Take home tests: An experimental study

The take home test was compared with the conventional closed and open book tests at the college level. It was found that scores on knowledge items were significantly higher with the take home test, and that additional time spent looking up answers was important. An additional factor was the level of anxiety, perceived by students to be less with the take home test. Rampant cheating does not appear to be a problem with take home tests.     

State Policy and the Affordability of Public Higher Education: The Influence of State Grants on Persistence in Indiana

The coordination of state finance strategies has been widely advocated as a means of maintaining affordability in public colleges and universities. This article examines the influence of state grants on equalizing opportunity for persistence among full-time resident students in Indiana's public system of higher education. The findings indicate that the state has maintained a commitment to a balanced approach to higher education finance, with increases in state grants that corresponded with tuition increases in the middle 1990s. This investment has been sufficient to equalize opportunity to persist.     

Writing through retellings: an exploratory study of language-impaired and dyslexic populations

This study was designed to examine differences and similarities in the writing of 15 language-impaired, 17 dyslexic and 15 typically developing control subjects matched on chronological age. Subjects ranging in age from 11 to 21 years were required to produce a written language sample using an expository text-retell procedure. The writing of these groups was compared on eight variables across discourse, T-unit, sentence, and word levels. Control subjects performed better than language-impaired and dyslexic subjects on all writing variables. Dyslexic subjects showed better performance than the language-impaired subjects on several variables including, (a) number of T-units, (b) number of ideas, (c) total number of words, and (4) number of different words while showing comparable performance on percentage of spelling and production of grammatically correct sentences. These findings support Bishop and Snowling’s [Psychol. Bull. 130 (2004) 858] position that the differences between these two clinical populations exist in the non-phonological dimensions of language.     

Assessment of Autism Symptoms From 6 to 18 Months of Age Using the Autism Observation Scale for Infants in a Prospective High-Risk Cohort

The objectives were to characterize behavioral signs of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in younger siblings of diagnosed children (high-risk; HR) and examine classification features of the Autism Observation Scale for Infants (AOSI). Participants (501 HR and 180 low-risk [LR]) were assessed between 6 and 18 months using the AOSI and at age 3 for ASD diagnoses. Total AOSI scores differentiated HR infants later diagnosed with ASD starting at 12 months. ROC analyses identified 12- and 18-month cutoff scores associated with 0.52 sensitivity and 0.74 specificity and 0.73 sensitivity and 0.65 specificity, respectively. Although classification accuracy does not support use as a standalone screen, the AOSI identifies features associated with ASD starting at 6 months and differentiates HR infants with ASD by 12 months.     

Who's in the house? Race differences in cohabitation,single parenthood,and child development

This study examined four questions: (1) How does family structure (specifically, single parenthood, married parent, and cohabitating parent) affect children's delinquency and math test scores? (2) Do these effects differ by race? (3) Do parenting practices mediate the links between family structure and children's outcomes? and (4) Does this mediation differ by race? Unlike some previous work in this area, the present study distinguished between the effects of single parenthood and cohabitation. Using fixed-effects techniques to control for unobserved heterogeneity between children in the various family structures, single parenthood was found to be associated with reduced well-being among European American children, but not African American children. Cohabitation was associated with greater delinquency among African American children, and lower math scores among European American children. No evidence was found to indicate that parenting mediated the links between family structure and children's outcomes. Finally, it was found that for African American children, measures of maternal warmth and the provision of rules had direct effects on children's delinquency.     

Transforming a Traditional Inquiry-Based Science Unit into a STEM Unit for Elementary Pre-service Teachers: A View from the Trenches

The need to prepare students with twenty-first-century skills through STEM-related teaching is strong, especially at the elementary level. However, most teacher education preparation programs do not focus on STEM education. In an attempt to provide an exemplary model of a STEM unit, we used a rapid prototyping approach to transform an inquiry-based unit on moon phases into one that integrated technology in a meaningful manner to develop technological literacy and scientific concepts for pre-service teachers (PSTs). Using qualitative case study methodology, we describe lessons learned related to the development and implementation of a STEM unit in an undergraduate elementary methods course, focusing on the impact the inquiry model had on PSTs’ perceptions of inquiry-based science instruction and how the integration of technology impacted their learning experience. Using field notes and survey data, we uncovered three overarching themes. First, we found that PSTs held absolutist beliefs and had a need for instruction on inquiry-based learning and teaching. Second, we determined that explicit examples of effective and ineffective technology use are needed to help PSTs develop an understanding of meaningful technology integration. Finally, the rapid prototyping approach resulted in a successful modification of the unit, but caused the usability of our digital instructional materials to suffer. Our findings suggest that while inquiry-based STEM units can be implemented in existing programs, creating and testing these prototypes requires significant effort to meet PSTs’ learning needs, and that iterating designs is essential to successful implementation.     

A Content Analysis of Phonological Awareness and Phonics in Commonly Used Head Start Curricula

Commonly used early childhood curricula were examined to consider the degree to which they support research-based instruction for phonological awareness (PA) and phonics. A content analysis was completed for two types of curricula widely used in Head Start: overarching general curricula and lesson-based curricula, which usually provide more explicit teaching instructions. Both types of curriculum demonstrated the same pattern of findings; while all curricula included some content aligned with standards, programs differed greatly in the number of objectives and instructional strategies included for PA and phonics instruction. Overall, curricula were most likely to address earlier developing PA skills (e.g., rhyming, alliteration) with more limited attention to advanced skills that are closely linked with reading development (e.g., segmenting and blending of phonemes). Phonics instruction was not included often in any of the curricula studied, and opportunities for individualizing instruction were rare, particularly for children with special needs. Results suggest that instructional recommendations for PA and phonics in most of these commonly-used Head Start curricula, even those curricula which typically provide more explicit instruction for teachers, do not align with the instruction provided in effective intervention studies, and therefore may not be powerful enough to influence children’s reading trajectories.     

Participation in an intergenerational service learning course and implicit biases

Biases against the elderly and people with disabilities can lead to discriminatory behaviors. One way to conceptualize attitudes toward the elderly and people with disabilities is through the differentiation of explicit (conscious) and implicit (unconscious) factors. Although both explicit and implicit attitudes and biases contribute to the full picture of peoples’ attitudes, explicit ideas alone may not accurately reflect people’s attitudes. This may be due to societal pressure to conceal explicit biases or the fact that often times, people are not aware they hold prejudiced views. The Implicit Association Test is a computer-based categorization task designed to assess implicit or unconscious attitudes. This test was used in in the current study to assess the impact of an intergenerational service-learning course. We designed this study to determine if greater exposure or contact with the elderly or people with disabilities might influence college students’ implicit attitudes. Pre- and post-assessment of participating students, using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test, found statistically significant decreased biases after participation. Results from this study that suggest participating in an intergenerational service-learning course can positively affect implicit attitudes. This is encouraging, especially because these attitudes are developed over a long period of repeated exposure, are consistently reinforced by cultural factors, and are notoriously difficult to change.     

University–industry collaboration: Patterns of growth for low- and middle-level performers

Following landmark legislation passed more than 20 years ago, university–industry relationships have now become central to understanding the changing role of research universities in American Society. The paper analyzes the development of university–industry partnerships during the 1990s. Past studies have used a broad array of measures of ties and a variety of research methodologies, but they have shared a focus on top collaborators or on samples of universities skewed toward the top. However, findings based on top collaborators may not be valid for other universities. Universities involved in mid- to low-levels of collaboration are qualitatively different in many ways from the more extensively studied set of top collaborators, suggesting that characteristics affecting university–industry ties may not be the same for these institutions. The paper shifts the focus away from top collaborators to this sizable and less studied majority. In general, we find that the same characteristics predicting high levels of involvement for the sample as a whole also predict high levels of involvement for the sub-sample of mid- and low-level collaborators. However, We find some particular characteristics of these institutions, such as land grant status, are also associated with stronger ties to industry, and that some characteristics of 25 top institutions do not predict the level of involvement of these lower-level collaborators. We will discuss whether the licensing of new technology is likely ever to become an important source of net revenues for current middle and low-level collaborators. Our findings raise doubts about whether many universities below the top 25 will earn substantial net revenues from licensing, though they do not dispute the potential service value of these ties. The study is based on examination of a wide range of potential influences on university–industry collaboration for institutions that are not currently among the most heavily involved in partnerships. These include status, other institutional characteristics (such as size and control), investment in science and engineering, and characteristics of offices or technology transfer.     

Transformation of a Modern Newsroom Workforce

Digital transformation continues to impact the news industry and news organizations are adapting accordingly through shifts in required skills and prescribed job positions of journalists. In order to examine the changing nature of the modern journalist, a case study was conducted examining the employment histories of New York City journalists (n?=?3587). Social network analysis was used to better understand the career trajectories of journalists within the dataset, with a specific focus on understanding the development of new jobs for journalists in data, analytic, social, and mobile-oriented job positions. Findings demonstrate important differences between traditional employment patterns and those of employees in jobs requiring new skills and knowledge of new technology.