An Application of Generalizability Theory to Evaluate the Technical Quality of an Alternate Assessment

Although federal regulations require testing students with severe cognitive disabilities, there is little guidance regarding how technical quality should be established. It is known that challenges exist with documentation of the reliability of scores for alternate assessments. Typical measures of reliability do little in modeling multiple sources of error, which are characteristic of alternate assessments. Instead, Generalizability theory (G-theory) allows researchers to identify sources of error and analyze the relative contribution of each source. This study demonstrates an application of G-theory to examine reliability for an alternate assessment. A G-study with the facets rater type, assessment attempts, and tasks was examined to determine the relative contribution of each to observed score variance. Results were used to determine the reliability of scores. The assessment design was modified to examine how changes might impact reliability. As a final step, designs that were deemed satisfactory were evaluated regarding the feasibility of adapting them into a statewide standardized assessment and accountability program.     

Young children's enactments of human rights in early childhood education

This paper explores ways in which human rights become part of and affect young children's everyday practices in early childhood education and, more particularly, how very young children enact human rights in the preschool setting. The study is conducted in a Swedish preschool through observations of the everyday practices of a group of children aged between 1 and 3 years. With a child view based on human rights theory and childhood sociology, an action-based methodology for seeking children's perspective is used to analyse the observation data. Three rights areas are identified in which children frequently deal with human rights in their actions and where they enact a range of possible rights holder positions: ownership, influence and equal value. These rights areas, and the children's various enactments of the rights, are reflected against the preschool context as a co-constructor to the actions of the participants.     

Relational ways of being an educator: trauma-informed practice supporting disenfranchised young people

Despite complex reasons for disengagement and exclusion from conventional schooling, all children have a right to education that is of a high quality. Disenfranchised young people require alternatives for re-engaging in education. This necessitates a rethinking of what it means to be an educator in alternative education settings and how to relate to young people who have experienced exclusion and failure in conventional school settings. Relational ways of being an educator are vital to support the creation of lifelong learners, not merely school completers. Flexible learning programmes offer a model of re-engagement in which relational ways of being an educator are prioritised. This article explores key aspects of trauma-informed practice and relational pedagogy in a network of flexi schools in Australia. Relational pedagogy can redress the impact of trauma and social exclusion experienced by young people. In flexi schools educator identities are challenged and changed by a willingness to explore and understand the impact of trauma on young people's development and capacity to learn. A commitment to trauma-informed practice and relational pedagogy requires educator identities to be co-constructed and negotiated in relationship with young people and colleagues. These shifts in educators' sense of identity in the flexi schools context are explored.     

Using Performance Feedback To Decrease Classroom Transition Time And Examine Collateral Effects On Academic Engagement

Performance feedback has been described as a necessary component of consultation. Although feedback has been used to improve academic performance of individual students, less research has examined the effects on classroom academic engagement when implementation of classroom management variables is the source of feedback. Using a multiple-baseline design, the effects of performance feedback with goal setting was examined across three high school biology teachers who were first provided with feedback on the number of seconds devoted to transitions and then successful implementation of classroom time management strategies. Feedback on the number of transition minutes alone led to decreases in transition time and corresponding increases in student academic engagement for all teachers. One teacher benefited from additional feedback on classroom time management strategies. For all teachers, low rates of transition time and high rates of academic engagement were maintained when the intervention was faded and after it was terminated.     

Preschoolers’ Emergent Literacy Skills: The Mediating Role of Maternal Reading Beliefs

Research Findings: The purpose of this paper is to explore the association between maternal reading beliefs and children's emergent literacy outcomes in light of maternal education. Furthermore, I consider whether maternal reading beliefs may mediate the association between maternal education level and children's print knowledge and phonological awareness while classroom quality, maternal literacy practices, gender, and ethnicity are controlled. Data were collected from a socioeconomically diverse population of 92 mothers and their preschool children from 2 demographically different counties in a Mid-Atlantic state. Correlations among all measures were moderate and positive, with higher levels of maternal education associated with higher scores on a maternal beliefs measure and higher child scores on a print knowledge and phonological awareness measure. Maternal reading beliefs mediated the effects of maternal education level on children's print knowledge and phonological awareness. This pathway remained in the presence of the 4 covariates for print knowledge only. Practice or Policy: These findings have important implications for practitioners as they work to involve parents in students’ literacy development by creating parent training programs that not only integrate but also highlight and even shape maternal reading beliefs.     

Composing dialogues to express self‐differentiation and Burke's rhetoric: A way to comprehend multilevel inner growth

This essay responds to the fact that many gifted learners choose to compose dialogues to express and enact the self‐differentiation that accompanies multilevel inner growth. By discussing the level of consciousness at which dialogue composition begins and by recognizing the characteristics of gifted learners who compose dialogues, the essay also discusses why and how Burke's rhetoric of empathic identification offers them an interpretation practice that meets their educational and emotional needs. The discussion unfolds several questions for further research.     

Argumentative form and negotiating strategy in three United Nations security council debates

Previous research has suggested that different nations use different argumentative forms and may think differently. This examination of the arguments used in three United Nations Security Council debates contradicts this conclusion. The study found that the nature of data and the relative emphasis on principle as a negotiating strategy were more characteristic factors.     

New Beginnings: evaluation of a short social–emotional intervention for primary‐aged children

We report on an effectiveness trial of ‘New Beginnings’, a short social–emotional intervention for primary‐aged children. The sample comprised 253 children (aged 6–11) attending 37 primary schools across England. Data on social and emotional competence and mental health difficulties were collected using child self‐report, and parent‐ and teacher‐informant report questionnaires in a pre‐test–post‐test control group design. One hundred and fifty‐nine children took part in the intervention, and 94 children acted as a comparison group. Children in the intervention group attended weekly 45‐minute small group sessions for seven weeks. Child self‐report data indicated that the intervention was successful in promoting social and emotional competence, and that improvements were sustained at seven‐week follow‐up. However, this finding was not replicated in either the teacher or parental data. We conclude that future iterations of the intervention may need to be more intensive and lengthy in order to produce changes in behaviour that are salient to teachers and parents.