Teacher and school characteristics and their influence on curriculum implementation

Reform‐based curriculum materials have been suggested as a mechanism to make inquiry‐based instruction more prevalent in secondary science classrooms, specifically when accompanied by comprehensive professional development (Loucks‐Horsley, Hewson, Love, & Stiles, 1998 ; Powell & Anderson, 2002 ). This research examines the implementation of a reform‐based high school chemistry curriculum in a large, urban school district. We explicitly consider the role of the teachers' knowledge and beliefs in their implementation of the reform‐based chemistry curriculum, as well as school level factors. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected in the form of beliefs interviews and classroom observations from 27 high school chemistry teachers. Analysis of the data revealed that implementation of the curriculum was strongly influenced by the teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning, and the presence of a supportive network at their school sites. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 883–907, 2007     

Academic Follow-Up Data on Two Cohorts of High-Risk Transfer Children

Two cohorts of children from inner-city elementary schools were provided a tutoring intervention to help in their transition to new schools. Participants were third, fourth, and fifth grade children who were identified as having low-income status, evidencing lags on achievement tests, and experiencing stressful life events. The intervention involved an orientation program with twice weekly paraprofessional tutoring. Two and three year academic and sociometric follow-up data were collected. Those provided the intervention evidenced some improvements over time, and these changes were most prominent in the area of reading grades. Fewer significant findings were found on sociometric indices.     

Channel One Revisited: Prospective Teachers and the Role of American Higher Education

This study examined perceptions of college of education students and their experiences with Channel One, a privately-owned news service used in public education. Given that about one-third of middle and high schoolers in the US view the broadcast every school day, the authors surveyed 172 freshmen to discern their views and attitudes toward Channel One programming and commercials and the role colleges and universities might play in relation to this media service. While most studies on Channel One have been conducted from a K-12 point of view, the goal of this study was to reconsider the topic from the perspective of prospective teachers and post-secondary education. A. J. Angulo  is Assistant Professor of Social Foundations, Winthrop University. He received an Ed.D. and Ed.M. from Harvard University. His research interests include history of education, technology and education, and student rights. Susan K. Green  is Associate Professor of Educational Psychology, Winthrop University. She received a Ph.D. in social psychology from Loyola University, Chicago and a Ph.D. in educational psychology and research from the University of South Carolina, Columbia. Her interests include classroom assessment, motivational and instructional strategies to promote learning, and multicultural issues in education.     

Psychodiagnostic Properties of the Piotr Oleś “Internal Dialogical Activity Scale”

The article discusses the concept of internal dialogue and how it is understood in various schools of psychological research, including both Russia and abroad. The authors briefly investigate how the concept was understood by Mikhail Bakhtin, Lev Vygotsky, G.M. Kuchinskii, and Hubert Hermans. The “Internal Dialogical Activity Scale” (IDAS) methodology, pioneered by Piotr Ole?, is introduced. A sample of 256 people was tested using a Russian-language version of the IDAS. A subset of 123 people from the original sample was retested two weeks later. After analysis of the empirical data, the general test score (tendency to engage in internal dialogue) was successfully validated. However, according to our data the three-factor structure of the IDAS (consisting of internal dialogue, internal world, and internal conflict) turned out to be more suitable than the original model, which included seven subscales. The former returned the highest reliability and validity indicators. Construct validity is grounded in its high correlation with various forms of reflexive processes and aspects of self-attitude. Unlike the differential reflection test proposed by Dmitry Leontiev and E.N. Osin, the IDAS represents a negative pole of reflection, confirmed by an analysis of how the IDAS correlates with other personality variables. The approach proposed in the article is suitable for both research and applied contexts.     

Faculty perceptions of the quality and usefulness of three types of evaluative information

The purpose of the study was to investigate faculty perceptions of student evaluative information collected by three methods: objective questionnaire items, open-ended questions, and group interviews. Faculty rated three simulated evaluation reports on their potential for accuracy, trustworthiness, usefulness, comprehensiveness, believability, interpretability, and value as information used for self-improvement and promotion purposes. Faculty, in general, regarded the evaluative information to be more credible, useful, and accurate for their own self-improvement than for promotion purposes. Faculty also desired more than one type of evaluative information regardless of the purpose of evaluation.     

Comparative study of Anaplasma parasites in tick carrying buffaloes and cattle

INTRODUCTION The world population of buffaloes(Bubalus bubalis)has been estimated at over172million head,more than97%(167.6million)of which are in Asia and the Pacific region,mainly in India(97.7million)and Pakistan(25.5million)(FAO,2004).About98%of buffaloes in the region are raised by small farmers owning less than two hectares of land and less than five buffaloes(Mudgal,1992).In general,the water buffalo is regarded as more productive,healthier and more useful than the cow,especiall…     

Really teaching lamaze: the power of pain

In response to a reader's question, this column discusses the benefits and uses of pain to facilitate childbirth. Childbirth educators are urged to help women understand pain, so that they may work with pain and appreciate the role it plays in providing them with the inner wisdom to give birth.     

Conditioning with taste as the CS in conditioned flavor preference learning

There appear to be unconditioned affective reactions to the four basic tastes: liking for sweet and salt and disliking for sour and bitter. We attempted to modify these reactions by pairing the tastes with calories and with sweeter tastes. Differing sucrose concentrations were ineffective in reversing the preference for salt over citric acid or for saccharin over quinine. We could, however, reverse the preference for salt over citric acid, producing an actual preference for sour over salt, by using sucrose and saccharin as the reinforcers. The initial reactions to tastes could also be modified by reducing the initial difference in affect produced by the tastes through mixing both tastes with sucrose.     

Preschool children use linguistic form class and pragmatic cues to interpret generics

Generic noun phrases (e.g., "Bats live in caves") are important for expressing knowledge about abstract kinds. Past work has found that parents frequently use generic noun phrases in their speech to young children. However, little is known regarding how children understand these expressions, nor which cues signal generic meaning. The present set of 5 studies examined the influence of linguistic form class (e.g., "What color are dogs?" [generic] versus "What color are the dogs?" [nongeneric]) and of pragmatic context (e.g., "What color are they?" in the presence of either a single exemplar [generic] or multiple exemplars [nongeneric]). Participants were 2-year-olds (N = 42), 3-year-olds (N = 40), 4-year-olds (N = 40), and adults (N = 51). The data indicate that by 2 years of age, children use linguistic form class, and by 3 years of age, children use pragmatic context. These findings demonstrate that young children have begun to understand the distinction between generic and nongeneric noun phrases from a very young age, and that identification of generics is signaled not by formal or pragmatic cues alone, but by a combination of information from both language form and pragmatic context. It is suggested that children make use of multiple linguistic and conceptual cues to acquire and interpret generics.