect to the digitaldivide this work looks backwards as well as forwards in time. Byevaluating why previous universal service mechanisms failed andsucceeded this work identifies specific characteristics ofcommunications systems – in particular in billing and managinguncertainty – and argues that these characteristics underliesuccess or failure in terms of technological ubiquity. Developing a setof characteristics of services rather than a set of services is afundamental break with the tradition of universal service. In fact, theimplications of our proposal is that basic characteristics in theoffering of the service rather than the absolute price are critical toclose the digital divide: certainty of total charge, ability to avoiddeposits or disconnection via best effort service, and payer-basedcontrol of all charges. While all of these principles sound obvious infact none of these hold in the telephony network. Universal service hasevolved from common carriage (serve all with no discrimination) to aright to basic services (100% penetration). Universal service isnow discussed as the digital divide, as the access to information asopposed to services becomes increasingly critical. However, we arediscussing in this paper access to the bits and the network rather thanaccess to the information (or intellectual property) once connected. Theprovision of universal service is seen as a technical problem only in thatthe technology costs money – universal service debates have longbeen the domain of economists. Yet the design of protocols has been thedomain of engineers, the building of systems the corporate domain, andthe discussion of equity the interest of ethicists. The design ofprotocols can define the parameters of the corporate decision-makers,the variables of the economist, and the questions for the ethicist. Thedesign decisions made at the fundamental levels can make communicationsequity more or less likely. In this work I focus on the design ofprotocols for the next generation Internet, protocols which willfundamentally change the best-effort nature of Internet services.Building on the economic and ethnographic work of others I argue thatthe effects of protocols adoption on universal service can be predictedto some degree. By examination of past and current technologies Iexamine a set of technical mechanisms to determine how such mechanismsmight harm or enhance universal service. I define each mechanism (e.g.denial of entry) and offer observations about each particularmechanism's implicit pricing assumptions. I close with a discussion ofinterest to ethicists and regulators on evaluating communicationsprotocols with respect to universal access. Protocols for developingmultiple qualities of service for packet-switched networks have focusedon economic efficiency (e.g. Mackie-Mason, 1995; Choi, Stahl &Winston, 1997; Shapiro & Varian, 1998), billing to encouragewidespread adoption of network innovations (e.g. Xie & Sirbu, 1985)and billing in a manner consistent with the underlying network (e.g.Clark, 1996). Here we examine a set of protocols which include varyingquality of service mechanisms with respect to the compatibility of theprotocols with universal access.     

Emergent storybook reading revisited (Research Note)

Fifteen children from working-class homes attending two kindergarten classes in one school in a small town in Canada were asked to select their favourite book in October and June to read to a researcher. The storybook re-enactments were tape recorded and transcribed, and then coded according to a developmental scheme developed by Sulzby (1985) and Barnhart (1991). The results were compared with the results of Sulzby’s (1985) study with 24 children from middle-class homes. The mean score of the children in the Sulzby study was found to be significantly higher in October than the mean score of the children in the present study. Furthermore, the difference between the mean scores of the two groups had increased significantly by June. Further analysis revealed that the children in the present study did not show the same developmental progression as the children in the Sulzby study and, in fact, 11 of the 15 children did not progress at all along the developmental continuum. The results are discussed in relation to concepts of emergent literacy and socio-economic factors in early reading development.