How Specific are Specific Comprehension Difficulties? An Investigation of Poor Reading Comprehension in Nine-Year-Olds

This study explores the incidence of poor comprehenders, that is, children identified as having reading comprehension difficulties, despite age-appropriate word reading skills. It supports the findings that some children do show poor reading comprehension, despite age-appropriate word reading, as measured with a phonological coding test. However, the proportion of poor comprehenders was smaller than the frequently reported 10–15%, and smaller yet, when average sight word recognition, measured with an orthographic coding test, was also set as a criterion for word reading skill. Compared to average comprehenders, the poor comprehenders’ orthographic coding and daily reading of literary texts were significantly below those of average readers. This study indicates that a lack of reading experience, and likewise, a lack of fluent word reading, may be important factors in understanding 9-year-old poor comprehenders’ difficulties.     

Design-Based Intervention Research as the Science of the Doubly Artificial

This article uses a variety of principles of cultural-historical activity theory to extend Herbert Simon’s (1996) insight into the inherent linkage between the creation of artifacts and design. We argue that design research must grapple with the doubly artificial, as the classrooms in which many educational designs are implemented are themselves already artificial and contingent—the products of design—and the learning that is the focus of investigation is already an adaptation to the classroom environment and so artificial. Focusing our discussion on the mesogenetic character of the temporal characteristics of typical educational design-based intervention research, we present an example of an 18-year-long life span of an intervention that was initially expected to last 3 or 4 years. Crises late in the life of the system, 1 of which rescued the system, 1 of which terminated it, documented through field notes written by undergraduate participants, provide evidence for the dynamics of the system’s internal functioning in relation to events occurring in the larger ecology of which it was a part.     

Relationships in the workplace: Doing what comes naturally?

In this paper I explore the connection between workplace relationships and teacher development. Using a conceptual framework built on Brim and Wheeler's (1966) ideas on self-socialization and Erickson's (1963) theory of psychosocial development I draw on information gathered in year one of a 2-year qualitative study of teacher socialization to explore the following questions: With whom do beginning teachers form relationships in their new professional contexts? What is the nature of these relationships? What functions do they serve? Are some relationships more important at some times than others? How do certain relationships facilitate or constrain the various aspects of teacher development? Can facilitating relationships be contrived? Can contrived relationships be facilitating? And, finally, what role does context play in all of this?The focus on relationships grows out of a need to understand better the role of the “other” in the professional growth process. By examining information gathered through conversations with 13 new teachers I will uncover and explore some of the issues pertaining to professional relationship formation and development particularly in relation to teacher socialization and the psychosocial aspects of teacher development. These insights will be used as a basis for a discussion of formalized induction programs which feature forms of institutionally imposed collaborative arrangements. Drawing on some of the recent work on teacher culture and collegiality (Hargreaves, 1990; Little, 1990; Rosenholtz, 1987, 1989), Barth's (1990) ideas on school improvement through the creation of a “community of learners”, and on Noddings' (1986) and Gherke's (1987) notions on the building of caring and helping communities, I will discuss the limitations of some of the recent trends in professional development for new teachers. I will recommend an alternative approach to new teacher induction, one that takes into account the individuality of the teacher, the school culture, and the socialization process. In essence, I will argue for a “natural” and integrated approach to teacher induction.     

Designing STEAM Education: Fostering Relationality through Design‐Led Disruption

A significant contention underpinning the commentary around STEM / STEAM is the evidence of discipline hierarchies, and inherent binary perspectives and/or biases that lend themselves to privileging one or more disciplines over another in an interdisciplinary education context. The current focus on increasing engagement with STEM in Australian schools provides opportunities to explore how the creative and liberal arts, and arts‐based approaches to teaching and learning are being adopted to significantly enhance teaching and learning outcomes in and for STEM education. This article examines how design for a STEAM education programme evolves and is adopted in an Australian context. Tasmania represents one of the most vibrant creative communities in Australia. At the same time it has one of the lowest levels of educational attainment. Entrenched teaching habits and disciplinary hierarchies often create significant barriers to the implementation of STEAM despite genuine goodwill and enthusiasm for STEAM among teachers and within schools. This article argues that, despite the contrasting dynamics extant in the Tasmanian educational context, it is here that some of the nation’s most curious and exciting examples of STEAM teaching and learning have emerged. It offers an example of an innovative learning project and proposes the means by which these disciplinary strands have been effectively entwined.     

Modeling Self-Regulation as a Process Usinga Multiple Time-Scale Multiphase Latent Basis Growth Model

Measurement burst designs, wherein individuals are measured intensively during multiple periods (i.e., bursts), have created new opportunities for studying change at multiple time scales. This article develops a model that might be useful in situations where the functional form of short-term change is unknown, might consist of multiple phases, and might change over the long term. Specifically, we combine measurement of intraindividual entropy, a latent basis growth model, a multiphase growth model, and a growth model with covariates into a unified framework that could help accommodate the complexity of patterns that emerge in multiple time-scale categorical data streams. Empirical data from a longitudinal study of young children’s behavior during laboratory tasks designed to induce frustration are used to illustrate the utility of the proposed model for simultaneously describing intratask (short-term) change in self-regulation and developmental (long-term) shifts in intratask change.     

A Note on the Use of Mixture Models for Individual Prediction

Mixture models capture heterogeneity in data by decomposing the population into latent subgroups, each of which is governed by its own subgroup-specific set of parameters. Despite the flexibility and widespread use of these models, most applications have focused solely on making inferences for whole or subpopulations, rather than individual cases. This article presents a general framework for computing marginal and conditional predicted values for individuals using mixture model results. These predicted values can be used to characterize covariate effects, examine the fit of the model for specific individuals, or forecast future observations from previous ones. Two empirical examples are provided to demonstrate the usefulness of individual predicted values in applications of mixture models. The first example examines the relative timing of initiation of substance use using a multiple event process survival mixture model, whereas the second example evaluates changes in depressive symptoms over adolescence using a growth mixture model.     

Opportunity or exploitation? Women and quality assurance in higher education

Based on interviews with 18 UK women academics and managers on quality and power in higher education, this article interrogates the impact of quality assurance discourses and practices on women in higher education. Micro‐level analysis of the effects of audit and the evaluative state seem to suggest that hegemonic masculinities and gendered power relations are being reinforced by the emphasis on competition, targets, audit trails and performance (Morley, 2003a Morley, L. 2003a. Quality and power in higher education, Buckingham: Open University Press.  [Google Scholar]). Furthermore, pedagogic space for exploring social justice issues is closing with the emphasis on learning outcomes and student consumerism (Morley, 2003b Morley, L. 2003b. “Reconstructing students as consumers: new settlements of power or the politics of assimilation?”. In Higher education and the lifecourse, Edited by: Slowey, M. and Watson, D. Buckingham: Open University Press.  [Google Scholar]). Yet women are also gaining new visibility as a consequence of the creation of a new cadre of quality managers. Quality assurance, as a regime of power, appears to offer both repressive and creative potential for women. This article will explore whether quality signs and practices are gendered and whether these represent opportunity or exploitation for women in the academy.     

Behavior-Based Student Typology: A View from Student Transition from High School to College

Research in Higher Education - Several recent studies have successfully identified college student typologies based on individuals’ behaviors. One limitation of past studies has been their...     

Scaffolding 5-year-old children in Japanese kindergarten collaboratively retelling a tale

This study reports an analysis of how children in a Japanese kindergarten are scaffolded when facing the challenge of collaboratively retelling a kitsune story they have been told. What is referred to as a kitsune story is an example of a trickster tale with foxes as anthropomorphised animals. The participants were ten 5-year-old children and their teacher. Told a story by their teacher, the children were asked later to collaboratively retell it. How this retelling activity is supported – theorised in terms of the metaphor of scaffolding – is analysed on the basis of recordings. The findings show the nature of this evolving process. The conclusion is that the metaphor of scaffolding may require some contextual specification to remain a functional conceptual – and in extension, pedagogical – tool in activities fundamentally different from the activity studied in Wood, Bruner and Ross’ founding 1976 study.     

Finding Diego: A Bilingual Student Integrates School,Language, and Identity

This article presents a mixed-methods case study of Diego, a bilingual teen who completed public school in Florida. During adolescence, Diego negotiated multiple identities: successful student, Mexican American, bilingual, and typical U.S. teenager. Diego provided interviews and bilingual (English/Spanish) writing (narrative/expository) in 2008 (at age 12, Grade 6) and in 2012 (at age 16, Grade 10). A qualitative analysis of his interviews and a quantitative linguistic analysis of his writing reveal central elements of Diego’s language development as related to academic English and identity. Educational implications for working with bilingual adolescents are discussed.