Development of a Questionnaire Assessing Teacher Perceived Support for and Attitudes About Social and Emotional Learning

Research Findings: In the past 20 years school districts have increasingly adopted classroom-based social and emotional development programs. The dissemination of these programs, however, has surpassed our understanding of and ability to assess factors that influence program implementation. The present study responded to this gap by developing a questionnaire that focuses on teacher perceptions of implementation support and teacher attitudes about social–emotional learning and by assessing its psychometric properties. One hundred forty-five Baltimore City Head Start preschool teachers completed the questionnaire. Factor analyses suggested 6 underlying constructs, which we termed administrative support, training, competence, program effectiveness, time constraints, and academic priority. Several of these scales predicted teacher reports of program implementation. Practice or Policy: The questionnaire holds significant promise as a tool for assessing readiness and barriers to social and emotional program implementation.     

Textbook adoption and other landmark decisions: The coverage of court cases in criminal justice textbooks, 1986 to 1995

We examine the coverage of court cases in 23 introductory criminal justice textbooks published from 1986 to 1995. The 30 cases receiving the most coverage (in inches of print) in the textbooks are identified and ranked by the amount of attention each receives. Collectively these cases can be considered the “landmark” decisions in the textbooks. We then evaluate the criminal justice textbooks by how extensively they cover (1) court cases in general and (2) the landmark cases in particular. We conclude with some recommendations of textbooks for course adoption.     

The Spaces of Children's Programming

In the competitive world of children's programming, networks are under intense pressure to build brand loyalty and increase market share. This essay examines how Fox Kids and the Disney Channel transform electronic space into “place” as a means for carving out brand identity. This transformation of electronic space into place requires strategies that encourage viewers to see electronic spaces as habitable and desirable. While the two networks employ different approaches to the creation of place, they both reproduce familiar ideologies (e.g., individuality as identity) and social arrangements (e.g., families and neighborhoods) to represent a habitable place that can inspire loyalty and even affection from viewers.     

Taking the Guesswork Out of Collection Development: Using Syllabi for a User-Centered Collection Development Method

Over the course of a year, 98 syllabi were collected from history, English, philosophy, religion, and foreign literatures and languages departments at a large university in the Southeast. The syllabi were analyzed for potential additions to the print collection. In addition to the syllabus study, a survey was conducted of all faculty in those departments to establish their views toward syllabi and the library's place in providing access to items on syllabi.     

ASSESSING STUDENT PERFORMANCE USING VIDEO IN COMBINATION WITH SELF,PEER, AND INSTRUCTOR EVALUATION CHECKLISTS

Abstract

In this article, the authors propose six standards for the work of Intergenerational Specialists in an emerging field of professional practice. These standards are intended to guide students in academic settings who are preparing to work as Intergenerational Specialists in direct service roles, administrative capacities, or the supervision and training of others in the field. In addition, they might also be considered useful guidelines for program developers who want to ensure mutually beneficial interactions between younger people and older adults in any kind of organized intergenerational context. The proposed Standards for Intergenerational Practice are currently being piloted by students in a graduate degree program, and eventually will be submitted to Generations United for endorsement and widespread acceptance by the field. These basic principles are consistent with NAEYC's Developmentally Appropriate Practices for early childhood programs, and they are also consistent with ethical practices in programs for older adults.     

Effects of High and Low Prior Knowledge on Construction of a Joint Problem Space

The participants were 4th-year medical students designing a clinical trial to test a new hypothetical anticancer drug. They worked with the computer simulation the Oncology Thinking Cap in facilitated groups that differed in terms of their prior knowledge. Both groups engaged in constructive activity and reached similar endpoints. The groups differed qualitatively in how they went about constructing and navigating the joint problem space. The high-prior-knowledge group used their knowledge to help them construct plans, evaluate their actions, and stay focused on the goals of the experimental design task. The low-prior-knowledge group searched through the data exhaustively and used them to generate their plans. They were unsystematic in their planning and interpretation. They used the computer representations in their reasoning and worked at mapping the connections between the representations. The computer scaffolding played an important role for both groups, but the facilitator played a greater role in the low-prior-knowledge group.     

SENIOR CISE : A PRINT EXERCISE INTERVENTION FOR OLDER ADULTS

This study was conducted to examine the efficacy of an inexpensive educational print exercise intervention based on the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) for older adults. Secondary objectives of this study were to examine the quality of the print intervention and possible ways to improve it through survey techniques. This was a posttest survey design. Information about the Senior cise booklet was distributed to senior housing communities and recreation centers throughout Rhode Island. One hundred thirty-three posters and 5,280 pamphlets with return postcards for ordering the Senior cise booklet were delivered over a period of nine months. Individuals who requested the booklet were contacted via telephone two weeks following mailing to assess the efficacy and quality of the booklet. Ninety-eight individuals requested the booklet and 61 participants completed the evaluation (mean age = 73 - 5.3 years; 77.1% female). The majority of participants found the booklet of good quality, stated that it created an interest, and said it inspired them to actually engage in physical activity. Survey participants cited only a few main good points and negative points about the booklet in general. The use of an inexpensive educational print intervention (Senior cise ) based on the TTM was well received and successful in engaging older adults to consider and participate in physical activity. The positive and negative points cited about the booklet will allow other researchers a better insight into what can make educational print interventions successful. Experimental research designs are recommended to evaluate more fully the efficacy of future exercise based print interventions.     

Dorsomedial Prefrontal Activity to Sadness Predicts Later Emotion Suppression and Depression Severity in Adolescent Girls

The present study used cross‐lagged panel analyses to test longitudinal associations among emotion regulation, prefrontal cortex (PFC) function, and depression severity in adolescent girls. The ventromedial and dorsomedial PFC (vmPFC and dmPFC) were regions of interest given their roles in depression pathophysiology, self‐referential processing, and emotion regulation. At ages 16 and 17, seventy‐eight girls completed a neuroimaging scan to assess changes in vmPFC and dmPFC activation to sad faces, and measures of depressive symptom severity and emotion regulation. The 1‐year cross‐lagged effects of dmPFC activity at age 16 on expressive suppression at age 17 and depressive symptomatology at age 17 were significant, demonstrating a predictive relation between dmPFC activity and both suppression and depressive severity.     

Toward an epistemology of a brown body

In its current emphasis on all that is analytic and cognitive, the absence and elusiveness of the body in educational research defines and delineates any consideration of how new identities, particularly the emerging identities of Latina/o lesbian and gay youth, are being invented within a contestation of dominant discourses of race, class, gender, and sexuality. In a reevaluation of the writings of Chicana theorists Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua, this paper locates the brown body as central in an ongoing practice of negotiation in which multiple, often opposing, ideas and ways of being are addressed, appropriated, and negotiated. The brown body, with its multiple and often oppositional intersections of sociopolitical locations, must be acknowledged in its centrality in creating new knowledges. For the educational researcher, understanding the brown body and the regulation of its movements is fundamental in the reclamation of narrative and the development of radical projects of transformation and liberation.