Everything is illuminated: What big data can tell us about teacher commentary

What happens to writing instructors’ feedback when they use a common rubric and an online tool to respond to student papers in a first-year composition course at a large state university in the United States? To investigate this question, we analyze the 118,611 comments instructors made when responding to 17,433 student essays. Using concordance software to quantify teachers’ use of rubric terms, we found instructors were primarily concerned with global, substantive, higher-order concerns—such as responding to students’ rhetorical situations, use of reason, and organization—rather than lower-order concerns about grammar or formatting. Given past research has determined teachers overemphasize lower-order concerns such as grammar, mechanics, and punctuation (Connors and Lunsford, 1988, Lunsford and Lunsford, 2008, Moxley and Joseph, 1989, Moxley and Joseph, 1992, Schwartz, 1984, Sommers, 1982, Stern and Solomon, 2006), these results may suggest the possibility of a generational shift when it comes to response to student writing. Aggregating teacher commentary, student work, and peer review responses via digital tools and employing concordance software to identify big-data patterns illuminates a new assessment practice for Writing Program Administrators—the practice of Deep Assessment.     

Intelligibility is equity: Can international students read undergraduate admissions materials?

Fewer international students have applied to and enrolled in US institutions, as 40 per cent of US institutions reported a drop in international applications since 2016. Subsequently, US institutions must ensure that their international admissions materials are as equitable and transparent as possible. Expanding previous work, this study examines the readability and translation of international undergraduate admissions materials of 335 four‐year public and non‐profit private US institutions. Results reveal these materials are written near a 14th‐grade reading comprehension level, only 1 per cent of institutions provide web‐embedded translation tools on their websites and 91 per cent of institutions provide English‐only content. Implications for practitioners, policymakers and future research are addressed.     

Aiding or Dissuading? The Effects of Reducing Lifetime Eligibility Limits for Need-Based Aid on Bachelor’s Degree Attainment and Time to Completion

Research in Higher Education - Little is known about the effects of need-based financial aid disbursed late into college and how students respond when they approach lifetime limits for receiving...     

Effects of a Teacher‐Designed and Teacher‐Led Numerical Board Game Intervention: A Randomized Controlled Study with 4‐ to 6‐Year‐Olds

The purpose of the current pilot study was to examine the effects of a teacher‐designed and teacher‐led numerical board game intervention. Fifty‐four 4‐ to 6‐year‐olds were randomly assigned to either the number board game intervention or an active control group. Relative to the control group, children who received the number game intervention demonstrated significant improvements on a numeral identification task. This finding is significant in so far as numeral identification skills play a critical role in more advanced numerical and mathematical reasoning. There was no evidence of training‐related improvements on any of the other tasks. In addition to the intervention effects, the present study provides an example of a successful teacher‐researcher collaboration, providing new insights into the making of bidirectional relations between research and practice.     

Why Do Students Misbehave? An Initial Examination of Antecedents to Student Misbehavior

The current study utilized constant comparative thematic analysis to uncover antecedents of student misbehavior from the perspective of collegiate instructors. Results indicated nine distinct antecedents of student misbehavior that were classified into three distinct categories: deficiency antecedents, belief antecedents, and external antecedents. These findings extend previous research on antecedents of student misbehavior by forwarding a more nuanced classification structure that centers on attribution theory as an explanatory mechanism. Overall, by understanding the potential reasons that underlie student misbehavior, educators can create more meaningful and enriching experiences for students by thoughtfully addressing these problematic behaviors and the underlying conditions that promote them.     

Causal Connections Between Mathematical Language and Mathematical Knowledge: A Dialogic Reading Intervention

The acquisition of early mathematical knowledge is critical for successful long-term academic development. Mathematical language is one of the strongest predictors of children's early mathematical success. Findings from previous studies have provided correlational evidence supporting the importance of mathematical language to the development of children's mathematics skills, but there is limited causal evidence supporting this link. To address this research gap, 47 Head Start children were randomly assigned to a mathematical language intervention group or a business-as-usual group. Over the course of eight weeks, interventionists implemented a dialogic reading intervention focused on quantitative and spatial mathematical language. At posttest, students in the intervention group significantly outperformed the students in the comparison group not only on a mathematical language assessment, but on a mathematical knowledge assessment as well. These findings indicate that increasing children's exposure to mathematical language can positively affect their general mathematics skills. This study is an important first step in providing causal evidence of the importance of early mathematical language for children's general mathematical knowledge and the potential for mathematical language interventions to increase children's overall mathematics abilities.     

On the Difference Between Designing Children and Raising Them: Ethics and the Use of Educationally Oriented Biotechnology

The use of educationally oriented biotechnology has grown drastically in recent decades and is likely to continue to grow. Advances in both the neurosciences and genetics have opened up important areas of application and industry, from psychopharmacology to gene-chip technologies. This article reviews the current state of educationally oriented biological technologies, eventually focusing on the use of psychiatric drugs with children and adolescents to improve their academic performance. Distinguishing between “good” and “bad” uses of biological technologies is complicated by conflicting theoretical views about human development, the etiology of disability, and the diagnostic categories that structure treatments. To address these issues I introduce a set of ethical concepts, which are based on a biopsychosocial approach to human development. The difference between designing children and raising children marks an ethically salient difference between approaches that focus on only part of the child (e.g., her brain) and approaches that focus on the full biopsychosocial complexity of the developing child in context. This clarifies the importance of the child's right to both autonomy and care. Implications for policy and practice are offered.