Relationship between private schooling and achievement: Results from rural and urban India

This paper contributes to the important but small body of research on the role of private schools in Indian education. It uses a household dataset from India with a rich set of household covariates and student performance data on reading, writing, and mathematics. For both rural and urban India the results from regression analyses indicate that private school students perform better on tests controlling for covariates. In both contexts, however, the private school benefit becomes largely, statistically, insignificant after conducting multivariate analysis on data balanced using the propensity score matching technique. The paper also makes an initial attempt to identify ‘low-fee’ private schools; within the regression framework it finds that children in such schools may perform no better than their public school counterparts. The data and methods used in this paper are not without limitations; however these analyses call into question the claim that private school effect may be unequivocally positive and highlights the potential heterogeneity in private school performance in the Indian context.     

Student and teacher attendance: The role of shared goods in reducing absenteeism

A theoretical model is advanced that demonstrates that, if teacher and student attendance generate a shared good, then teacher and student attendance will be mutually reinforcing. Using data from the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan, empirical evidence supporting that proposition is advanced. Controlling for the endogeneity of teacher and student attendance, the most powerful factor raising teacher attendance is the attendance of the children in the school, and the most important factor influencing child attendance is the presence of the teacher. The results suggest that one important avenue to be explored in developing policies to reduce teacher absenteeism is to focus on raising the attendance of children.     

An explanation of reading comprehension across development using models from Cattell–Horn–Carroll theory: Support for integrative models of reading

The purpose of this research was to investigate the cognitive abilities that explain reading comprehension across childhood and early adulthood. Drawing from the standardization sample of the Woodcock–Johnson III, analyses were conducted with large samples at age levels spanning early childhood to early adulthood: 5 to 6 (n = 639), 7 to 8 (n = 720), 9 to 13 (n = 1,995), 14 to 19 (n = 1,615), and 20 to 39 (n = 1,409). Using a model including factors representing general intelligence, Cattell–Horn–Carroll broad abilities, and reading decoding skills, results revealed significant direct effects for reading decoding skills and Crystallized Intelligence on reading comprehension across all age levels. Memory‐related abilities, processing speed, and auditory processing demonstrated indirect effects on reading comprehension through reading decoding skills. The magnitude of direct and indirect effects varied as a function of age. The results provide support for integrative models of reading that include both direct and indirect effects of cognitive abilities on reading comprehension and for consideration of developmental differences in the cognitive aptitudes predicting reading comprehension. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Understanding and defining cognitive style and learning style: a Delphi study in the context of educational psychology

This report outlines the findings from a Delphi study designed to establish consensus on the definitions of cognitive style and learning style amongst an international style researcher community. The study yields long-needed definitions for each construct that reflect high levels of agreement. In a field that has been criticised for a bewildering array of definitions and a proliferation of terms and concepts, this study represents an important step to address confusion in the meaning of the two terms. New researchers interested in styles are encouraged to draw on these definitions when developing new research agendas aimed at deepening our understanding of style as a core construct in educational psychology.     

Metalinguistic contributions to reading and spelling in second and third grade students

Minimal research has been conducted on the simultaneous influence of multiple metalinguistic, linguistic, and processing skills that may impact literacy development in children who are in the process of learning to read and write. In this study, we assessed the phonemic awareness, morphological awareness, orthographic awareness, receptive vocabulary, and rapid naming abilities of second and third grade students (N?=?56) and determined how these abilities predicted the children??s reading and spelling skills. Regression analyses revealed that morphological awareness was the sole unique contributor to spelling and, together with orthographic awareness, uniquely contributed to word recognition. Morphological awareness also was significantly related to reading comprehension. The results add to a growing literature base providing evidence that early literacy development is influenced by morphological awareness, an ability that has received considerably less educational attention. Additionally, the findings point to the importance of tapping into multiple sources of metalinguistic knowledge when providing instruction in reading and spelling.     

Profiles of school readiness among four-year-old Head Start children

This study uses the Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) data from 1997 to investigate the degree to which child, family, classroom, teacher, and Head Start program characteristics are related to children's school readiness and continued development over the four-year-old Head Start year. Latent class analyses were used to examine the constellation of school readiness competencies within individual Head Start children in both the fall and spring of the four-year-old Head Start year. Multinomial regression analyses examined patterns of association between demographic and program characteristics and profile membership over time. Four distinct developmental profiles were found in the sample in the fall, and three were found in the spring. Furthermore, a substantial proportion of Head Start children (43%) moved from a developmental profile including some risk to a strengths profile between the fall and spring of the Head Start year. Child age, family structure, parental educational attainment, classroom quality and teacher's level of educational attainment emerged as important factors associated with stability and change in profile membership over the four-year-old Head Start year, but receipt of social services through Head Start was not associated with stability or change in profile membership.     

A New Perspective: The Common Factors Model as a Foundation for Social Work Practice Education

Foundation social work practice education is critical to the preparation of BSW practitioners for professional practice and the establishment of a theoretical and skill base upon which graduate students may build competencies in the advanced curriculum. Issues in the foundation practice curriculum may hinder this development. The common factors model holds promise as an organizing framework for foundation social work practice education. This model may help to resolve some key issues in social work and social work education, and may provide a useful, coherent, and empirical base for the foundation practice curriculum.     

Predictors of discrepancies between informants’ ratings of preschool-aged children's behavior: An examination of ethnicity,child characteristics,and family functioning

The present study examined predictors of discrepancies between mothers’, fathers’, and teachers’ ratings of 3-year-old children's hyperactivity, attention problems, and aggression. Participants were families of 196 3-year-old children who took part in child and family assessments. Ethnicity was one of the most consistent predictors of discrepancies. African American mothers and fathers were more likely to rate their children's hyperactivity, attention problems, and aggression lower than teachers. In contrast, Latina mothers were more likely to rate their children as more hyperactive and inattentive than teachers. ADHD/ODD diagnoses, parental depression, number of children, and children's pre-academic skills were also predictive of discrepancies for some measures for some informants. These findings provide insight into factors that may contribute to informant discrepancies in ratings of preschool children.