Screening systems and decision making at the preschool level: Application of a comprehensive validity framework

Universal screening is designed to be an efficient method for identifying preschool students with mental health problems, but prior to use, screening systems must be evaluated to determine their appropriateness within a specific setting. In this article, an evidence‐based validity framework is applied to four screening systems for identifying preschool students with mental health problems. The framework is influenced by the most recent standards for educational and psychological testing, research on test accessibility, and considerations for evaluating screening systems. Suggestions are provided for evaluating the accessibility (Step 1), reliability (Step 2), construct validity (Step 3), and consequential validity (Step 4) of an instrument. Other factors for consideration (i.e., developmental stage, incremental validity, and generalizability) are also identified. Special attention is given to conditional probability indices, which are highly relevant to evaluation of screening systems, given the dichotomous nature of decision making in preschool mental health. The authors suggest that this framework be used, along with specification of the construct of interest and characteristics of the environment, to identify the appropriate method to be used for each preschool screening decision. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Spaces of possibility in pre-service teacher education

Pre-service teacher education is a spatialised enterprise. It operates across a number of spaces that may or may not be linked ideologically and/or physically. These spaces can include daily practices, locations, infrastructure, relationships and representations of power and ideology. The interrelationships between and within these (sometimes competing) spaces for pre-service teachers will influence their identities as teachers and learners across time and space. Pre-service teachers are expected to make the connections between these often-contradictory spaces with little or no guidance on how to negotiate such complex relationships. These are difficult spaces, yet the slippages and gaps between these spaces offer generative possibilities. This paper explores these spaces of possibility for pre-service teacher education, and uses the spatial theories of Lefebvre and Foucault to argue that critical reflective practice can be used to create Soja’s ‘thirdspace’ for reconstructing future practice.     

The Impact of Child Care Subsidy Use on Child Care Quality

In 2008, the federal government allotted $7 billion in child care subsidies to low-income families through the state-administered Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), now the government's largest child care program (US DHHS, 2008). Although subsidies reduce costs for families and facilitate parental employment, it is unclear how they impact the quality of care families purchase. This study investigates the impact of government subsidization on parents’ selection of child care quality using multivariate regression and propensity score matching approaches to account for differential selection into subsidy receipt and care arrangements. Data were drawn from the Child Care Supplement to the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (CCS-FFCWS), conducted in 2002 and 2003 in 14 of the 20 FFCWS cities when focal children were 3 years old (N = 456). Our results indicate that families who used subsidies chose higher quality care than comparable mothers who did not use subsidies, but only because subsidy recipients were more likely to use center-based care. Subgroup analyses revealed that families using subsidies purchased higher-quality home-based care but lower-quality center-based care than comparable non-recipients. Findings suggest that child care subsidies may serve as more than a work support for low-income families by enhancing the quality of nonmaternal care children experience but that this effect is largely attributable to recipients’ using formal child care arrangements (versus kith and kin care) more often than non-recipients.     

Methodological Options and their Implications: An Example Using Secondary Data to Analyze Latino Educational Expectations

A number of studies over decades have examined determinants of educational expectations. However, even among the subset of quantitative studies, there is considerable variation in the methods used to operationally define and analyze expectations. Using a systematic literature review and several regression methods to analyze Latino students’ educational expectations, this study presents significantly different results based on important, but often overlooked, methodological choices. Broad implications of these findings are discussed for individual higher education research projects, for a body of literature as a whole, and for multiple stakeholders in various phases of the research process.     

Examining workload models in online and blended teaching

Over the past decade, most Australian universities have moved increasingly towards “blended” and online course delivery for both undergraduate and graduate programs. In almost all cases, elements of online teaching are part of routine teaching loads. Yet detailed and accurate workload data associated with “e‐teaching” are not readily available. A search of the international literature indicated that there is limited rigorous literature and research that points to the actual effects on workload in online and blended higher education teaching environments. This paper reports on a research project in four Australian universities, and the perceptions of a representative group of staff who perceived that e‐teaching had increased their “teaching time” workload, and that Workload Allocation Models (WAMs) did not take account of contemporary teaching modalities.     

This is Not an Article: a reflection on Creative Research Dialogues (This is Not a Seminar)

Abstract

This is Not a Seminar (TINAS) is a multidisciplinary forum established in 2012 at Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Australia to support practice-led and practice-based Higher Degree by Research students. The Faculty of Education and Arts at ECU includes cohorts of postgraduate research students in, for example, performance, design, writing and visual arts. We established the TINAS programme to assist postgraduate research students in connecting their creative practices to methodological, theoretical and conceptual approaches whilst fostering an atmosphere of rapport across creative disciplines. The pilot programme conducted for six months in 2012 comprised dialogues with experienced creative researchers; critical reading sessions on practice-led theory; and workshops in journaling, ethics and copyright. This article is a reflection on the strengths and limitations of TINAS and future projections. More than an additional teaching and learning service, the programme has become a vital forum for creative dialogue.     

From Log Files to Assessment Metrics: Measuring Students' Science Inquiry Skills Using Educational Data Mining

We present a method for assessing science inquiry performance, specifically for the inquiry skill of designing and conducting experiments, using educational data mining on students' log data from online microworlds in the Inq-ITS system (Inquiry Intelligent Tutoring System; www.inq-its.org). In our approach, we use a 2-step process: First we use text replay tagging, a type of rapid protocol analysis in which categories are developed and, in turn, used to hand-score students' log data. In the second step, educational data mining is conducted using a combination of the text replay data and machine-distilled features of student interactions in order to produce an automated means of assessing the inquiry skill in question; this is referred to as a detector. Once this detector is appropriately validated, it can be applied to students' log files for auto-assessment and, in the future, to drive scaffolding in real time. Furthermore, we present evidence that this detector developed in 1 scientific domain, phase change, can be used—with no modification or retraining—to effectively detect science inquiry skill in another scientific domain, density.     

Standards-Based Grading: History Adjusted True Score

There has been much research and discussion on the principles of standards-based grading, and there is a growing consensus of best practice. Even so, the actual process of implementing standards-based grading at a school or district level can be a significant challenge. There are very practical questions that remain unclear, such as how the grades should be calculated. Common methods include a simple average, averaging only the more recent scores, mathematical models of growth over time, and basic teacher judgment. It is difficult to choose a single method that is justifiable in all circumstances. This article proposes a new method, the history-adjusted true score, that can be applied in a wide variety of situations. A rigorous method of evaluating each grading method is also described.     

Prediction from Latent Classes: A Demonstration of Different Approaches to Include Distal Outcomes in Mixture Models

Including auxiliary variables such as antecedent and consequent variables in mixture models provides valuable insight in understanding the population heterogeneity embodied by a latent class variable. The model building process regarding how to include predictors/correlates and outcomes of the latent class variables into mixture models is an area of active research. As such, new methods of including these variables continue to emerge and best practices for the application of these methods in real data settings (including simple guidelines for choosing amongst them) are still not well established. This paper focuses on one type of auxiliary variable—distal outcomes—providing an overview of the methods currently available for estimating the effects of latent class membership on subsequent distal outcomes. We illustrate the recommended methods in the software packages Mplus and Latent Gold using a latent class model to capture population heterogeneity in students’ mathematics attitudes, linking latent class membership to two distal outcomes.