Family ecology and child characteristics that predict young children's educational television viewing

This study investigated how sociological variables, program access, family attributes, and child characteristics influence children's viewing of the most well-established educational television program in the United States--"Sesame Street." 2 cohorts were followed from ages 3 to 5 and 5 to 7, respectively. Each family kept a diary of television viewed during 5 1-week periods over 2 years. Interviews and testing sessions were conducted before and after the 2-year period. "Sesame Street" viewing increased from age 3 to a peak between the ages of 3 1/2 and 4; thereafter, viewing declined. This developmental change appeared to be a function of age-correlated life events and perceived age appropriateness of the program rather than of ontogenetic cognitive change. Individual differences were primarily a function of family ecology--opportunities to view and characteristics of other viewers--rather than of family demographics or individual child attributes. Maternal employment and the amount of time children attended child care or preschool were negatively related to viewing. The presence of older siblings reduced viewing; the presence of younger siblings increased it. Viewing was unrelated to parent education or occupational status, child gender, child's vocabulary level, involvement in television, or interest in print and other media. Parental encouragement to watch the program was positively related to viewing for 3-5-year-olds.     

Objective structured professional assessments for trainee educational psychologists: an evaluation

Objective Structured Professional Assessments (OSPAs) were developed and evaluated at three universities in the United Kingdom, to supplement supervisor assessments of trainee educational psychologists’ placement practice. Participating second year students on three educational psychology doctoral programmes (n = 31) and tutors (n = 12) were surveyed. Scenarios, developed with experienced practitioners, were considered authentic and relevant. Tutor feedback indicated that the marking scheme was a good basis for judgements, but required further calibration and standardisation. Strengths and limitations relating to authenticity of scenarios and practical arrangements were identified. Students considered OSPAs to be a valid assessment of communication and perspective-taking skills, although some found them to be anxiety provoking. Levels of authenticity and complexity were deemed appropriate, although there were concerns over time allowed and how the assessment criteria were interpreted. The discussion highlights how OSPAs address issues relating to assessment reliability by improving objectivity, reducing bias and providing uniformity to student assessment experiences.     

Developing professionally: examining the value of an external agent to the professional growth of teachers experimenting with mobile digital technologies

This article presents and discusses findings related to the relationship between a university researcher acting as the external agent and three self-selected teachers involved in a professional learning and research project. The role of an external agent in supporting teachers’ professional development is of interest because it has not always been a role that has benefited teachers. The focus centres on how these three teachers viewed this role at the end of a two-year partnership. The wider project is centred on developing these teachers’ proficiency and knowledge of the value of iPads to both their own professional growth and classroom practices as well as their students’ learning. Some digital aspects of the project have already been addressed by Wright and colleagues, but not the perceptions of teachers regarding what value they put on the external agent role. Bevins and Price’s conception of school/university partnerships inspired this focus on wondering about the impact of the researcher acting as an external agent intersecting with teachers’ professional lives as we tracked their progress in using the iPads.     

Conceptual coherence,comprehension, and vocabulary acquisition: A knowledge effect?

Previous research has documented the role of readers’ existing topic knowledge in supporting students’ comprehension of text; yet, we know less about how to build students’ knowledge in order to support comprehension and vocabulary learning. In the current study, we test the hypothesis that knowledge can be built and leveraged simultaneously in the interest of students’ literacy development through the use of conceptually coherent text sets. Fourth grade students (N = 59) were randomly assigned to read either a set of six informational texts that cohered around a set of concepts related to the topic birds (CC texts) or a set of texts that addressed a range of topics (NCC group texts). After reading, we assessed students’: (1) knowledge of the concepts in the conceptually coherent text set, (2) knowledge of target concept-related words that appeared in their respective text sets, (3) knowledge of general academic words that appeared in both texts sets, (4) comprehension of a novel text on a related topic, and (5) interest in the topic of the conceptually coherent texts. Results revealed that students who read the conceptually coherent texts demonstrated more knowledge of the concepts in their texts, more knowledge of the target words in their texts, and had better recall of the novel text compared to students who read unrelated texts. Findings suggest that there is potential for knowledge and vocabulary to be built during English language arts through a focus on conceptual coherence in the design of reading experiences for students.     

Polynesian Folklore: An Alternative to Plastic Toys

Because folklore has the capability to teach and to preserve the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs of a people, suggestions are offered for using folklore to deepen children's understanding of Polynesian culture. Maori nature fables, along with error/punishment stories involving the woman or man on the moon, represent the instructive function. Tales and legends preserving cultural history are represented by a folk story reflecting values and customs of everyday life, accounts of legendary monsters reflecting cultural hopes and fears, and heroic tales of the popular demigod Maui. Specific stories are reviewed, juvenile collections are referenced, and classroom activities are offered.     

University spin-out companies and venture capital

The creation of university spin-out companies that create wealth is a major policy objective of governments and universities. Finance is a catalyst of this wealth creation yet access to venture capital is a major impediment faced by these companies. In this article we adopt a finance pecking order perspective to examine the problems faced by those university spin-out companies seeking to access venture capital. We triangulate evidence from spin-out companies, university technology transfer offices and venture capital firms in the UK and Continental Europe to identify the problems and to suggest policy developments for these parties as well as government. We compare perceptions of high-tech venture capital firms that invest in spin-outs with those that do not, and also consider VCs’ views on spin-outs versus other high-tech firms. Our evidence identifies a mismatch between the demand and supply side of the market. In line with the pecking order theory, venture capitalists prefer to invest after the seed stage. However, in contrast to the pecking order theory, TTOs see venture capital as more important than internal funds early on. We develop policy implications for universities, technology transfer offices, academic entrepreneurs, venture capital firms and government and suggest areas for further research.     

Young black males: resilience and the use of capital to transform school ‘failure’

This article addresses the idea of ‘failure’ of young black males with respect to schooling. Perceptions of black masculinity are often linked to ‘underperformance’ in the context of school academic achievement. This article addresses how young black men, by great personal effort, recover from school ‘failure’. It explores how young black men, despite negative school experiences, see possibilities for their future and how they seek to transform school ‘failure’ into personal and educational ‘success’. Low attainment combined with permanent/temporary exclusion from school does not necessarily deter young black men from pursuing their education. This low attainment is used by some to make a renewed attempt at educational progression in a different post-school learning environment. Yosso’s concept of ‘community cultural wealth’ provides an understanding of how different forms of capital are accessed by young black men to form a ‘turnaround narrative’. This article considers the complex ways in which young black males work to transform their negative school experience. Their narratives reveal a determination to succeed and the ways in which cultivation of this determination by the family, organisational/community agents promotes a sense of possibility. However, it remains to be seen how, in the UK, the cuts to vital local services and support will impact on this sense of possibility.     

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.