Building community capacity and social infrastructure through landcare: a case study of land grant engagement

In the struggle to remain true to their technical assistance and civic engagement missions in an era of shrinking budgets and increasingly complex accountability claims, land grant universities have developed different engagement strategies to contribute to the development of surrounding communities. Drawing on Flora and Flora’s (in Ann Am Acad Polit Soc Sci, 48, 1993) assertion that a strong and “entrepreneurial” social infrastructure is critical for facilitating lasting change and development in communities (particularly rural communities), this article presents a case study of a land grant university’s engagement with a community landcare group from the perspective of building social capacity in surrounding communities. This case explores Virginia Tech’s involvement in facilitating and supporting Catawba Landcare using three theoretical frames—Ronald Heifetz’s concept of “holding environments” as a safe and facilitated space where social learning can occur; ecological and social entrepreneurship and the roles and functions required to support these forms of entrepreneurship; and the concept of learning action networks in which otherwise disparate partners are linked under common goals and collectively learn how to manage the situation at hand. Using these three theoretical frames, this paper posits landcare as a model of engagement for land grant universities thus contributing to the construction of social infrastructure.     

The Myth of the Little Red Schoolhouse: Challenges and Opportunities for Rural School Improvement

Reformers suggest that parental choice will improve equity by making it possible for parents to select better schools for their children. A key assumption behind this claim is that parents choose from a set of schools that range in quality. Data from this longitudinal interview study suggest this assumption may be false. In one Midwestern city, parents of different social class backgrounds did not consider schools of similar quality. The set of schools considered by parents, called the choice set, differed; though parents' choice processes and reasoning were remarkably similar. These data suggest that in addition to the well-documented constraints of income, information, and transportation, the resources used to construct choice sets may further constrain the schools parents consider. These findings raise questions about the ability of current choice policies to deliver the equity outcomes reformers suggest.     

When Hurt Continues: Taking Conflict Personally Leads to Rumination,Residual Hurt and Negative Motivations Toward Someone Who Hurt Us

Individuals sometimes are hurt by the comments of others, and residual feelings of hurt are experienced after the episode. Because of individuals’ tendency to ruminate, we argue that residual hurt and its consequences may be especially common among individuals who tend to take conflict personally (TCP). We hypothesized that TCP would be positively related to motivations to avoid and to seek revenge against offenders, and these relationships will be mediated by the link between rumination and residual hurt. To test our hypotheses, we conducted a survey among undergraduates about how they reacted to a hurtful message. We confirmed our hypotheses.     

Physogs: a game with consequences

In 1939, an unusual card game, Physogs, debuted in the United Kingdom. Based on physiognomic principles, it instructed players as to how to read and construct facial features and character types. Thirty years later, a new form of composite facial recognition, Photofit, was incorporated into the practice of the British police. Both projects, Physogs and Photofit, were the brainchild of one man, Jacques Penry, representing his twentieth-century iteration of physiognomy. How did a card game become an origin point for a new approach to policing?     

Integrating Reading into Middle School Science: What we did,found and learned

Recent calls for border crossing between reading and science have heightened the need to support science teachers in integrating reading into science and to verify the robustness of this approach in the context of inquiry‐based science. In this paper, we share what we did, found, and learned in a collaborative project in which a team of university‐based reading educators and school‐based science teachers worked together to infuse reading strategy instruction and quality science trade books into inquiry‐based sixth‐grade science classrooms. We suggest that infusing reading into middle school science enhances science teaching and learning, but is a complex, multifaceted undertaking.     

Evaluating the performance of school psychologists: Current status and future directions with a 360-degree evaluation process

The purpose of this article is twofold: (a) to present the results of a study examining the current status of performance evaluations for school psychologist and (b) to use those findings to inform future directions. A content analysis of a national sample of 36 performance appraisal rubrics was conducted to examine their alignment with the professional standards established by the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP). Among the rubrics reviewed, 88.9% featured eight or more of the NASP domains of practice, yet only 56% of the rubrics featured all 10 domains, suggesting variability in the degree to which the rubrics aligned with the standards of practice, particularly for rubrics developed at the district-level. The results of this study informed the development of a 360-evaluation process based on the Framework for Personnel Evaluation of School Psychologists Utilizing the NASP Practice Model and Morrison's four key principles for evaluating the performance of school psychologists.     

MEASURING SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY TRAINEE SELF‐EFFICACY

There is an ever‐increasing need for school psychology training programs to demonstrate their ability to produce competent practitioners. One method of addressing this need is through the assessment of self‐efficacy. However, little research on self‐efficacy in school psychology exists likely due to the lack of a psychometrically sound measure of this construct. To address this gap, we examined the construct validity of the Huber Inventory of Self‐Efficacy for School Psychologists Research Version (HIS‐SP‐RV), a preexisting measure of self‐efficacy, with a sample of 520 school psychology graduate students. Results suggest that the HIS‐SP‐RV is not a valid measure of trainee self‐efficacy. We then created and conducted a psychometric evaluation of a shortened measure, the Huber Inventory of Trainee Self‐Efficacy (HITS). Results supported the validity of a five‐factor model. Implications for the use of the HITS for program evaluation, to improve trainee competence, and for future research are discussed.     

An Immersion Approach to Teaching Food Science

ABSTRACT: Introductory Food Science courses are most often lecture-based courses, but some include limited laboratory experiences. As described in this paper, the course minimizes lecture and maximizes experiential or "hands-on" learning by using an immersion approach to teach basic concepts of food science. Additionally, it requires students to work in groups to accomplish tasks, thus providing valuable experience in working cooperatively. The course has been taught in this basic manner at Ohio State for 10 y. Analysis of pre-test and post-test results shows that none of the students pass the pre-test and 92% pass the post-test. In 2002, the average increase in scores from the pre-test to the post-test was 65.7 ± 14.7 (n = 22).     

Support,belonging, motivation,and engagement in the college classroom: a mixed method study

This explanatory sequential mixed methods study examined how belonging perceptions, academic motivation, and engagement might mediate the relationship between academic contextual characteristics and achievement using structural equation modeling and qualitative follow-up interviews with college students from a large, Midwestern university. In the first, quantitative phase, two hypothesized models of student belonging and motivation were tested. In line with the Self-System Model of Classroom Support for Motivation (Connell and Wellborn, in: Gunnar and Sroufe (eds.) Minnesota Symposium on Child Psychology: Self-processes and Development, 1991), Model 1 hypothesized student belonging and motivation to be directly predicted by supportive classroom environment perceptions, and to directly predict engagement, which was hypothesized to predict achievement. Model 2 elaborated on the traditional self-system model and hypothesized student belonging to mediate the relationship between supportive classroom environment perceptions and student motivation. Quantitative findings revealed support for Model 2. Supportive classroom environment perceptions predicted students’ belonging beliefs, which in turn predicted students’ motivation, engagement, and achievement in the course. The second, follow-up qualitative phase suggested ways in which contextual characteristics might influence student belonging beliefs in the classroom. Taken together, the quantitative and qualitative data illustrate the influential role of classroom contextual characteristics on student outcomes, as well as the role student belonging plays in college student motivation and success.