The nature of children's talk during storybook partnerships

Paul, a first-grader reading a book about fish, pronounced the wordone asfish. Rachel, his partner, shook her head from side to side and drew the number 1 with her fingertip on the desk. Then she said, First number. Paul knew it wasone and corrected himself. Later, when he was stuck on the word again, Rachel prompted, First number. Paul corrected himself and mastered the wordone.Cathleen Soundy is Assistant Professor, Early Childhood/Elementary Education, Temple University, College of Education, Philadelphia, PA.     

Wege in die Wissenschaft

Zusammenfassung Dieser Artikel besch?ftigt sich mit einem Themengebiet, das in der erziehungswissenschaftlichen Wissenschafts-, Hochschul-und Berufsforschung bislang kaum analysiert worden ist. Unter Bezug auf die Ergebnisse einer schriftlichen Befragung von rund 3.800 Absolventen erziehungswissenschaftlicher Hauptfachstudieng?nge (Diplom, Magister) in ganz Deutschland wird die Frage untersucht, wie gro? die Gruppe der Studierenden aus diesen Studieng?ngen ist, die sich einige Jahre nach dem Studienabschluss im Arbeitsfeld Hochschule und Forschung beruflich platzieren kann bzw. promoviert, durch welche Merkmale diese Gruppe gekennzeichnet ist und welche Bedingungsfaktoren den Weg in die Wissenschaft beeinflussen. Nach einem überblick über den bisherigen Stand der Forschung und der Darstellung zentraler Resultate des Diplom-und Magister-Surveys zum Weg in die Wissenschaft werden abschlie?end einige Konsequenzen diskutiert, die sich aus den Befunden für eine Reform der bisherigen Hauptfachstudieng?nge bzw. für die zukünftige Gestaltung neuer Studieng?nge mit Blick auf eine Verbesserung der Nachwuchsf?rderung für das Fach Erziehungswissenschaft ergeben.

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Summary Paths into Science: The Results of a National Survey of Graduates from Diplom and Magister Programs in Educational Science This article examines a topic which has hardly been dealt with in the field of Educational Science. A survey of around 3,800 graduates of Educational Science in both Diplom and Magister programs in Germany asked what proportion of graduates went on to work or commence a Ph.D. in higher education. It also investigated the characteristics of such graduates and the conditions which determined their path into science. Following an overview of preceding research in this area and a presentation of the central results of the survey, the consequences of the findings for a reform of courses and an improvement in the training of academics in the field of Educational Science will be discussed.

     

Teacher adaptation to flexible learning environments

Learning Environments Research - Teaching practices respond to the prompts, resources and inherent potential of a school’s physical, social and cultural landscape. This study involved how...     

Policy-to-practice context to the delays and difficulties in the acquisition of speech,language and communication in the early years

The aim was to investigate the policy-to-practice context of delays and difficulties in the acquisition of speech, language and communication (SLC) in children from birth to five in one local authority within the context of Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological model. Methods included a survey of early years practitioners (64 responses), interviews with 11 early years practitioners and observations of 9 children in the context of their early years settings. Policy texts revealed a growing consensus on the importance of early learning and development, the centrality of language and early intervention. Practitioner survey and interview findings indicated confident practice in relation to early identification, assessment and support, despite minimal initial professional training in SLC and virtually none for children with English as an additional language. Greater use of specialist assessment tools and alternative communication systems was made in specialist than mainstream settings. Observation showed considerable variation in the organisation of staff, groups, activities and interactional patterns with more targeted, short and intensive adult-led activity in special settings that led to less child-initiated interactions and private ‘self-talk’, characteristic of large-group free play of mainstream settings. Challenges and opportunities of generalist and specialist provision are discussed.     

Faculty at work: Focus on research,scholarship, and service

Within the framework of cognitive motivation theory, selected personal and environmental motivational variables for faculty in eight liberal arts and science departments from community colleges, liberal arts colleges, comprehensive colleges and universities, and research universities were regressed against faculty allocation of work effort given to research, scholarship, and service. The data came from a 1988 national survey of faculty.Gender, (sociodemographic), quality of graduate school attended, career age, andrank (career); self-competence andself-efficacy regarding research, scholarship, and service andpercent time prefer to give to research, scholarship, and service (self-valuations); andinstitutional preference, consensus andsupport, andcolleague commitment to research, scholarship, and service (perception of the environment) were entered into regressions.R ²s were generally strong (.64 for liberal arts-I institutions) and significant. For all institutional types,self-valuation (self-competence and-efficacy) motivators significantly accounted for the explained variance.Sociodemographic andcareer variables did not explain appreciable amounts of variance.     

Exploring the Relationship Between High School Students’ Physics-Related Personal Epistemologies and Self-regulated Learning in Turkey

This article reports on an empirical exploration of the relations and strengths among Turkish grades 9–11 students’ (n = 209) personal epistemologies (justification of knowledge, certainty of knowledge, source of knowledge, development of knowledge), self-regulated learning (extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation, rehearsal, elaboration, organization, critical thinking, metacognitive self-regulation), and achievement in physics (course grades). Established instruments were used to collect data on these students’ beliefs about knowledge and components of self-regulated learning (SRL) such as goal orientations (extrinsic and intrinsic motivation) and learning strategies, critical thinking, and metacognitive regulation. Results from structural equation modeling revealed that students’ personal epistemologies directly influenced their motivation (extrinsic and intrinsic goal orientations), rehearsal and organization strategies, and metacognitive self-regulation to learn physics. Furthermore, students’ personal epistemologies indirectly (mediated through motivation beliefs) influenced rehearsal, elaboration and organization strategies, critical thinking, and metacognitive self-regulation to learn physics. Students’ ideas about knowledge and knowing about the source and development of knowledge significantly contributed to students’ self-regulatory skills and physics course grade. Implications and future directions are discussed.     

“Cloning” in academe: Mentorship and academic careers

Mentor professors were surveyed with respect to their most successful protégés regarding scholarly production, the mentorship role, and their careers. Career stage, network stratification, and weak-tie theories provided the conceptual frameworks. The 62 mentors were highly productive professors who were predominantly both graduates and employees of research universities. Mentors overwhelmingly nominated as their most successful protégés those whose careers were essentially identical to their own—i.e., their clones. Women mentors named as most successfully protégés more than twice as many females and males than men did. More productive mentors linked with a greater number of protégés but were less knowledgable about their personal lives, as Granovetter's theory would predict. The results also demonstrate the openness of the network within stratified levels.