Investigation of Single-Case Multiple-Baseline Randomization Tests of Trend and Variability

Educational Psychology Review - Previous simulation studies of randomization tests applied in single-case educational intervention research contexts have typically focused on A-to-B phase changes...     

Teacher Beliefs in Action: A Cross-Sectional,Longitudinal Follow-Up Study of Teachers' Personal Practical Theories

Based on a cross-sectional, longitudinal follow-up study of graduates from our master's-level elementary education program, in this article we examined changes in espoused beliefs elicited in the form of personal practical theories (PPTs) of three graduates with 2, 4, and 6 years of experience teaching in the same partnership school where they did their student teaching. We compared their original PPTs collected during their teacher education program with their current PPTs elicited in follow-up interviews, and then observed their classroom practices. Case summaries of these teachers are presented, and analysis and implications focus on changes in their PPTs, how their PPTs played out in their classrooms, and perceived barriers and supports to enacting their beliefs.     

Mnemonic artwork-learning strategies: Helping students remember more than “Who painted what?”

In two experiments, a recently devised mnemonic strategy was examined in the context of college students recalling the theme and contents of various paintings. With the painting-artist mnemonic strategy: (a) the artist's name is first recoded as a more concrete proxy; and (b) the recoded stimulus is then related to a prominent feature of the painting. Previous research has demonstrated that such a strategy enhances students' recall of artist names when cued with the associated paintings. The present study extends those findings by demonstrating that the strategy similarly facilitates students' recall of paintings and painting information when cued with the associated artist names. Of three different mnemonic variations included, one that incorporates a verbally described mnemonic interaction into the painting proved most effective. Suggestions for future research and educational implications are included in the discussion.     

Building electronic communities: success and failure in computer networking

This paper is about networking failures as well as networking successes. A research strategy for comparing educational activities conducted across electronic networks was employed to examine the critical features of successes as well as failures in designing electronic communities. The analysis provides a set of guidelines for those who plan to use telecommunications as a tool for creating global communities.     

A comparison of sentence-learning errors in children of different achievement levels

Theoretical analyses of the multiple-choice test format suggest that a test constructor should give serious consideration to the form in which correct and incorrect alternatives are presented. In this experiment, third and fourth graders were tested for previously exposed information by multiple-choice items in which: (a) correct alternatives were stated in either verbatim or synonym form; and (b) incorrect alternatives consisted of plausible responses that were either familiar or new. Comparisons of errors and error patterns were made between high and low achieving students who had been given one of two different information-processing strategies. Based on a dual test function argument, it was concluded that synonym correct alternatives combined with plausible new responses are the most desirable of the four multiple-choice variations studied here. In particular, such items were sensitive to achievement level and strategy differences without systematically increasing students' likelihood of retaining misinformation.     

Real education in non-real time: The use of electronic message systems for instruction

Education in different communication media takes place with functional differences that have consequences for the course of instructional interaction. In this paper, we examine instructional interaction among people using a computer-based electronic message system, contrasting it with conventional face-to-face discussion in a college level class. Interaction via the non-real time message system contained multiple “threads of discourse,” a higher proportion of student turns to teacher turns, and other deviations from the “initiation-response-evaluation” sequences usually found in face-to-face classroom interactions. Based on the results of our contrast, we describe ways to organize instruction using electronic message systems to take advantage of new properties and to avoid shortcomings of these new instructional media.     

Public policy, community colleges, and the path to globalization

This study addresses the nature of governmentpolicy toward community colleges in the 1990sand the responses of institutions to thesepolicies. This is an examination of Canadianand U.S. community colleges in two Canadianprovinces and three U.S. states as well asanalysis of government policy in two countries,at the federal, state and provincial levels.Government policies are viewed as directingcommunity colleges toward economic goals,emphasizing workforce training and stateeconomic competitiveness as outcomes,compelling colleges to improve efficiencies,increase productivity, and to becomeaccountable to government and responsive tobusiness and industry. Government responses toeconomic concerns at the provincial and statelevels resulted in economic developmentpolicies applicable to community colleges. Institutional responses among communitycolleges, evident in behaviors such asmarketization and productivity and efficiency,altered college missions, resulting in thepursuit of economic ends by theseinstitutions.     

The role of maternal mediation of writing to kindergartners in promoting literacy in school: A longitudinal perspective

The current study follows up on Aram andLevin's (2001, Cognitive Development, 16, 831–852)analysis of the role of maternalwriting mediation among low SES Israelikindergartners. That study's main findingindicated that the quality of maternal writingmediation correlated concurrently withkindergartners' literacy skills aftercontrolling for socio-cultural measures. Thepresent study followed up the participants tothe second grade in school, and evaluated theirlevel of Spelling, Reading Comprehension, andLinguistic Knowledge two and a half years later. Theresults indicate that the children's literacymeasures in school were predicted by maternalwriting mediation in kindergarten beyond SESand the early literacy measures assessed in thekindergarten (Word Writing and LinguisticKnowledge). These results highlight thesignificance of early maternal writingmediation as a major factor in literacydevelopment.     

A developmental analysis of early time concepts: the equivalence and additivity of the effect of interfering cues on duration comparisons of young children

Young children compare durations correctly and explain their conclusions logically only when no interfering cues such as distance and speed are introduced. We investigated whether type of cue and additivity of interfering cues affect children's duration comparisons. 4- and 5-year-old children were asked to compare the burning times of pairs of partially synchronous lights differing in intensity, bulb size, or both. Those who erred tended to attribute longer duration to the brighter or larger bulb, brightness having a stronger interfering effect than size. Since brightness might qualify as "work" more than bulb size might, the finding that the former interferes more than the latter supports Piaget's basic claim of children's confusion of time with "work." The fact that bulb size interferes at all, which does not fit into Piaget's framework, may be explained in terms of children's inability to distinguish clearly between time-related and time-unrelated cues and their assumption of direct relations between dimensions. Additivity of interference did not emerge, indicating that the previous finding which suggested its existence--distance plus speed interfering with duration comparisons more than speed alone--should be reassessed in terms of type of interfering cues, that is, distance interferes more than speed with time.     

Motor activity, anticipated motor activity, and young children's associative learning.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether motor activity, previously assumed necessary to induce imagery in young children's associative learning, actually has to be executed. The results of our experiment with kindergartners clearly suggest not: In conditions where subjects simply planned to the potential motor activity (without executing it), learning was enhanced. Further, the temporal proximity of the planning to the potential motor activity did not prove to be important. These results, combined with those from 2 follow-up experiments, give rise to the speculation--among others--that young children can be "tricked" into imagery generation through appropriately worded instructions.