Backward design as a mobile application development strategy

Backward design is a well-established design strategy that has been used to produce educational curriculum for decades. While traditionally used to plan and create classroom-based curriculum, in this paper we explore the use of backward design as a design strategy for the development of an educational mobile application, BiblioTech? “CityHacks: In Search of Sleep.” We discuss the process from initial conception to launch and updates, as well as plans for future research.

     

How to Support Toddlers’ Autonomy: Socialization Practices Reported by Parents

Autonomy-supportive parenting is found to foster children’s adjustment but relatively few studies have been conducted with toddlers. In the present exploratory study, parents (N = 182) reported what practices they use when asking their toddlers (M age = 26.9 months) to engage in important yet uninteresting activities. Parents rated twenty-six potentially autonomy-supportive practices, along with a well-known scale measuring the extent to which they have a positive attitude towards autonomy support. Research Findings: Using correlational and factorial analyses, eight practices were identified: various ways to communicate empathy, providing developmentally appropriate rationales, describing the problem in an informational and neutral way, and modeling the requested behavior. This subset of autonomy-supportive practices for toddlers was positively related with toddlers’ rule internalization, providing them with further validity. Practice or Policy: These preliminary findings may be useful in guiding future conceptual, empirical, and applied work on the support of toddlers’ autonomy and its assessment in an emotionally-charged and challenging context.     

Quantifying Qualitative Scholarship: A Fool’s Errand or a Methodological Necessity?

This paper describes our efforts to systematically generate knowledge from ethnographic and other qualitative scholarship as a way of bridging intellectual gaps found in quantitative research. We ground this scholarly endeavor in the study of gangs, which has a lengthy history in the field of criminology, yet lacks a coherent, coordinated, and comparative understanding of gang dynamics, behavior, and impacts. We discuss the importance of acknowledging the multiple and mixed methodologies used in gang scholarship and detail the inductive, deductive, and iterative process that helped us (1) develop a comprehensive coding instrument for coding a range of qualitative works, (2) establish the instrument’s inter-rater reliability, and (3) remain cognizant and reflexive about the strengths of both quantitative and qualitative research. Finally, we share the critical yet informative challenges we faced throughout the project and conclude with reflections on why the project was unsuccessful in the way we originally envisioned.     

“They Were There for People Who Needed Them”: Student Attitudes Toward the Use of Trigger Warnings in Victimology Classrooms

Over the last five years, vigorous debate has been waged about the purpose, use, and impact of trigger warnings in courses offered at institutions of higher education. This debate has been largely uninformed by research findings. This study fills this gap using quantitative and qualitative data collected via surveys in a large undergraduate victimology course to explore student attitudes toward trigger warnings. Findings revealed considerable, but nuanced support for trigger warning use in victimology courses. Support does not appear to differ between crime victims and non-victims; support is higher among females than males. These findings underscore that universal decisions mandating or advocating for or against the use of trigger warnings are premature. Further study is needed with a diverse range of samples to gain a fuller picture of student attitudes about trigger warnings as well as to assess any impact of trigger warnings use on student behavior and learning.     

Fostering Analogical Reasoning Through Creating Robotic Models of Biological Systems

This article considers student analogical reasoning associated with learning practice in creating bio-inspired robots. The study was in the framework of an outreach course for middle school students. Fifty eighth and ninth graders performed inquiries into behavior and locomotion of snakes and designed robotic models using the BIOLOID robot construction kit. We analyzed the interdomain analogies between biological and robotic systems elaborated by the students and evaluated the contribution of the analogies to the integrated learning of biology and robotics. The analogies expressed by the students at different stages of the course were collected and categorized, and their use in knowledge construction was traced. The study indicated that students’ reasoning evolved with learning, towards an increased share of deeper analogies at the end of the course. We found that analogical reasoning helped students to construct knowledge and guided their inquiry and design activities. In the proposed framework, the students learn to inquire into biological systems, generate analogies, and use them for developing and improving robotic systems.

     

The Role of Statistical Learning in Word Reading and Spelling Development: More Questions Than Answers

ABSTRACT

This special issue bundles a set of eight empirical studies and one review article that explore the role of statistical learning (SL) mechanisms (both domain-specific and domain-general) in supporting word reading and spelling development, and vice versa. In this introduction to the special issue, we worked to summarize the extent to which studies support our hypotheses relating SL to reading and spelling development while pointing out inconsistencies across studies that require us to refine and rethink our hypotheses.     

Attachment,Communication, and Relationship Functioning Among College Student Veterans and Nonveterans

This study examined attachment processes of college student veterans and nonveterans and further examined how veteran status and attachment style directly and indirectly predict relationship functioning. Results indicated that student veterans were more often dismissing in their attachment style but less often preoccupied than nonveteran students. Veteran status moderated the association between attachment style and dyadic consensus. The contributions of attachment and communication processes to overall relationship adjustment differed for student veterans and nonveterans.     

Assessing Marijuana Use,Anxiety, and Academic Performance Among College Students

This article examines the relationship between marijuana use and anxiety symptoms among college students, with a secondary focus on marijuana use and grade point average (GPA). A secondary analysis was conducted on data obtained from the American College Health Association–National College Health Assessment. Results indicated that marijuana use was negatively associated with GPA among students with current anxiety and no formal treatment. The relationships between these variables may be more complex than previously thought.     

Supporting Teaching Faculty as Scholars: A Developmental Model

Professors from across the academic disciplines at Council for Christian College & Universities (CCCU) institutions have traditionally excelled in their teaching. In recent years, CCCU faculty have also increasingly been expected to conduct research and to publish scholarly work. As CCCU institutions expand research and scholarship expectations for faculty, we must also provide the requisite support for professors to be effective in this work. In this article, we highlight institutional practices to encourage, support, and celebrate scholarly writing and research by faculty. Drawing upon findings from Zuidema's 2016 survey of CCCU chief academic officers, we offer benchmark practices for communicating expectations, offering tangible supports and resources, augmenting accountability measures with formative feedback, and recognizing and celebrating scholarship. Against this backdrop, we highlight practical, affordable strategies used at Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU) in California and Dordt College in Iowa, two CCCU institutions that have increased expectations for scholarship in recent years. Through these illustrations, we aim to inspire new and creative strategies for supporting scholarship by showing how these practices are an outgrowth of a developmental philosophy of leadership that seeks to invest in the core resource of CCCU institutions: the faculty.