Is politics the problem and markets the answer? An essay review of Politics, Markets, and America's Schools

Politics, Markets, and America's Schools is an ambitious book that draws eclectically on concepts from political science, the sociology of organizations and educational learning theory. Chubb and Moe employ an extensive array of data seeking to link the mechanisms that control school operations to student achievement. They conclude that a total restructuring of the governance system of American education — from democratic to market control — is necessary. Our review scrutinizes a set of critical decisions made by Chubb and Moe in defining their key concepts and in the analytical models employed in this research. We argue that many of these decisions are not justified on either theoretical or methodological grounds. Moreover, the cumulative effect of the decision tends to tilt the empirical evidence toward supporting the authors' a priori beliefs. As a result, we conclude that Politics, Markets, and America's Schools is best viewed as a policy argument, where extensive, but not always solid empirical evidence has been artfully employed to advance the authors' preconceived notions about American schooling.     

A Method for Studying Differential Distractor Functioning

A method of analyzing test item responses is advocated to examine differential item functioning through distractor choices of those who answer an item incorrectly. The analysis, called Differential Distractor Functioning, uses log-linear models of a three-way contingency table to examine whether there is an interaction of population subgroup and option choice when ability is held constant. The analysis is explained and is exemplified in an analysis of the Verbal portion of a recent Scholastic Aptitude Test.     

The relationship among prior knowledge,accessing learning supports,learning outcomes,and game performance in educational games

Educational technology research and development - In-game learning supports aim to help students solve game levels (i.e., game-related supports), and connect to underlying content (i.e.,...     

Promoting gains in reading fluency: a comparison of three approaches

On the ground that reading fluency entails appropriate phrasing or prosody as well as facile word recognition, we investigated the effectiveness of text-based and word-based repeated readings procedures for promoting fluency of reading aloud and comprehension in second-grade children. Repeated readings of text printed with spaces between phrases and ends of lines at clause boundaries (phrase-cued text), repeated readings of text printed with conventional layout (standard text), and repeated readings of lists of difficult words from text were compared. Computer-based, guided repeated reading training intervened between a pretest and post-test reading of text. Each training condition led to significant benefits on one or more of the experimental measures obtained from reading aloud. Repeated readings with text resulted in greater gains in fluency than repeated readings with word lists. Reading with natural prosody was most strongly facilitated by repeated readings of phrase-cued text, which provided visible support for sentence structure.

Recognition of facial expressions by seven-month-old infants

3 experiments examined 7-month-old infants' ability to discriminate the facial expressions of happy vs. fear. Experiment 1 revealed that infants demonstrated discrimination of happy vs. fear expressions when posed by a single model but that this discrimination was affected by the order of stimulus presentation. In experiment 2 infants were shown 2 models posing the happing and fearful expressions and did not demonstrate generalization of the discrimination of happy versus fear across these models. The third and main experiment varied the test procedure. Here, infants demonstrated reliable generalized discrimination of the 2 expressions across different models. As in experiment 1, however, these results were constrained by the order in which the stimuli were presented. These consistent order effects were not due to the initial salience of the 2 expressions but, instead, appeared to reflect differential rates of habituation to happy vs. fear expressions.     

Neurosurgical treatment for addiction: lessons from an untold story in China and a path forward

Addiction is a major public-health crisis associated with significant disability and mortality. Although various pharmacological and behavioral treatments are currently available, the clinical efficacy of these treatments is limited. Given this situation, there is a growing interest in finding an effective neurosurgical treatment for addiction. First, we discuss the use of ablative surgery in treating addiction. We focus on the rise and fall of nucleus accumbens ablation for addiction in China. Subsequently, we review recent studies that have explored the efficacy and safety of deep-brain-stimulation treatment for addiction. We conclude that neurosurgical procedures, particularly deep-brain stimulation, have a potentially valuable role in the management of otherwise intractable addictive disorders. Larger well-controlled clinical trials, however, are needed to assess clinical efficacy and safety. We end by discussing several key issues involved in this clinical field and identifying some areas of progress.     

Flipped classrooms: implications for K-12 students with learning and behavioural challenges from an international exploratory study of teacher educators

Flipped classrooms represent a new instructional paradigm for presenting K-12 instruction. Whereas in traditional classrooms new content is taught during the school day and application activities are assigned for homework, in flipped classrooms students are expected to acquire new content by working through assigned tasks at home prior to the next day’s class. Subsequently, class time is used for application activities. To date, limited, conflicting analyses of research about the efficacy of the flipped classroom paradigm have been reported. This lack of a clear consensus is of concern for students with serious learning and/or behavioural challenges who have not been the focus of these analyses and whose learning characteristics arguably run counter to what students must do to be successful in flipped classrooms. The investigation reported herein addresses one aspect of the aforementioned void in the literature. Data from an international survey of teacher educators from 33 countries that ascertained their thoughts about the appropriateness of the flipped classroom paradigm for students with serious learning and/or behavioural challenges are reported. Results indicate that teacher educators have reservations about the appropriateness of flipped classrooms, but that their opinions are not fully informed by knowledge about, and experience with, these classrooms.