Academic Follow-Up Data on Two Cohorts of High-Risk Transfer Children

Two cohorts of children from inner-city elementary schools were provided a tutoring intervention to help in their transition to new schools. Participants were third, fourth, and fifth grade children who were identified as having low-income status, evidencing lags on achievement tests, and experiencing stressful life events. The intervention involved an orientation program with twice weekly paraprofessional tutoring. Two and three year academic and sociometric follow-up data were collected. Those provided the intervention evidenced some improvements over time, and these changes were most prominent in the area of reading grades. Fewer significant findings were found on sociometric indices.     

Self-assessments and other perceptions of successful adults who are deaf: an initial investigation

More often than not, deafness is portrayed, not only in the literature in education and rehabilitation but in society in general, in a pathological way that focuses on deficiency, dysfunction, and deviance. Consequently, there has been a paucity of research on successful individuals who are deaf. The purpose of the present study was to help counter this tendency by gathering information from successful deaf adults. Fourteen deaf adults, who were nominated by their peers as being successful, participated in videotaped interviews. The interviews were transcribed, coded, and clustered according to common themes. Participants reflected on their success and made recommendations for children and youth who are deaf, parents, teachers, and employers. A summary of the results, limitations of the study, and recommendations for practice are provided.     

Games for boys: a qualitative study of experiences with commercial off the shelf gaming

Boys are less likely to receive praise and recognition for good schoolwork, to consider school important, and have fewer opportunities to do the things that they do best (Lopez and Calderon in How America’s boys become psychological dropouts. The gallup blog, 2013). Traditional school cultures have come in conflict with the normal and natural ways that boys behave. As a result, boys have had alienating experiences and high levels of disengagement and lowered academic success in school due to rejection of boy culture, which includes aggressive play, competition, and violent fantasy. The purpose of this study was to explore ways in which we can re-engage boys and enhance their learning opportunities in traditional classroom settings. Boys are drawn to video games, which offer a unique environment where they can engage in learning activities. By taking seriously the indigenous knowledge of this portion of boy culture, we may identify ways in which their expertise can become useful towards common learning goals (Carr-Chellman 2007; Carr-Chellman and Savoy 2004). The current analysis represents the first of a multiphase study that uses an interpretive lens within a CHAT framework to identify relevant learning in Commercial of the Shelf (COTS) games. This phenomenological design identifies learning accounts that map to the United States Common Core State Standards. Our findings suggest that engaged learning can occur for these boys as a result of playing games. COTS games engage boys in normal and natural ways, and consequently can be relevant learning tools that educators, researchers and instructional designers might employ toward traditional learning objectives.     

Organizational effectiveness in education: Its measurement and enhancement

This study is concerned with the nature of organizational goals, and ways of measuring goal achievement. It is intended to provide administrators with some new ways of conceptualizing the evalution of effectiveness in educational systems. The paper points out the desirability of involving professionals in the setting of goals, proposes a three-tier system of goals for educational systems, and suggests some of the reasons for the frequent failure to achieve organizational goals. Additionally, a comprehensive approach to the goals of organizations, adapted from Gross's matrix of purposes, is proposed, on the grounds that only such an inclusive approach to organizational goals is entirely satisfactory. Finally, the paper takes issue with the notion that freedom for organization members equals absence of organizational controls. The sense of power for organization members increases with participation in control, as does effectiveness. Thus, particularly for organizations with large numbers of professionals as members, it is not absence of control but rather participation in control that is the vital factor in both freedom and effectiveness. The final conclusion of the paper is that attempts to improve the effectiveness of educational systems or institutions must be in the future more inclusive, and that the matrix of purposes approach is one possible line of development.

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Résumé Cette étude porte sur la nature des objectifs des plans d'organisation et des méthodes servant à mesurer le degré de réussite dans la poursuite de ces objectifs. L'auteur se propose de fournir aux administrateurs un certain nombre de nouveaux critères pour concevoir l'évaluation de l'efficacité des systèmes éducatifs. Soulignant l'opportunité de confier à des professionnels l'établissement des objectifs, cette étude propose un système à trois paliers et tente d'expliquer les échecs fréquents auxquels aboutissent les objectifs des plans d'organisation. Par ailleurs, en ce qui concerne les objectifs des organisations, elle propose une attitude globale adaptée de l'étude de Gross intitulée matrix of purposes (matrice des objectifs), étant donné qu'une telle attitude est la seule qui soit satisfaisante à tous points de vue. Enfin l'auteur dénonce la notion selon laquelle la liberté accordée aux membres des organisations équivaut à une absence de contrôle sur ces dernières. En participant au contrôle de leurs organisations, les membres prennent en effet de plus en plus conscience de leur pouvoir et l'efficacité s'en trouve accrue. C'est ainsi que lorsqu'il s'agit, en particulier, d'organisations comptant de nombreux membres des professions libérales, ce n'est pas l'absence de contrôle mais plutôt la participation au contrôle qui représente le facteur capital à la fois de la liberté et de l'efficacité. En conclusion finale, cette étude affirme qu'à l'avenir, les tentatives d'amélioration des systèmes éducatifs ou des institutions devront avoir un caractère plus global et que la matrice des objectifs représente l'une des méthodes possibles à adopter dans ce domaine.

     

Recruiting the graduate voice: informing higher education initiatives to underpin an emerging,veterinary paraprofession in Australia

In Australia, the inception of veterinary technology, as a higher education discipline underpinning an emerging, mid-tier paraveterinary field, reflected global trends for more highly educated veterinary paraprofessionals to meet changing societal demands. In this study, veterinary technology graduates were surveyed about their experiences in the workforce and reflections on their education. Seeking feedback on how well a new programme has prepared graduates for the workforce is a useful quality assurance tool. Clinical veterinary practice was the primary employment sector with the majority of respondents in full-time employment. Career advancement, professional recognition and salaries were identified as key career challenges. The important roles of the veterinary and veterinary nursing professions, the university, government and graduates in the development of this mid-tier, veterinary paraprofession were elucidated. Graduates’ feedback on criteria that underpinned ‘work-readiness’ revealed seven key domains: communication skills, research skills, knowledge, critical thinking/problem-solving, employability, practical skills and professionalism. Veterinary nursing skills, work placement, practice management and production animal health were flagged as areas for curricular improvement. This study illuminated facilitators and barriers critical to establishing a mid-tier veterinary paraprofession, bridging the divide between the vocational and higher education sectors in Australia.

Abbreviations: AUD: Australian dollar; AVA: Australian Veterinary Association; AVBC: Australasian Veterinary Boards Council; AVMA: American Veterinary Medical Association; BVNA: British Veterinary Nursing Association; CSU: Charles Sturt University; DAF: Department of Agriculture and Fisheries; FWC: Fair Work Commission; GCA: Graduate Careers Australia; HE: Higher Education; NHMRC: National Health and Medical Research Council; QLD: Queensland; RCVS: Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons; UK: United Kingdom; UQ: University of Queensland; VN: Veterinary nursing; VNCA: Veterinary Nurses Council of Australia; VSB: Veterinary Surgeons Board; VT: Veterinary technology; WIL: Work-integrated learning.     

The effect of distributed monitoring exercises and feedback on performance, monitoring accuracy, and self-efficacy

Monitoring one’s own study processes accurately is important in self-regulated learning. This study compared a treatment (N = 45) and comparison class (N = 39) on the effects of monitoring exercises and feedback on calibration and test performance over a 16-week undergraduate course. Path analyses revealed a significant influence of the intervention on class performance, calibration, and self-efficacy. The results suggest the appropriateness of integrating distributed metacognitive exercises in class content and the fundamental role of monitoring ability in performance-based course outcomes and self-efficacy.     

Android arete: Toward a virtue ethic for computational agents

Traditional approaches to computer ethics regard computers as tools, andfocus, therefore, on the ethics of their use. Alternatively, computer ethicsmight instead be understood as a study of the ethics of computationalagents, exploring, for example, the different characteristics and behaviorsthat might benefit such an agent in accomplishing its goals. In this paper,I identify a list of characteristics of computational agents that facilitatetheir pursuit of their end, and claim that these characteristics can beunderstood as virtues within a framework of virtue ethics. This frameworkincludes four broad categories – agentive, social, environmental, and moral– each of which can be understood as a spectrum of virtues rangingbetween two extreme subcategories. Although the use of a virtue frameworkis metaphorical rather than literal, I argue that by providing a frameworkfor identifying and critiquing assumptions about what a `good' computer is,a study of android arete provides focus and direction to the developmentof future computational agents.     

Phonological processing and emergent literacy in younger and older preschool children

Phonological awareness, phonological memory, and phonological access to lexical storage play important roles in acquiring literacy. We examined the convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of these phonological processing abilities (PPA) in 389 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the validity of each PPA as separate from general cognitive ability and separate from each other. Multigroup structural equation modeling (SEM) with mean structure demonstrated that older preschoolers have better developed latent PPA than younger preschoolers but that the structure of PPA is equivalent. RAN was found uniquely associated with letter knowledge and text discrimination in younger preschoolers, and PA was found uniquely associated with word reading skills in older preschoolers. Finally, general cognitive ability was only indirectly associated with emergent literacy via PPA. These results highlight the importance of PPA in the early literacy development of English-speaking preschool children.