Measures used in assessing outcomes of school‐wide positive behaviour support

School‐Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) is increasingly becoming a popular approach to managing challenging behaviour in schools. However, several issues still have to be addressed facilitate successful implementation of this approach in schools. One of these issues pertains to the appropriateness of the different measures used to determine the efficacy of the approach. Because many schools are using indirect measures to assess the effects of SWPBS implementation, determining which measures more accurately reflect the effectiveness of the SWPBS components may increase the effectiveness of school measurement systems. The purpose of this study was to examine the measures used in evaluating the efficacy of positive behaviour support. The paper discusses the strengths and weaknesses of outcome measures regarding problem behaviour, prosocial behaviour, and implementation fidelity.     

A Behind‐the‐Scenes Guide to School‐Based Research

Schools are an important context for both basic and applied scientific research. Unlike the laboratory, however, the physical and social conditions of schools are not under the exclusive control of scientists. In this article, we liken collecting data in schools to putting on a theatrical production. We begin by describing the large cast of characters whose collaborative efforts make school‐based research possible. Next, we address the critics, including the university Institutional Review Board (IRB) and school administrators, whose feedback often improves the final study design. We then turn our attention to set building, stage directions, and rehearsals—key steps in the iterative process of refining study procedures. We end with a discussion of the day of data collection itself and activities that take place after the curtain drops. Throughout, we make recommendations based on our recent experience collecting data at several high schools.     

Identifying Key Features of Effective Active Learning: The Effects of Writing and Peer Discussion

We investigated some of the key features of effective active learning by comparing the outcomes of three different methods of implementing active-learning exercises in a majors introductory biology course. Students completed activities in one of three treatments: discussion, writing, and discussion + writing. Treatments were rotated weekly between three sections taught by three different instructors in a full factorial design. The data set was analyzed by generalized linear mixed-effect models with three independent variables: student aptitude, treatment, and instructor, and three dependent (assessment) variables: change in score on pre- and postactivity clicker questions, and coding scores on in-class writing and exam essays. All independent variables had significant effects on student performance for at least one of the dependent variables. Students with higher aptitude scored higher on all assessments. Student scores were higher on exam essay questions when the activity was implemented with a writing component compared with peer discussion only. There was a significant effect of instructor, with instructors showing different degrees of effectiveness with active-learning techniques. We suggest that individual writing should be implemented as part of active learning whenever possible and that instructors may need training and practice to become effective with active learning.     

Family feelings

Rachel Theilheimer teaches early childhood education at Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York City.     

How Do Profoundly Deaf Children Learn to Read?

Reading requires two related, but separable, capabilities: (1) familiarity with a language, and (2) understanding the mapping between that language and the printed word (Chamberlain & Mayberry, 2000; Hoover & Gough, 1990). Children who are profoundly deaf are disadvantaged on both counts. Not surprisingly, then, reading is difficult for profoundly deaf children. But some deaf children do manage to read fluently. How? Are they simply the smartest of the crop, or do they have some strategy, or circumstance, that facilitates linking the written code with language? A priori one might guess that knowing American Sign Language (ASL) would interfere with learning to read English simply because ASL does not map in any systematic way onto English. However, recent research has suggested that individuals with good signing skills are not worse, and may even be better, readers than individuals with poor signing skills (Chamberlain & Mayberry, 2000). Thus, knowing a language (even if it is not the language captured in print) appears to facilitate learning to read. Nonetheless, skill in signing does not guarantee skill in reading—reading must be taught. The next frontier for reading research in deaf education is to understand how deaf readers map their knowledge of sign language onto print, and how instruction can best be used to turn signers into readers.     

Job ads,jobs, and researchers: Searching for valid sources

Research on librarians' roles and responsibilities often takes the form of content analysis of job advertisements found in aggregators such as print journals and websites. Whether these ads help us better understand librarianship depends on how representative the source data is for each study—the line going from jobs, to job ads, then to job ad sources. Print sources dominate even in studies published after 2000. This study examines where reasonably representative job advertisements for academic libraries may be found by starting at the origin: the institutions themselves. It finds that commonly used print sources provide only a small fraction of available positions (the majority of which are those in doctoral institutions), and even the most comprehensive aggregator misses nearly half of the available positions. Taking job ad samples directly from institutions is time-consuming but provides more representative data. Smaller colleges pose a particular challenge for finding ads as few of them have openings at any one time and few of their ads appear in national aggregators.     

为学生营造舒适的学习共享空间——以美国印第安纳州普渡大学印第安纳波利斯分校图书馆为例

对印第安纳州普渡大学印第安纳波利斯分校(IUPUI)图书馆非计算机区和非图书馆区域的系统观察表明,图书馆在个人和小组学习区域选择中有重要作用,图书馆是学生首选的学习场所。研究表明,图书馆座位的设置、空间使用情况包括笔记本电脑的使用需求及性别偏好等都是图书馆设计应该考虑的重要问题。