The role of high school racial composition and opportunities to learn in students' STEM college participation

We analyze longitudinal data from students who spent their academic careers in North Carolina (NC) public secondary schools and attended NC public universities to investigate the importance of high school racial composition and opportunities to learn in secondary school for choosing a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) major. We consider school racial composition and opportunities to learn as contexts that shape students' decisions regarding college majors. Results of cross‐classified hierarchical logistic models indicate that attending schools with predominantly White students is negatively associated with declaring a STEM major and with graduating with a STEM major irrespective of students' own race. The finding suggests that for students in North Carolina, attending racially isolated White high schools is related to a decrease in adolescents' participation in STEM during college.     

Dominance, Subordination, and Concepts of Personal Entitlements in Cultural Contexts

In 2 studies, we assessed concepts of personal entitlements in more and less hierarchically organized cultures. Study 1 assessed the judgments of 88 adolescent and adult males (mean ages 17-6 and 34-7) from Druze and Jewish communities in Israel. Subjects were presented with conflict situations in which a person in a dominant position (husband, father) objects to the activities of a family member in a subordinate position (wife, daughter, son), and vice versa. Druze subjects attributed more power than Jewish subjects to husbands and fathers over wives and daughters, but concepts of personal entitlements were prominent in both groups. Study 2 assessed the judgements of Druze females (mean ages 12-10, 17-5, and 38-6). Results show that females accept the legitimacy of males' power and personal autonomy, recognize the consequences for those in subordinate positions, and regard the existing social arrangements as unfair. Overall, the findings indicate that social reasoning is heterogeneous in different types of cultures.     

Dimensions of Norm-Referenced Compulsory School Grades and their Relative Importance for the Prediction of Upper Secondary School Grades

Irrespective of the grading system, grades are the most valid instrument for predicting educational success. Previous studies have shown that criterion-referenced compulsory school grades are multidimensional, reflecting subject-specific dimensions and a common grade dimension, both of which contribute to the predictive validity of grades. This suggests that in addition to knowledge and skills, grades reflect other aspects which might have importance for the prediction of educational success. The purpose of this study was to investigate, using structured equation modeling, whether norm-referenced compulsory school grades display similar patterns of dimensionality and predictive validity to criterion-referenced grades. Possible differences due to gender and parents' education were considered. Participants were 3855 students born in 1972. The results showed that norm-referenced grades are multidimensional, and that both the subject-specific and common grade dimensions contribute to predicting educational success. In the common grade dimension, girls and students with higher educational backgrounds were favored.     

Caregiver instability and early life changes among infants reported to the child welfare system

This study describes the extent of caregiver instability (defined as a new placement for 1 week or longer in a different household and/or with a new caregiver) in a nationally representative sample of infants, followed for 5–7 years. Data were drawn from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW), a longitudinal study of 5,501 children investigated for child maltreatment. The analysis sample was restricted to 1,196 infants. Overall, 85.6% of children who were infants at the time of the index maltreatment experienced at least one caregiver instability event during their first 2 years of life. Caregiver instability was associated with the child having a chronic health condition and the caregiver being older than 40 years of age at baseline. The levels of instability reported in this study from infancy to school entry are extremely high. Children with more risk factors were significantly more likely to experience caregiver instability than children with fewer risk factors. The repeated loss of a young child's primary caregiver or unavailable, neglectful care can be experienced as traumatic. Some evidence-based programs that are designed to work with young maltreated children can make a substantial positive difference in the lives of vulnerable infants.     

Testing Expert-Based Versus Student-Based Cognitive Models for a Grade 3 Diagnostic Mathematics Assessment

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the adequacy of three cognitive models, one developed by content experts and two generated from student verbal reports for explaining examinee performance on a grade 3 diagnostic mathematics test. For this study, the items were developed to directly measure the attributes in the cognitive model. The performance of each cognitive model was evaluated by examining its fit to different data samples: verbal report, total, high-, moderate-, and low ability using the Hierarchy Consistency Index (Cui & Leighton, 2009), a model-data fit index. This study utilized cognitive diagnostic assessments developed under the framework of construct-centered test design and analyzed using the Attribute Hierarchy Method (Gierl, Wang, & Zhou, 2008; Leighton, Gierl, & Hunka, 2004). Both the expert-based and the student-based cognitive models provided excellent fit to the verbal report and high ability samples, but moderate to poor fit to the total, moderate and low ability samples. Implications for cognitive model development for cognitive diagnostic assessment are discussed.     

Climate Change and Morality: Students' perspectives on the individual and society

There is a growing interest in addressing moral aspects in the research and education of socio‐scientific issues. This paper investigates students' interpretations of climate change from a moral perspective. The students were 14 years old, studying at Green Schools in the Beijing area, China. The study was based on semi‐structured group interviews and the data were analysed from an intentional perspective, which means that both cognitive and situational aspects were taken into consideration in the analysis. Previous research has revealed a close relation between morality and socio‐scientific issues and also advocated the need for addressing ethical aspects in science education. However, empirical studies exploring the question of what students' moral reasoning might look like at the individual level have not yet generated enough attention. In this study this is the core focus of interest. The findings show that the students conceptualise the solutions to mitigating climate change in relation to two different stances. That is, they contextualise the problems and solutions by addressing the individual, where the individual is either ‘myself’ or ‘someone else’. The different notions of the individual become crucial as the students' views and considerations for the environment, as well as society, change according to the different contexts. From a moral point of view, the students seem quite unaware of their varying consideration for others, the environment and society. The paper ends with a discussion of implications for practice and research.     

The Most Important Thing: Students with Reading and Writing Difficulties Talk About their Experiences of Teachers' Treatment and Guidance

Dyslexia is a well-known phenomenon and help and assistance are offered to pupils and students who experience literacy difficulties on a regular basis. But what help do they need and want? In this article the responses people with reading and writing difficulties/dyslexia give to this question are discussed. What, if we take the student's own viewpoint, is the most important thing the teacher can do? The students never mention any particular teaching methods. What appears as important to them is that the teacher sees them as individuals, not just as dyslectics, understands the special difficulties with which each individual must grapple, and provides the students with suitable tools for their learning as well as necessary time and space.     

Evaluation of a learning analytics tool for supporting teachers in the creation and evaluation of accessible and quality open educational resources

The learning analytics (LA) field seeks to analyze data about students’ interactions, and it has been applied in the development of tools for supporting both learning and teaching processes. Recent research has paid attention on how LA may benefit teachers in the creation of educational resources. However, most of the research on LA solutions is carried out to support teachers in analyzing students’ behavior data collected as they interact with virtual learning environments. While solutions to support teachers in different virtual learning and teaching contexts have become important, to date little research has been done on how LA solutions can help teachers to create and evaluate Open Educational Resources (OERs). This study aims at presenting the evaluation of a LA tool for supporting teachers in the creation and evaluation of accessible and quality OERs considering that both processes fall within the competences that teachers can acquire and strengthen by participating as authors (creation) and evaluators (evaluation) of OERs. The study was conducted with Colombian teachers and the results obtained highlight the positive effect the tool had on the teachers’ acquisition of the competences and the positive attitude they had toward using the tool.     

Transposition of Knowledge: Encountering Proportionality in an Algebra Task

This article reports on an analysis of the process in which knowledge to be taught was transposed into knowledge actually taught, concerning a task including proportional relationships in an algebra setting in a grade 6 classroom. We identified affordances and constraints of the task by describing the mathematical praxeology of the two different types of knowledge exposed, in the task as such and in the activity of the classroom. Through the teacher’s explicit process of reasoning, modeling, revising, solving, and repeatedly explaining the task, we found that the transposition of knowledge was seriously affected by the contextualization of the task. Modeling word problems about everyday situations has its limitations and can, as in this case, make the problem unsolvable unless it is accepted as a “textbook task” disguised as real but adjusted to the norms of school mathematics. Such constraints may obscure mathematical ideas afforded by the task. We conclude that learning opportunities embedded in a task do not necessarily surface when a task is treated in a classroom setting.