Socialization and Family Correlates of Mental Health Outcomes among Hispanic and Anglo American Children: Consideration of Cross-Ethnic Scalar Equivalence

Recently there has been concern over the need for developmental research within ethnic minority populations and interest in socialization and family variables within, and variability across, ethnic groups. This study reports analyses designed to: compare several socialization, family, and mental health variables among Hispanic and Anglo American 8–14-year-old children and mothers; examine the regression equations predicting mental health indicators with the socialization and family variables; and evaluate the cross-ethnic scalar equivalence of these socialization and family measures. The findings indicate that there are ethnic differences in several socialization and family variables; several of the socialization and family variables are related to the mental health variables, and these relations are very similar across ethnic groups; and the socialization and family measures appear to have sufficient cross-ethnic scalar equivalence for English-speaking, largely Mexican American Hispanic samples. Further, these findings suggest some caution regarding the use of the Child Depression Inventory in Hispanic samples.     

Learning from schools

Many of the problems faced by those concernedto improve learning, teaching, assessment andcurriculum have also troubled the compulsoryeducation sector. This paper argues that thehigher education sector can learn from theextensive archive of international researchabout schooling. This is illustrated by briefcommentaries on five facets of school-centredresearch: subject departments; schooleffectiveness and school improvement; teachers'thinking and planning; assessment; andprofessional learning. It is claimed thatresearch into schooling can illuminate thinkingabout quality and curriculum in highereducation and that it can inspire better changepractices.     

The role of hybrid learning spaces in enhancing higher education students’ employability

Graduate employment rates and self-reported employability are increasingly a feature of higher education funding measures. However, graduate outcomes do not denote the whole learning experience of the student nor is the student experience reducible to a single statistic. This paper discusses a design-centric approach to employability development which was enacted within a hybrid learning space. The study engaged 52 final-year speech pathology students, their lecturer, the lead researcher and a career practitioner (advisor) at an Australian university. Students first created personalized employability profiles using an established online self-reflection tool. The online tool produced a personalized report and enabled students to access developmental resources relating to employability and student success. The project team used anonymized student data to transform a previously generic “careers” workshop into a targeted workshop in which students explored individual and cohort findings and participated in developmental activities informed by the data. The initiative’s contribution to learning space research is in its composition as a hybrid learning space in which educators and students engaged as learners and developers of their online learning spaces, and educators collaborated to analyze student data and inform learning and teaching enhancements within the same study period. It is anticipated that the data from subsequent years will inform the curricular review, particularly if subsequent student cohorts express similar concerns. Implications for higher education policy and practice are discussed.     

Maximizing the Potential of Mentoring: A Framework for Pre-service Teacher Education

Within the professional placement component of pre-service teacher education, mentoring has become a strategy that is used during the practical application of learning to teach. In this paper, we examine mentoring in the pre-service teacher education context by proposing a theoretically based framework for mentoring in this context. Firstly, the nature of mentoring along with mentoring in the context of pre-service teacher education is explored. A mentoring framework that has been developed to enable pre-service teacher educators to maximize the potential use of mentoring during the professional placement component of a pre-service teacher education degree is then proposed.     

Strategic Teaching Frameworks: an Australian perspective

ABSTRACT

This paper addresses the concern that much educational multimedia is currently based upon technology rather than sound educational principles. The Strategic Teaching Frameworks (STFs) is a constructivist instructional strategy informed by two theories: anchored instruction and cognitive flexibility. This was deployed in the development of a CD‐ROM in an Australian University. The paper describes the development of a STF prototype and provides the reasoning behind decisions that had to be made. The authors outline some of the problems involved in their study and suggest implications for the use of STFs for teacher education and in the production of multimedia.     

The Desirability of Using Confirmatory Factor Analysis on Published Scales

This paper advances an argument in favor of conducting and reporting confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) on existing and previously validated scales and reporting the findings of those analyses in published research. Previous evidence of scale validity does not necessarily ensure validity in subsequent uses. Instead, scale invariance is best viewed as an empirical question. The case is made that CFA facilitates rather than hinders cross-studies comparisons, and that replication is good scientific practice. Reporting the outcomes of CFA on existing scales provides useful information that facilities knowledge generation and can minimize costly scientific dead-ends.     

Promoting retention and successful completion on Masters courses in education: a study comparing e‐tuition using asynchronous conferencing software with face‐to‐face tuition

This paper considers the influence of e‐tuition using an asynchronous written conferencing package, FirstClass, upon retention and success rates for Masters‐level courses in a distance learning programme as compared with similar courses that were supported in a traditional manner using face‐to‐face tuition. The paper investigates the common assumption that the use of e‐tuition might negatively influence both retention and success rates by studying data gathered on UK Open University Masters courses in education. These data have allowed direct comparisons between e‐tutored and face‐to‐face tutored courses to be made. The effect of linking assessment to participation in activities using FirstClass is also considered in this study. This research has revealed that e‐tutoring using FirstClass appears to have no significant positive or negative influence on either retention or success on such courses.     

Longitudinal development of educational theory: democracy and the classroom

The problem of making education policy documents more explicit is addressed in this paper. As a vehicle for discussion the paper examines a contemporary policy that has major shortcomings in the explicitness of its language: Australia's ‘Participation and Equity Program’, a policy directed at increasing access to education by post‐compulsory level students. Problems in making policies explicit are discussed. Policies are seen as complex messages whose meanings routinely become scrambled for implementers remote from the language community of policy framers. The paper suggests the use of a sociology of policy language in education to assist in policy design and dissemination. Its concluding sections recommend the kinds of applied work that might be undertaken to improve the explicitness of policy language generally.     

Developmental Trajectories of Acculturation in Hispanic Adolescents: Associations With Family Functioning and Adolescent Risk Behavior

This study examined longitudinal acculturation patterns, and their associations with family functioning and adolescent risk behaviors, in Hispanic immigrant families. A sample of 266 Hispanic adolescents (M_age = 13.4) and their primary parents completed measures of acculturation, family functioning, and adolescent conduct problems, substance use, and sexual behavior at five timepoints. Mixture models yielded three trajectory classes apiece for adolescent and parent acculturation. Assimilated adolescents reported the poorest family functioning, but adolescent assimilation negatively predicted adolescent cigarette smoking, sexual activity, and unprotected sex indirectly through family functioning. Follow‐up analyses indicated that discrepancies between adolescent and parent family functioning reports predicted these adolescent outcomes. Results are discussed regarding acculturation trajectories, adolescent risk behavior, and the mediating role of family functioning.