Interactive Influences of Perceived Social Contexts on the Reading Achievement of Urban Middle Schoolers with Learning Disabilities

This study examined the effects of social influences in the lives of an ethnically diverse sample of fifth through eighth grade students with and without learning disabilities (LD) using survey data and academic achievement scores collected in 19 Chicago public schools from 1993–1997. Similarities and differences in student perceptions of school, family, and peer group contexts were examined. In addition, longitudinal data were analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to identify contextual influences on changes in student reading achievement over time. Comparisons of student responses confirm and extend existing findings in the literature concerning the perceptions of students with LD of their social environments. In particular, having a learning disability was associated with consistent, mostly negative, effects on social relations across the contexts of students’ lives, regardless of gender, race, grade, and socioeconomic status. In addition, student perceptions of their friendship groups were found to have small, but significant, effects on their growth in reading achievement over the course of middle school. While students with and without LD had somewhat different views of their social contexts, the processes working within these environments appeared to affect their reading achievement in similar ways. The results suggest that careful attention should be paid to the social contexts of students’ lives when planning academic interventions.     

Description of knowledge structures within a concept-based curriculum framework

The development of declarative knowledge was examined within the parameters of movement-based curricula. Declarative knowledge represents factual or foundational knowledge frequently articulated as curriculum content. A semantic ordered tree technique was used to investigate the knowledge structures of three groups of teacher preparation subjects (novice, coursework, student teacher) and one group of elementary physical education teachers (experts). Structures were examined based on frequency and coherence criteria. ANOVA was used to examine differences between groups. Results suggested that declarative knowledge appeared to develop in complexity from novice to expert within the parameters of concept-based movement curricula. The Active Structural Networks Theory was used to interpret structural development through the accretion, tuning, and restructuring phases. Knowledge structures of the novice and coursework groups seemed to represent accretion, whereas those of student teachers and experts represented tuning and restructuring.     

Where Did All the Data Go? Internet Security for Web‐Based Assessments

The purpose of this article is to enumerate a series of security steps that might be taken by those researchers or organizations that are contemplating web-based tests and performance assessments. From a security viewpoint, much of what goes on with web-based transactions is similar to other general computer activity, but the recommendations here focus on what can be done to avoid the loss, compromising, or modification of data collected by or stored through the Internet.