Parental Conceptions of School Readiness: Relation to Ethnicity,Socioeconomic Status,and Children's Skills

Research Findings: This study analyzed the school readiness beliefs of parents of 452 children from public pre-kindergarten and the relations of these beliefs to socioeconomic status and children's readiness skills. Parents conceived readiness largely in terms of the ability to name objects, letters, or numbers, but few included inferential skills. Readiness beliefs were related not to socioeconomic status but to ethnicity. Readiness beliefs about the importance of independence, social competence, nominal knowledge, and inferential skills were related in expected ways to children's skills. Practice or Policy: Infrequent inclusion of inferential skills among parents' readiness beliefs may not bode well for children. Informational programs for parents about the critical role of higher order cognitive skills and ways to promote them are needed.     

Book reviews

Randall, Clarence B., Sixty‐five Plus: The Joy and Challenge of the Years of Retirement. Little, Brown and Company, 34 Beacon Street, Boston 6, Massachusetts, 1963.

Molloy, Julia S., Trainable Children. The John Day Company, 62 W. 45th Street, New York 36, N.Y., 1963, $3.50.

Canfield, Curtis, The Craft of Play Directing. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 383 Madison Avenue, New York 17, N.Y., 1963, $6.00.     

Book reviews

Lee, Irving J. and Lee, Laura L., Handling Barriers in Communication. Harper and Brothers, 49 East 33 Street, New York 16, New York. 1957, $5. Paper.

Auer, J. Jeffery, An Introduction to Research in Speech. Harper and Brothers, 49 East 33 Street, New York 16, New York. 1959, $5.

Brown, Charles T., Introduction to Speech. Houghton Mifflin Company, 432 Park Avenue South, New York 16, New York. 1955.

Uris, Dorothy, Everybody's Book of Better Speaking. David McKay Company, Inc., 119 West 40 Street, New York 18, New York. 1960, $4.95.

Braden, Waldo W., Speech Methods and Resources: A Textbook for the Teacher of Speech. Harper and Brothers, 49 East 33 Street, New York 16, New York. 1961, $6.50.

Marra, Waldo J., How to Streamline Your Letters. National Retail Credit Association, 375 Jackson Avenue, St. Louis 30, Missouri. Multilithed, paper.

Windes, Russell R. and Kruger, Arthur N., Championship Debating. J. Weston Walch, Box 1075, Portland, Maine. 1961 ; paper cover, $3.50 ; plastic cover, $4.50.     

Mothers in methadone treatment and their involvement with the child protection system: A replication and extension study

Objectives

Although a high level of involvement with the child protection system has been identified in families where parental substance use is a feature, not all such parents abuse or neglect their children or have contact with the child protection system. Identifying parents with substance-use histories who are able to care for their children without intervention by the child protection system, and being able to target interventions to the families who need them the most is important. This study interviewed a relatively large sample of mothers about their histories, their children and their involvement with the child protection system. We hypothesized that mothers in opioid pharmacological treatment who are involved with child protection services are different in characteristics to those mothers who are not involved.

Methods

One hundred and seventy-one women, with at least one child aged under 16 years, were interviewed at nine treatment clinics providing pharmacological treatment for opioid dependence across Sydney, Australia.

Results

Just over one-third of the women were involved with child protection services at the time of interview, mostly with children in out-of-home care. Logistic regression analyses revealed that factors which significantly increased the likelihood of the mother being involved with the child protection system were: (1) having a greater number of children, (2) being on psychiatric medication, and (3) having less than daily contact with her own parents.

Conclusions

This study replicates and extends the work of Grella, Hser, and Huang (2006) and the limited literature published to date examining the factors which contribute to some substance-using mothers becoming involved with the child protection system while others do not. The finding that mental health problems and parental supports (along with the number of children) were significantly associated with child protection system involvement in this study, indicates a need for improved interventions and the provision of treatment and support services if we are to reduce the involvement of the child protection system with these families.     

The Pragmatic Barrier

A small-scale phenomenological study reveals interesting and suggestive insights into the pedagogical technology experiences of late-career faculty with institutional recognition as successful instructors. Referred to in much of the literature as “resistant” and assumed to lack training in pedagogical technology and/or to adhere to passive learning strategies, the faculty in this study described attempts, successful and unsuccessful, to integrate technology into their teaching. Their experiences and perceptions point out the questionable effects of taking a “toolism” approach to faculty development and the risk associated with proceeding with unexamined assumptions about such faculty and their technology use.     

The development of case studies as a method within a longitudinal study of special educational needs provision in the Republic of Ireland

When developing case studies within a longitudinal study of special educational needs provision within the Republic of Ireland, the authors were conscious of the critiques of the use of this approach within educational research. The difficulties associated with generalisation, challenges of ensuring trustworthiness and the possibilities of researcher bias have been identified as limiting factors in the presentation of case study data. In order to confront these limitations, the researchers developed a framework for case study development that aimed to provide a secure database and trustworthy interpretation in order to make assertions in relation to special educational needs provision. This paper describes this process and suggests that the need to develop safeguards in order to present case studies that have high degree of credibility is essential when using this approach. Furthermore, the transparency of research methods, a significant omission in many reports of research, is necessary in order to demonstrate the trustworthiness of data.     

Overreporting and underreporting of child abuse: teachers' use of professional discretion

OBJECTIVE: According to mandatory reporting laws for professionals, the relationship between initial recognition that a child may have been abused and the subsequent reporting of that suspected case of child abuse to the responsible agency would, at first glance, appear to be clear. However, this relationship has developed into one of the major social policy controversies of the recent past. Our major goal is to present research findings that address this social policy debate concerning the problems of underreporting and overreporting, focusing specifically on teachers. METHOD: A factorial survey design, that combines the advantages of the factorial experiment with those of surveys, was employed in a probability sample of teachers (N=480) who responded to vignettes in which case characteristics were systematically manipulated. Teachers responded with judgments about whether the vignette was child abuse and the likelihood that they would report this suspected case. Characteristics of the teachers and their work setting (school) were also measured. RESULTS: When comparing the teachers' recognition and reporting scores, we found that they gave the same score for 63% of the vignettes they judged, gave higher reporting than recognition scores (overreporting) for 4% of the vignettes, and gave higher recognition than reporting scores (underreporting) for 33% of the vignettes. Discrepancies between recognition and reporting (over and under reporting) were related to characteristics of the case, teacher, and school where the teacher was employed. CONCLUSIONS: Teachers in our Ohio sample evidence the use of professional discretion in making judgments about the recognition and reporting of child abuse and do not appear to make these judgments with equal certainty. Their use of discretion is more likely to result in underreporting than overreporting.     

I liked your course because you taught me well: The influence of grades,workload, expectations and goals on students' evaluations of teaching

There has been considerable debate as to whether course evaluations are valid measures of teaching quality, or whether students instead reward tutors who give them high grades and assign low levels of work. To assess the factors that influence course evaluations, we measured university students' achievement goals and expectations at the beginning of the semester and also obtained information on grades and workload. Although grades and course difficulty did have a small influence on end‐of‐semester course ratings, structural modelling revealed that ratings were largely determined by how much students enjoyed or felt stimulated by the course content, which in turn depended on the perceived quality of teaching. Students with a mastery goal were more likely to look forward to the course, and this also contributed to positive course evaluations, but the effect was small. Overall, the results suggested that by far the largest determinant of student evaluation of courses is the quality of the teaching.