Effects of a classroom management intervention on student selective attention: results from a randomized controlled trial

ABSTRACT

A main objective of classroom management (CM) is to raise students’ attention to their daily academic work by creating a classroom environment that supports academic and socioemotional learning. While studies have addressed CM effects on classroom-level behaviour or students’ academic outcomes, students’ attention skills been largely overlooked. This randomized controlled trial evaluates the effectiveness of a teacher-targeted CM intervention on students’ selective attention. Twenty-four primary schools were randomized into receiving the Inclusive And Appreciative Classroom Management (IACM) intervention (treatment) or a general information technology (IT) didactics course (control condition). All participating 1st-grade teachers and their students (N = 1,160) were followed for 1 year. Using repeated measurements of the d2 Test of Attention, we find that the IACM intervention improves students’ selective attention with .26 standard deviations. The effect is robust to the inclusion of student- and classroom-level characteristics. All analyses account for the variation across students, classrooms, and schools.     

Combining Laboratory Experiments with Digital Tools to Do Scientific Inquiry

This qualitative study investigates the gap between a lab experiment and theory of science. Two groups of 4 students in 2 different classes in 11th grade (15–16 years old) are followed as they process results and experiences from a lab experiment using a digital environment. The experiment is as a part of a larger project about genes and cells, and this study concerns how the digital environment can support students' sensemaking. The study shows how the students only are left with ‘how-to' skills before they engage in collaborative processing supported by their own picture from the experiment. The picture becomes a hub for interactive sensemaking and is extensively used for annotation and discussion. Four elements in the digital support are identified as crucial: an extendable point of reference, facilitation to compare and contrast, a pointer to standard science knowledge, and a structure to guide the students to significant issues. The study identifies where the digital support succeeds and fails in this process of sensemaking from a lab experiment.     

Education and ultimate meaning

Richard Peters and John White have both argued that education should contribute to the meaning people are able to find in or give to life. Both dismiss the idea of ultimate or profound meaning (‘the meaning of life’) in favour of ordinary meaning, or ‘meaning in life’. Thus they exemplify the trend visible also in the general philosophical literature on life’s meaning. I argue that in their rejection of ultimate meaning and retreat to ordinary meaning they concede too much. There is room for plausible notions of ultimate meaning between the extreme they reject and the alternative they embrace. I propose two such notions, one meta-ethical, one metaphysical (specifically, Whiteheadian). If there are indeed plausible notions of ultimate meaning, and if ultimate or profound meaning is therefore a possibility we cannot dissmiss offhand, then it would be wrong to reject the possibility of ultimate meaning in education. Instead, education should both help people come to terms with doubt in this area of life, and foster their capacity to enjoy experiences of ultimate meaning.     

Airtime for Newcomers

This article explores the British and West German public service radio’s abilities to reflect on and to address the specific needs and expectations of migrant groups in their programmes between the 1960s and 1980s. Mechanisms of social inclusion and exclusion alike can be investigated here. Empirically, it is based on comparisons of radio broadcasts on and for different immigrant communities, produced by BBC Radio Leicester on/for the post-war Asian migrants in England and by West German public service broadcasting on/for ‘Gastarbeiter’ (foreign workers) as well as for ‘Spätaussiedler’ (German repatriates from East Europe). Radio is studied as an agent of identity management and citizenship education. Not only did radio talk about migrants and migration to introduce these topics and the newcomers to the local population. It also offered airtime to selected migrant communities to cater for their needs and interests as well as to facilitate their difficulties of adjusting to an unfamiliar environment.     

Discolouration of Gold Decorations

Discoloured 18-carat gold decorations from Sweden have been analysed by scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and X-ray electron spectroscopy (XPS)/electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis (electron spectroscopy).The original gold composition was close to 75% gold, 13% silver, and 12% copper. After manufacture, many details were boiled in sulphuric acid. As a consequence of this, the surfaces are irregular and porous with a gold concentration around 90% and with less than 1% copper. With XPS the outermost 10–20 atomic layers could be examined. No copper was present here, and the silver concentration was significantly higher. Also carbon, sulphur, oxygen, and (in one case) chlorine were present. The valence numbers indicated that gold only occurred in its metallic state, while silver (as Ag⁺) was preferably associated with sulphur to form black silver sulphide (Ag₂S). The grey discolorations are basically due to silver sulphide and organic dirt. Sometimes green, violet, and ‘copper-shining’ colours occur, presumably as a result of light refraction phenomena.     

User Experiences with Editorial Control in Online Newspaper Comment Fields

This article investigates user experiences with editorial control in online newspaper comment fields following the public backlash against online comments after the 2011 terror attacks in Norway. We analyze data from a survey of online news consumers focusing on experiences and attitudes towards editorial control set against a spectrum between “interventionist” and “noninterventionist” positions. Results indicate that interventionist respondents rate the quality of online comments as poor, whereas noninterventionist respondents have most often experienced being the target of editorial control measures and feel that editorial control has intensified after the terror attacks. We conclude that newspapers should pay attention to the different needs of participants when devising strategies for editorial control. Media professionals should also consider changes to increase the transparency of moderation practices.