Adjustment outcomes of developmental placement: A longitudinal study

Over the years, educators and psychologists have recommended delaying school entry and have developed alternative interventions for young children identified as unready for school. These developmental placement interventions, including readiness kindergartens and pre‐first classes, were developed to avoid both academic and social‐emotional problems in schools. However, the efficacy of these programs has not been proven. This study examined school adjustment outcomes and emotional and learning difficulties, both short‐term and longitudinally, for students who participated in readiness kindergartens and pre‐first classes, as well as for control groups of students. Significant differences were noted in retention rates, dropout rates, and special education placement rates. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Creating Access to Invisible Special Collections: Using Participatory Management to Reduce a Backlog

The University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries used participatory management to reduce a special collections backlog. Without an increase in budget or staffing, technical and public services departments designed a pilot project to redeploy internal human resources in a collaborative manner. The process of backlog management is discussed.     

Reimaging Public Libraries as Learning Communities: What Library Stories Can Tell Us

This article describes a study conducted in York County, Pennsylvania, on its countywide library system framed within the context of the statewide “Reimaging Libraries” Get Storied initiative, developed and marketed by organizational story consultant, Michael Margolis. Understood as an essential aspect of culture re-imaging and change, narratives were collected from library personnel by undergraduate students at Pennsylvania State University-York as part of a service-learning initiative (directed by the first author). Working closely with the library district consultant (second author), we assess the success of the initiative and make some recommendations for culture reimaging through the practice of storytelling.     

The validity and reliability of the GymAware linear position transducer for measuring counter-movement jump performance in female athletes

The current study aimed to assess the validity and test–retest reliability of a linear position transducer when compared to a force plate through a counter-movement jump in female participants. Twenty-seven female recreational athletes (19 ± 2 years) performed three counter-movement jumps simultaneously using the linear position transducer and force plate for validity. In addition, 11 elite female athletes (23 ± 6 years) performed 3 counter-movement jumps with the linear position transducer on three separate days for test–retest reliability. Pearson correlations for jump height between the devices were at a high level (r = .90), with the linear position transducer overestimating jump height by 7.0 ± 2.8 cm. The reliability measured by the linear position transducer resulted in a mean intraclass correlation of .70 for jump height, .90 for peak velocity, and .91 for mean velocity. The linear position transducer was reliable for measuring counter-movement jumps in elite female athletes; however, caution should be taken for one-off jump measures as it may over-estimate jump height.     

Spatial and temporal matching ability among subgroups of disabled readers

Spatial and temporal matching abilities of 67 male and female fifth and sixth grade average (18) and severely disabled readers (49) were investigated. Subjects were classified according to the Boder Diagnostic Screening Procedure readers: dysphonetic, dyseidetic, and alexic. Results of the matching task indicated that average and dyseidetic readers were better able than dysphonetic and alexic readers to match purely temporal information. When order of difficulty among the spatial and temporal tasks was analyzed, dysphonetic and alexic readers demonstrated greater difficulty with temporal information. Matching abilities were found to be less related to integration ability than to an ability to sequence temporal information. The existence of possible memory and neurological correlates is discussed.     

Toward a constructivist perspective: The impact of a mathematics teacher inservice program on students

A constructivist-oriented inservice program provided teachers of mathematics (K-12) with intensive two-week summer institutes and weekly classroom follow-up. Pre- and post-program data on student outcomes indicate that, along with transformations in the nature and quality of mathematics activity in the classroom, students' beliefs about learning mathematics changed and elementary students' attitudes toward mathematics improved. Although the instruction they now received focused more on conceptual understanding and less on computational skill, students' scores on standardized tests assessing routine knowledge were maintained.An earlier version of this paper appeared in R. Underhill (ed.),Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education 1, 43–49, Backsburg, VI.     

Children born at risk: What's happening in kindergarten?

Many studies examine the development of infants born at risk for medical and developmental problems during the early years of life, but far fewer follow these children into their school years. This project compared high-risk vs. low-risk children in their performance on the WPPSI at pre- and postkindergarten levels. In general, both groups of children demonstrated increases in performance; however, their patterns of performance were different. The high-risk children showed increases predominantly in the Performance areas of the test, whereas the low-risk children demonstrated increases predominantly in the Verbal areas.     

Teaching practices in kindergarten and first grade: different strokes for different folks

This study assessed the nature of instruction in 314 kindergarten and first-grade classrooms from 155 schools in 48 school districts in three states. The schools served a relatively high proportion of low-income children and children of color. Despite the restricted range in student populations served, qualities of the schools and observed classroom instruction were associated with the demographics of the student body. Schools serving relatively high proportions of low-income children and children of color were rated by teachers to have more negative social climates. Teachers in these schools emphasized basic skills more and engaged in more didactic teaching and less constructivist teaching practices. At the classroom level, teaching approaches were predicted by teachers’ goals, the ethnic composition of their classroom, and the degree to which teachers perceived the families of the children in their classroom to have challenges associated with poverty. Didactic teaching was particularly common in classrooms with a high proportion of African–American students and in which teachers believed poverty-related problems inhibited parent involvement in their children's education; constructivist teaching was high in classrooms with a high proportion of Caucasian children.     

Competency beliefs,positive affect,and gender stereotypes of elementary students and their parents about science versus other school subjects

Iowa students and parents completed related attitude and belief questionnaires about school subjects. Grade K–3 students received simpler questionnaires than did Grade 4–6 students or parents. Among Grade 4–6 children, girls perceived higher competence in reading than did boys, but boys perceived higher competence in physical science. All children perceived physical science competence lower than reading or math competence. Parents perceived boys as more competent in science. Girls like reading more than boys did; boys and girls did not differ in liking of science. Grade 4–6 children also expected lower grades in and attached lower importance to physical science than to reading. Parents perceived science as more important for boys and expected higher performance of boys. Jobs related to math or science were seen as more male dominated. These results provided a more comprehensive picture of attitudes and beliefs about science in the elementary school than had existed and suggested that attitudinal gender differences related to physical science begin to develop by the earliest elementary school years. Policy implications are that intervention programs designed to promote gender equity should be extended to the early elementary school years and also should address parental attitudes. Additional implications for policy and research are discussed. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 36: 719–747, 1999