Differences required for significance between Wechsler verbal and performance IQs and WIAT subtests and composites: The predicted-achievement method

This paper provides tables of critical values for determining statistically significant discrepancies between Wechsler Verbal/Performance IQ and WIAT subtest and composite scores based on a predicted-achievement method. It is recommended that these tables be used when a statistically significant and diagnostically meaningful Verbal IQ-Performance IQ discrepancy exists rendering either of these IQs a better estimate of a student's ability than the Full Scale IQ. Issues regarding the use of discrepancy formulas in the assessment and diagnosis of learning disabilities are discussed, and basic considerations for using the critical values tables are provided.     

Multicultural Literature as a Classroom Tool

Multicultural literature can be found all across classrooms in the United States. I argue it is more important what you do with the literature than just having it in the classroom. Multicultural literature should be seen as a tool. In this article, I will share how I used multicultural literature as a tool to (a) promote or develop an appreciation for diversity, (b) honor students' voices, (c) connect to students' rich linguistic and cultural backgrounds, and (d) promote critical consciousness. Through this process, students were able to build a foundation toward critical consciousness in order to take action against their oppressors.     

Stress sensitivity and reading performance in Spanish: A study with children

This paper investigates the relationship between ability to detect changes in prosody and reading performance in Spanish. Participants were children aged 7–8 years. Their tasks consisted of reading words, reading non‐words, stressing non‐words and reproducing sequences of two, three or four non‐words by pressing the corresponding keys on the computer keyboard. Non‐word sequences were constructed with minimal non‐word pairs differing in a single phoneme (/kúpi/ ‐ /kúti/) or in the stress pattern (/mípa/ ‐ /mipá/). Results showed that performance on phoneme contrast sequences (e.g. /kúpi/ ‐ /kúti/) predicted word reading. In contrast, performance on stress contrast sequences (e.g. /mípa/ ‐ /mipá/) predicted non‐word reading, but only when two‐non‐word sequences were analysed. This suggests that stress sensitivity may be one of the factors related to reading fluency as most errors at reading non‐words consisted of false starts and pauses between syllables. Results also showed that stress sensitivity (scored in two non‐word sequences) predicted stress assignment, and that knowledge of stress rules predicted both word and non‐word reading. This suggests that stress sensitivity may help in learning stress rules, and that knowledge of stress rules is relevant for reading.     

Personal learning environments: design and use / Los entornos personales de aprendizaje en la educación superior: del diseño al uso

Abstract

This study focuses on the uses that two groups of higher education students make of technological resources offered by an institution to build their own personal learning environments. The main thesis is that these uses depend on the techno-pedagogical design of the teaching and learning process in which the technological resources are framed. In order to explore and illustrate this thesis two instructional sequences have been analysed. Both use the same technological design, the Elgg platform, which allows users to select and organize a set of resources or widgets according to their interests and needs. The results show that in both cases the uses that students make of technology are related to the characteristics and requirements of the particular techno-pedagogical designs. We conclude that the key is not to offer technological resources to the students so they can build their own personal learning environments, but to design activities that attract and induce them to build these personal environments and to guide and support the process of construction.     

Telematics for Teacher Education: issues from a European conference

ABSTRACT

The world Information Superhighway is under discussion in many countries. Within Europe the discussion is also very active as is the promotion of the use of telematics for trans‐European communication and co‐operation in various areas. For education and training, representatives of European teacher trainers, teachers, students, parents, policy and decision makers discussed their needs and views on a trans‐European network at a conference held in May 1994 in Luxembourg. This paper presents a selection of various issues raised at the conference regarding the use of telematics for teacher education and illustrates the discussion and the method of discussion. It also describes and discusses the conference programme model, as it offered innovative on‐line activities to facilitate appreciation of telematics. The case is argued that teacher education can benefit greatly from telematics and some points are put forward for further discussion.     

Letter processing in reading and spelling: Some dissociations

We describe the complex pattern of spared and impaired performance observed in a neurologically impaired subject on a number of letter processing tasks including: written letter naming, alphabetization, matching across typecase and font, oral and written spelling to dictation, and across-case letter priming. The observed dissociation in performance between the naming of written letters and the naming of letters in oral spelling as well as the dissociation between oral spelling and written spelling are shown to support a model of letter processing in which a distinction is drawn between visuo-spatial and abstract levels of letter representation. We also describe symmetrical deficits in the reading and writing of letters. These can be understood: in reading, as the result of an impairment to the processes which mediate the conversion of visuo-spatial letter representations to abstract representations, and in writing, as a deficit to the processes which negotiate the apparently reverse operation. This finding is interpreted within the context of the notions of neural and functional proximity and we raise the possibility that processes which perform distinct computations may, nonetheless, share certain computational resources.Requests for offprints should be addressed to Brenda Rapp or Alfonso Caramazza. The research reported in this paper was made possible through the support of NIH (NINCDS) NS22202 and the Seaver Institute. We would like to express our appreciation to J. E. for his participation in this study and we thank Roberta Ann Goodman-Schulman and Cristina Romani for their helpful comments and Paul Mullin for his generous programming assistance.     

Teachers’, school staff’s and parents’ efficacy beliefs as determinants of attitudes toward school

Self- and collective efficacy beliefs were examined as correlates of attitudes toward school of teachers, school staff, and parents. 726 teachers, 387 staff members, and 1994 parents from 18 junior high schools in Milan and Rome, Italy, were administered questionnaires assessing self-efficacy beliefs, perceptions about colleagues’ bahavior, collective efficacy beliefs, affective commitment and job satisfaction of teachers and school staff and parents satisfaction with school. Path analyses corroborated a conceptual model in which self- and collective efficacy beliefs represent, respectively, the distal and proximal determinants of affective commitment and job satisfaction for teachers and staff and of satisfaction with school for parents. Perceptions that teachers, staff and parents hold about the behavior of their colleagues largely mediated the links between self- and collective efficacy beliefs. collective efficacy beliefs, in turn, largely mediated the influence that self-efficacy beliefs and perceptions of school constituencies’ behaviors exert on attitudes toward school of teachers, staff and parents.     

Impact of Adding Internet Technology on Student Performance and Perception of Autonomy in Fundamentals of Electronics Course

The coupling of the traditional classroom instruction and a virtual learning environment (VLE) in an engineering course is critical to stimulating the learning process and to encouraging students to develop competencies outside of the classroom. This can be achieved through planned activities and the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), resources designed to complement students’ autonomous learning needs. A quantitative analysis of students’ academic performance using final course grades was performed for a fundamentals of electronics course and we examine students’ perception of their autonomy using surveys. The students’ progress and attitudes were monitored over four consecutive semesters. The first began with the design of the intervention and the following three consisted in the implementation. The strategy was focused on the development of course competencies through autonomous learning with ICT tools presented in the VLE. Findings indicate that the students who did the activities in the VLE showed an increase in performance scores in comparison with students who did not do them. The strategy used in this study, which enhanced perceived autonomy, was associated with a positive effect on their learning process. This research shows that a technology-enhanced course supported by ICT activities can both improve academic performance and foster autonomy in students.