A Comprehensive Review of Educational Technology on Objective Learning Outcomes in Academic Contexts

Educational Psychology Review - Rapid advances in technology during the last few decades have provided a multitude of new options for teaching and learning. Although technology is being widely...     

Ethical gaps in studies of the digital divide

There are many reports about the digital divideand many discrepant interpretations of what thereports indicate. This pattern of competinganalyses, often in relation to identical datasets, has endured for a good part of the lastdecade. It is argued here that a major problemwith much of the digital divide research is afailure to include ethical concerns as anexplicit part of analyzing and interpretingdigital divide gaps. If researchers includemore recognition of ethics with their findingsabout divide gaps, it is likely that they willproduce better research and findings as well asmore defensible linkages between study reportsand policy deliberations.     

A survey of school psychologists' knowledge and training in child psychopharmacology

A national sample of 320 school‐based, practicing members of the National Association of School Psychologists provided information on (a) their caseloads receiving medications, (b) types of school psychopharmacology training opportunities available and perceptions of their current training in child psychopharmacology, and (c) information about consultative efforts in monitoring medication effects on school functioning. Results indicated that almost one of every four cases seen by survey participants were being treated with psychotropic medications; nearly all respondents have engaged in consultation related to medication evaluations. Professional workshops and independent reading were the most utilized training opportunities, and participant responses indicated an overwhelming need for basic educational training to improve knowledge and consultation in this area. Implications of these findings on training in evidence‐based interventions and current practice are discussed as school psychologists experience legislative pressure to diminish their collaborative involvement in medication treatment consideration and evaluation. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 43: 623–633, 2006.     

Instructor fluency leads to higher confidence in learning,but not better learning

Students’ judgements of their own learning often exceed their knowledge on a given topic. One source of this pervasive overconfidence is fluency, the perceived ease with which information is acquired. Though effects of fluency on metacognitive judgments have been explored by manipulating relatively simple stimuli such as font style, few studies have explored the effects of fluency on more complex forms of learning encountered in educational settings, such as learning from lectures. The present study manipulated the fluency of a 31-min video-recorded lecture, and measured its effects on both perceived and actual learning. In the fluent condition, the instructor used non-verbal gestures, voice dynamics, mobility about the space, and appropriate pauses. In the disfluent condition, the same instructor read directly from notes, hunched over a podium, rarely made eye contact, used few non-verbal gestures, spoke in monotone pitch, and took irregular and awkward pauses. Though participants rated the fluent instructor significantly higher than the disfluent instructor on measures of teaching effectiveness and estimated that they had learned more of the material, actual learning between the two groups did not differ as assessed by a memory test over the lecture contents given immediately (Experiment 1) or after a 1-day delay (Experiment 2). This counterintuitive result reveals an “illusion of learning” due to fluency in lecture-based learning, a very common form of instruction.     

Confronting unsuccessful practices: repositioning teacher identities in English education

Teacher education programs attempt to prepare preservice teachers for the various challenges faced in the classroom. One particular challenge new teachers face is how to handle unsuccessful practices. This paper argues that confronting ineffective practices require that teachers respond to complex and dynamic challenges, making change difficult when solutions are not readily available. Presenting data from case-study research, the paper uses an identity framework and positioning theory to explore how two novice teachers navigate moments of unsuccessful practice. Findings suggest that when teachers confronted ineffective practices they repositioned their teacher identities in ways that depended on the ideologies of their school. The paper concludes with implications about the importance of extending typical reflective practices of teacher education with video analysis that challenges students to examine how they enact teacher identities over time within the figured world of their school.     

An Examination of Late-Registering Students’ Success in Online and On-Campus Classes

ABSTRACT

Late registration is a common practice in community colleges, but the evidence-based argument for the presumed deleterious effects of late registration on student success is weaker than is commonly believed, and there has been no published research on how success rates may differ for late registrants in online and on-campus classes, and for students who complete a college success skills course. Using nearly 100,000 matched enrollment cases from Virginia’s Community Colleges, we predict the effect of late registration on student success for first-time-in-college students. The statistically significant results indicate late registration is negatively related to student success, especially for students with other success risk factors. Attending face-to-face classes as well as completing a college skills course were independently and positively related to course success. Interestingly, late registration interacted with both course delivery mode and college skills course completion indicating that late registration does not impact students equally.     

Bien Educado: Measuring the social behaviors of Mexican American children

Young children's expected social behaviors develop within particular cultural contexts and contribute to their academic experience in large part through their relationships with their teachers. Commonly used measures focus on children's problem behaviors, developed from psychopathology traditions, and rarely situate normative and positive behaviors in context. Building from the literature on parenting goals and socialization expectations in Latino families and a preliminary ethnographic study (Proyecto Educando Niños), we constructed a survey in English and Spanish that measures the expected social behaviors of Mexican-heritage children, ages 3–6 years, using parent and teacher reports. Use of the BEAR Assessment System facilitated the refinement of this instrument to assess the socialization of young, Mexican American children. We report on the psychometric properties of the Mexican American Socialization (MAS) Scale, utilizing item-response theory. Analyses indicate the MAS Scale is reliable and an ecologically valid indicator of multiple constructs of the expected social behaviors of young Mexican American children. In particular, the 41-item Bien Educado subscale showed good reliability and is consistent with socialization constructs described in the literature. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Student Expectations of Tertiary Institutions: A case study of the Fiji National University (FNU)

Tertiary Education and Management - Education is a human right and Fiji’s tertiary education board recently declared that all tertiary institutions in Fiji must abide by the framework in...