A set of general guidelines to appropriately develop close translations of tests into other languages is presented. An example of the application of these guidelines is demonstrated with translation into Spanish of the diagnostic and summative versions of the Cognitive-based Literacy Assessment-Revised (CBLA-R) for first and second graders. Finally, a case is made that translations that ignore the language system and culture of the limited English proficiency (LEP) children are not appropriate for their assessment.
Grade inflation in higher education occurs when students receive a grade that exceeds the level of work performed in the course. In the first study, 5,616 students in 7 disciplines were asked to compare their own performance using a grade label (e.g., average, superior, distinguished) to their expected grade (e.g., C, B, A). When studied in this manner, grade inflation is rampant. For instance, of those students self-reporting average work in the class, 52.5% expect the grade of B or A. Study 2 (N = 326) added student's actual grade in comparison to student expected letter grade and self-assigned grade label. When students are asked to compare a letter grade to a letter grade (expected to actual), 61% are accurate in this prediction with only 22.4% over-inflating their expected grade. While grade inflation is evident regardless of the approach used, researchers need to be sensitive to the differential effect of research methodology in estimating the magnitude of the grade inflation present.
Widely publicized reports have documented problems in our public schools since the mid-1980s. But profound issues also plague private and home schools. Taken collectively, the problems that persist in our nation's schools, particularly high schools, raise questions about the quality of education and the effects these shortcomings are having on our nation's students and their future success. While many students enter the work force or the armed forces after graduation from high school, a large number go on to college. This study focused on investigating the undergraduate success of a sample of college graduates from three high school settings: home school (n = 21); private school (n = 26); and public school (n = 17). Subjects represented all four major regions of the United States and several foreign countries. Data included 40 indicators of college success reflecting five domains of learning outcome: achievement, leadership, professional aptitude, social behavior, and physical activity. There were no significant differences among the three groups in 33 of the 40 variables. However, results from multivariate analysis of variance showed college graduates from home schools held significantly more leadership posts for significantly greater periods of time than did the private school group. The public school group remained unaffected.
The Spectrum has dominated our field for several decades as a guide for instructional decision making. Surprisingly little, however, is known about its actual use and how both teachers and students perceive the benefits and challenges of using the styles. This chapter examines a series of investigations around the world into teacher use and beliefs about the styles and their potential outcomes, including non-educational aspects of class like management and fun. Teachers' beliefs about the styles are influenced by, and potentially different from, those of their students and we also explore those interactions. Given the diversity in geographic range, culture and age of the thousands of participants in the various studies reviewed, a surprisingly high level of agreement exists among participants about the value of the reproductive styles when compared to the productive styles. Unique differences also occur though suggesting the need for additional research. This chapter offers clear evidence that Spectrum decisions are multi-faceted, connected and individually and culturally influenced.
According to many researchers, particularly in mathematics and sciences, a single-sex high school environment is more favorable than a coeducational one for girls' development of general attitudes toward learning and self-concept. However, other researchers argue that the issue is unclear because many studies compared subjects from public coeducational schools with subjects of private single-sex school without controlling this social cultural factor. The present study was aimed at verifying the superiority of single-sex schooling controlling for the type of school girls attended. Several attitude scales toward mathematics were administered to a sample of 1084 French-Canadian junior and senior students enrolled in one of the following school settings: private coeducational, private single-sex, public coeducational, public single-sex. Results showed that whatever the coeducational or single-sex environment junior students from private schools had more positive attitudes and higher performance than those from public school. However, whereas school environment had no impact on senior students from public school, in private schools more positive attitudes and higher performances were found for students enrolled in a single-sex rather than in a coeducational environment.
Using data from the first follow up of the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS:88), we examined predictors of participation in school-based athletics during the 10th grade in a sample of 15,868 adolescents. Logistic regression techniques were used to examine several sets of predictors of sports participation. Results indicate that sports participation during adolescence is associated with gender (males are more likely to participate than are females), coming from a high SES background, engaging in other outdoor activities, admiring an athlete, self-perceptions of popularity and social desirability, and prior participation in athletics. Academic achievement and ethnicity were unrelated to participation. Implications for involving adolescents in sports and exercise programs are discussed.
Alternative calendar schools are becoming increasingly popular despite limited research supporting academic differences in these schools. What research has been done, has used norm-referenced achievement tests which were not designed to assess small changes in skills over short periods of time. This study compared the retention of academic skills of students in traditional and alternative calendar schools over the summer months using curriculum-based measurement. A total of 749 students in the first, third, and fifth grades were administered mathematics, spelling, written expression, and reading probes in spring and again in the fall. Results indicated that retention of academic skills in the traditional and the alternative calendar schools depended upon students' grade level and academic subject. Implications of the findings were presented.
This experiment investigated the effects of problem-solving instruction on knowledge acquisition, retention, and structuring in contrast to expository instruction in high school social studies. A non-equivalent comparison group quasi-experimental design was used to study the instructional treatments in six intact high school classes composed of 163 students. Knowledge acquisition and retention were measured by a 25-item researcher-constructed instrument. Students' knowledge structures were inferred by means of a modified ordered tree technique. The knowledge structure measures did not differ between the two groups of subjects at a statistically significant level. However, problem-solving instruction produced greater knowledge acquisition and retention than expository instruction with medium effect sizes at statistically significant levels.
Statistical significance testing has been the subject of considerable dialogue in the past and present methodology literature. Furthermore, the dialogue has become increasingly fervent in recent years, as evidenced by the commissioning of an APA Task Force to review the usefulness of hypothesis testing. The present article addresses the state of the art regarding the use of statistical significance tests (SSTs) and effect sizes. How social science research will be conducted in the future is directly impacted by current debates regarding hypothesis testing and effect size interpretation. This article (a) briefly explicates the current debate regarding hypothesis testing, (b) reviews the recently published APA Task Force on Statistical Inference's report, (c) examines current trends concerning reporting practices in journals, and (d) presents recommendations for researchers to advance scientific inquiry in the social sciences.
In this article we suggest that the development of autonomy-supportive behaviors in middle grades mathematics teachers is an element of teachers' development. The research reviewed in this article indicates that there are several stage theories of teacher development. The review of the literature also reveals that researchers have identified characteristics of teacher behavior that are controlling or autonomy-supportive. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between teaching experience and the development of control- versus autonomy-supportive teaching behaviors. In particular we examined teachers' responses on the Problems in Schools Questionnaire (PSQ) in relation to teachers' stages of development in the Unruh and Turner (1970) model. Initial correlational results indicated a moderate relationship between years of experience and teachers' control vs. autonomy-supportive scores on the PSQ. However additional ANOVA analysis using the three-stage Unruh and Turner model indicated a significant difference in the PSQ scores between the Initial Teaching Group (1-6 years) and the Maturing Period Group (16+ years.) The implications of these findings suggest that autonomy-supportive behaviors do develop with experience and that a variety of factors contribute to the controlling behaviors of beginning teachers.
The purpose of this study was to determine how African American fathers of 10- to 14-year-olds viewed their strengths and limitations as parents, and to find out how children in this age group perceived the parent performance of their fathers. The Parent Success Indicator (PSI) was administered to 102 fathers and 104 adolescents. Significant differences were found between the generations on five of six subscales and 26 of 60 items. The independent variables demonstrating the greatest effect on how both generations saw parent success were the amounts of time father and child spent together, having an adult at home when the child returns from the school, and gender of the child. Recommendations were made for topics deserving emphasis in an educational curriculum to meet the needs of these fathers.
This study examined the impact of teachers' instruction strategies and college students' conceptual levels on the students' achievement and motivation to learn in a course devoted to the study of computer technologies. Previous research on students studying nontechnical subjects, such as social studies, English, and mathematics, has suggested that students with high conceptual levels are more motivated and obtain greater achievement when instructed using nondirect methods; conversely, students with low conceptual levels are more motivated and perform better when instructed with direct methods. Although these interactions were not realized in this study, interesting statistically significant main effects were discovered. Regardless of conceptual-level, students in the nondirect instruction method group had greater motivation than students exposed to direct instruction. Additionally, high conceptual-level students had greater achievement than low conceptual-level students. These results should be considered by instructors of computer technology courses and are worthy of additional research.
Experts using technology to enhance mathematics instruction have, through national standards, attempted to convey ideas concerning best practices. Research concerning Social Judgment Theory (SJT) has found many instances where expert judges, when asked, report one set of factors to be most important, but when making actual judgments, rely on a very different weighting of factors. We developed 20 profiles of actual computer-using mathematics teachers and asked experts to rank the profiles in the context of selecting a profile for a hypothetical award. We used regression analysis to predict the award winner based on experts' actual use of profile dimensions. Additionally, experts were asked to report weights of dimensions they felt they used in making judgments. Actual award judgments were highly predictable from profile dimensions (adjusted R-square = .98) with teacher actions being most relevant, along with student actions and the nature of the classroom environment. In contrast, what experts say is most important in influencing their judgments was less predictable (adjusted R-square = .25), with nature of the environment reported to be most influential, and nature of the task reported to be a negative influence. The implications for professional development are discussed.
Research consistently reveals a negative correlation between middle grades students' anxiety and most aspects of their school achievement. To mitigate anxiety's harsh effects, attribute-treatment interaction (ATI) research suggests that students' achievement can be influenced by varying teachers' instructional strategies with students' anxiety levels - highly anxious students perform best with teacher-centered instruction that does not require significant student interaction, whereas less anxious students do best with student-centered teaching that promotes student participation in the learning process. Unfortunately, most of this research has occurred with students in the United States. Therefore, one goal of this study was to test ATI's external validity in an international context. In that German classrooms may be classified as teacher-centered and United States classrooms as student-centered, another goal was to test the hypothesized benefits of matching high and low anxiety students with teacher-centered and student-centered instruction, respectively, relative to students' achievement. Statistically significant interactions were discovered and discussed.
Over a 2 year period, 100 preservice and inservice teachers were asked to write about their best and worst teachers. The terms best and worst were not operationally defined to indicate most or least effective teachers, but were deliberately left open to invite discussion following the writing activity. These natratives were then analyzed for common themes using a three-step coding approach which included content analysis and an additional validation step to review theme eategories. Results indicated that descriptors of best and worst teachers could be divided into personal and instructional characteristics. often representing polar opposites. Characteristies of teachers who were perceived as best did support research literature on outstanding teaching. Personal characteristies of those teachers included; show ing care and concerp for students, respecting all students, making students feel special, and actively listening: having passion for teaching, being enthusiastic, motivating students to learn, and having a good sense of humor and possessing personal integrity including being honest and being fair. Instructional characteristies of teachers perceived as best included being organized and providing guidelines, while maintaining some flexibility to accommodate for individual needs; using group activities, making learning fun, and sharing the responsibility for learning with students; loving the content area and knowing it well enough to connect the material to life beyond the classroom.
Teachers using the Revised Behavioral Checklist rated children classified as at risk and referred to an alternative education program. The results of the teachers' ratings are presented with the at-risk children compared to normal and severely emotionally disturbed (SED) populations. The results indicate that the at-risk sample differs significantly from the normal child sample but has many similar characteristics to the SED population. The further evaluation of the need for a special classification of at risk, and the need for specialized programs and alternative schools for these children is examined.
It has been argued that competition and tests in school cause a decline in intrinsic motivation by increasing ego involvement and decreasing task involvement. The role of task factors in goal orientation was investigated by comparing motivational orientation scores obtained by college students on an ordinary class day to those obtained immediately prior to a test. Task-involvement scores were significantly lower under test conditions, but ego involvement was also found to significantly decrease at the time of a test. This suggests that the observed decline in intrinsic motivation is not due to the effects of ego involvement. Implications for theory and further research are discussed.
The purpose of this qualitative inquiry was to achieve a rich understanding of the experience of two mentor-apprentice dyads, participants in a formal mentoring program entitled Mentor-Apprentice Collaboration (MAC). In this report is described the evolution of the mentor-apprentice relationship over 1 academic year as well as what the mentors and apprentices learned during their participation in MAC. Productive mentoring strategies revealed throughout the stages of the MAC included: (a) sharing concerns and joys, (b) building a sense of team, and (c) establishing trust, dialogue, and affirmation. Participation in MAC resulted in learning for both mentors and apprentices including a deeper understanding of teacher effectiveness and their dyadic roles. The apprentices demonstrated their developing pedagogical content knowledge, and the mentors acquired a professional openness towards teaching.
Inservice teacher development is a much discussed and evolving issue in the K-12 world. The ubiquity of network technology resources has encouraged the exploration of network communication as a means for dialogue-centered teacher development. The result of efforts to link geographically separated teachers in conversation about teaching and learning through computer networks suggests promising potential for hosting professionally enabling discourse. Yet, most of the literature has emphasized the function of the technology tools deployed or the pedagogy practiced. This study relates the outcomes of a 2 year technology-supported problem-based learning project in which building teacher knowledge through sustained dialogue-driven collaboration was the objective. The qualitatively conducted research identified key organizational structures for making the most of computer-mediated communication (CMC) for inservice teacher development. Key considerations include participant homogeneity, climate of interaction, and discourse focus.
The relationship between exposure to a relaxation response curriculum and academic achievement was examined among middle school students. Teachers were trained in how to teach relaxation response exercises and self-care strategies to their students. In addition, trainers modeled for teachers how to teach relaxation and self-care strategies to the students in the classroom. Four measures of academic outcomes were analyzed: grade point average, work habits, cooperation, and attendance. Students who had more than two exposures to semester long classes in which teachers had been trained in the relaxation response curriculum had higher grade point averages, work habits scores and cooperation scores than students who had two or fewer exposures. In addition, students who had more exposures to the relaxation response curriculum showed an improvement in academic scores over the course of a 2-year period.
