The Impact of Library Media Specialists on Students and How It Is Valued by Administrators and Teachers: Findings from the Latest Studies in Colorado and Idaho

School library media specialists wear many hats within their school libraries, classrooms, and districts. Whether these roles are formally acknowledged or not, library media specialists (LMSs) are functioning as co-teachers, curriculum designers, website managers, technology troubleshooters, administrators, and in-service staff development providers. In an era of decreased funding and increased budget-trimming, however, positions for qualified LMS librarians are especially vulnerable. This article presents the result of a multistate survey of administrators and teachers perceptions with regards to their impact on the school’s learning process.     

THE IMPACT OF A GERONTOLOGICAL INTERVENTION ON OSTEOPATHIC MEDICAL STUDENTS

In order to evaluate the impact of adding a brief unit on aging to the first‐year curriculum of a school of osteopathic medicine a quasiexperimental design was employed. The educational experience involved three hours of classroom material, a visit to a nursing home, and a visit to a congregate housing facility for the well elderly. Over one semester the entire first‐year class was scheduled for the program. Analysis of pretest and posttest data revealed a mild but significant improvement in knowledge and attitudes with respect to the elderly. Subjective responses to the program were very positive.     

The Destination of Three Paths: Improved Student,Faculty and Staff,and System Learning

Piecemeal change to improve schooling is an approach that at its worst does more harm than good, and at its best is limited to creating pockets of good within school districts. When it comes to improving schooling in a district, however, creating pockets of good isn't good enough. Whole school systems need to be improved.

This article focuses on helping educators learn how to transform entire school systems to create unparalleled opportunities to improve student, faculty and staff, and system learning, and presents a set of principles to help change leaders in school systems navigate large-scale, district-wide change to create these multiple learning opportunities.     

Sample Plan for a Survey of Higher Education Enrollment

Despite marked changes in the composition of the population of higher education over the past 20 years, few researchers have tested hypotheses pertaining to predictors of turnover among nontraditional college students. In the present study, we controlled several variables and tested to see whether credit load moderates the effects of intent on turnover at a community college. The results of a stepwise logistic regression model generated from data collected during the spring and fall of 1987 indicated a significant (p < .01) joint effect of credit load and intent. As predicted, intent was more strongly related to turnover among students carrying 13 or more credit hours as compared with students carrying 1–6 and 7–12 credit hours.     

Organizational Chunking and Postquestions in Facilitating Student Ability to Profit from Visualized Instruction

This experiment was designed to examine the instructional effectiveness and efficiency of organizational chunking and batched postquestions within the framework of an information-processing approach to learning and memory. The coding processes utilized by the content organization employed both encoding and retrieval aids to facilitate the acquisition, retention, and retrieval of the information to be learned. Major findings indicate that the chunked treatment resulted in a more efficient learning strategy than the conventional treatment; however, the chunked and conventional treatment, as different encoding strategies, did not produce significant differences in achievement on the performance task. Additionally, students receiving the intervening postquestion strategy took significantly less time in completing the performance measure than did those students who received the non-intervening postquestion treatment.     

Sports Involvement across the Life Span: Expansion and Contraction of Sports Activities

Abstract

Self-determination theory (Deci &; Ryan, 1985) suggests that motivational orientation or regulatory styles with respect to various behaviors can be conceptualized along a continuum ranging from low (amotivation) to high (intrinsic motivation) levels of self-determination. This pattern is manifested in the rank order of correlations among these regulatory styles (i.e., adjacent correlations are expected to be higher than those more distant) and is known as a simplex structure. Using responses from the Sport Motivation Scale (Pelletier et al., 1995) obtained from a sample of 857 college students (442 men, 415 women), the present study tested the simplex structure underlying SMS subscales via structural equation modeling. Results confirmed the simplex model structure, indicating that the various motivational constructs are empirically organized from low to high self-determination. The simplex pattern was further found to be invariant across gender. Findings from this study support the construct validity of the SMS and have important implications for studies focusing on the influence of motivational orientation in sport.     

Comparing student,instructor, classroom and institutional data to evaluate a seven-year department-wide science education initiative

We compared seven unrelated data-sets to evaluate a major education improvement initiative. Perceptions of students in 54 course sections were surveyed regarding the helpfulness of 39 specific teaching or learning strategies, and relative workloads and enthusiasm were compared to their other courses. Classes were observed using an established protocol, instructors completed a teaching practices inventory, and their experience with evidence-based pedagogies was established. A graduation exit survey provided longitudinal indications of changes prior to the study, and institutional student ratings of instruction were obtained. This study sought to determine whether improvements were consistently revealed by these data, how perceptions depended upon class size, course improvement model and instructor experience, and whether student ratings captured consistent perceptions about effectiveness. Overall, results compared favourably. Student perceptions and observed effectiveness depended mainly upon class size and improvement strategy. Students found experiences more effective in courses taught by experienced instructors and in classes observed to be more active. Relative workloads were not correlated with any measure of effectiveness while relative enthusiasm was higher in courses perceived to be more effective. Student ratings were consistent with other data-sets, although they did not provide information specific enough for informing further improvements.