Showing papers on "Primary education published in 1990"

Toward the development of an elementary teacher's science teaching efficacy belief instrument

Abstract: The National Science Board Commission on Precollege Education in Mathematics, Science, and Technology stressed the importance of elementary school science because it is within the formative years that “substantial exposure to mathematical and scientific concepts and processes” is thought to be “critical to later achievement” (1983, p. 22). Though science is required of all students within the elementary years, strong evidence suggests that elementary teachers do not feel science curriculum is a high priority (Stake and Easley, 1978; Schoeneberger and Russell, 1986). When elementary science is addressed, it is not usually taught in a way that enhances student achievement (Denny, 1978). Researchers have suggested a myriad of possible causes for existing voids in elementary science teaching (Edmunds, 1979; Fitch & Fisher, 1979; Franz & Enochs, 1982; Helgeson, Blosser, & Howe, 1977; and Weiss, 1978). Abundant attention has been devoted to the investigation of teacher attitude toward science and the effects of these attitudes on subsequent teaching (Haney, Neuman, & Clark, 1969; Koballa & Crawley, 1985; Morrisey, 1981; and Munby, 1983). Teacher belief systems, however, have been neglected as a possible contributor to behavior patterns of elementary teachers with regard to science. Investigation of teacher beliefs is vital to a more complete understanding of teacher behavior. Koballa and Crawley (1985) defined belief as “information that a person accepts to be true” (p. 223). This is differentiated from attitude which is a general positive or negative feeling toward something. Attitudes may be formed on the basis of beliefs, and both attitudes and beliefs relate to behavior. An example based upon Koballa and Crawley’s description, can be made to demonstrate the relationship between beliefs, attitudes and behavior with regard to the elementary science teaching situation. An elementary teacher judges his/

Having friends, keeping friends, making friends, and being liked by peers in the classroom: predictors of children's early school adjustment?

Abstract: The potential role that children's classroom peer relations play in their school adjustment was investigated during the first 2 months of kindergarten and the remainder of the school year. Measures of 125 children's classroom peer relationships were obtained on 3 occasions: at school entrance, after 2 months of school, and at the end of the school year. Measures of school adjustment, including children's school perceptions, anxiety, avoidance, and performance, were obtained during the second and third assessment occasions. After controlling mental age, sex, and preschool experience, measures of children's classroom peer relationships were used to forecast later school adjustment. Results indicated that children with a larger number of classroom friends during school entrance developed more favorable school perceptions by the second month, and those who maintained these relationships liked school better as the year progressed. Making new friends in the classroom was associated with gains in school performance, and early peer rejection forecasted less favorable school perceptions, higher levels of school avoidance, and lower performance levels over the school year.

Multiplying Inequalities: The Effects of Race, Social Class, and Tracking on Opportunities to Learn Mathematics and Science

Abstract: DOCUMENT RESUME

What It Takes to Do Well in School and Whether I've Got It: A Process Model of Perceived Control and Children's Engagement and Achievement in School

Abstract: A new conceptualization of perceived control was used to test a process model describing the contribution of these perceptions to school achievement for students in elementary school (N = 220). Three sets of beliefs were distinguished: (a) expectations about whether one can influence success and failure in school (control beliefs); (b) expectations about the strategies that are effective in producing academic outcomes; and (c) expectations about one's own capacities to execute these strategies. Correlational and path analyses were consistent with a process model which predicted that children's perceived control (self-report) influences academic performance (grades and achievement test scores) by promoting or undermining active engagement in learning activities (as reported by teachers) and that teachers positively influence children's perceived control by provision of contingency and involvement (as reported by students). These results have implications for theories of perceived control and also suggest one pathway by which teachers can enhance children's motivation in school. Several decades of research have demonstrated that an important contributor to school performance is an individual's expectations about whether he or she has any control over academic successes and failures. A robust body of empirical findings has been produced using a variety of constructs, such as locus of control, causal attributions, learned helplessness, and self-efficacy. Beginning with the examination of beliefs about whether reinforcements are under internal or external control (Rotter, 1966), empirical evidence has accumulated indicating that children who believe that doing well in school is contingent on their own actions perform better than those who do not (Seligman, 1975). Similarly, children who believe that good grades are caused by internal and controllable causes (like effort; Weiner, 1979), who believe that they can produce the responses that lead to desired outcomes (Bandura, 1977), or who believe that they possess high ability (Harter, 1981; Stipek, 1980) perform better academically. These children score higher on tests of intelligence

A Revolution in One Classroom: The Case of Mrs. Oublier

Abstract: This essay probes the relationship between instructional policy and teaching practice. In the mid 1980s, California State officials launched an ambitious effort to revise mathematics teaching and learning. The aim was to replace mechanical memorization with mathematical understanding. This essay considers one teacher's response to the new policy. She sees herself as a success for the policy: she believes that she has revolutionized her mathematics teaching. But observation of her classroom reveals that the innovations in her teaching have been filtered through a very traditional approach to instruction. The result is a remarkable melange of novel and traditional material. Policy has affected practice in this case, but practice has had an even greater effect on policy.

Measuring Attitude toward Reading: A New Tool for Teachers.

Abstract: In 1762, the philosopher Rousseau specu lated that any method of teaching reading would suffice given adequate motivation on the part of the learner. While present-day educators might resist such a sweeping pro nouncement, the importance of attitude is nev ertheless widely recognized. The Commission on Reading in its summary of research (An derson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkinson, 1985) concluded that "becoming a skilled reader re quires... learning that written material can be interesting" (p. 18). Smith (1988) observed that "the emotional response to reading...is the primary reason most readers read, and probably the primary reason most nonreaders do not read" (p. 177). Wixson and Lipson (in press) acknowledge that "the student's attitude toward reading is a central factor affecting reading performance." These conclusions are based on a long history of research in which attitude and achievement have been consist ently linked (e.g., Purves & Beach, 1972; Walberg & Tsai, 1985). The recent emphasis on enhanced reading proficiency has often ignored the im portant role played by children's attitudes in the process of becoming literate. Athey (1985) suggested that one reason for this tendency is that the affective aspects of reading tend to be ill-defined and to involve "shadowy variables" (p. 527) difficult to conceptualize, measure, and address instructionally. The focus of recent research and develop ment in assessment has been comprehension rather than attitude. Some progress has been made in the development of individually ad ministered, qualitative instruments, but quan titative group surveys, which form a natural complement to qualitative approaches, are of ten poorly documented in terms of desirable psychometric attributes, such as normative frames of reference and evidence of reliability and validity. Our purpose was to produce a public-domain instrument that would remedy these shortcomings and enable teachers to es timate attitude levels efficiently and reliably. This article presents that instrument along with a discussion of its development and sug gestions for its use.

Contexts of Achievement: A Study of American, Chinese, and Japanese Children

Abstract: The major purpose of this study was to attempt to understand some of the reasons for the high academic achievement of Chinese and Japanese children compared to American children. The study was conducted with first and fifth graders attending elementary schools in the Minneapolis metropolitan area, Taipei (Taiwan), and Sendai (Japan). 1,440 children (240 first graders and 240 fifth graders in each city) were selected as target subjects in the study. The children were selected from 20 classrooms at each grade in each city and constituted a representative sample of children from these classrooms. In a follow-up study, first graders were studied again when they were in the fifth grade. The children were tested with achievement tests in reading and mathematics constructed specifically for this study, the children and their mothers were interviewed, the children's teachers filled out a questionnaire, and interviews were held with the principals of the schools attended by the children. In the follow-up study, achievement tests were administered, and the children and their mothers were interviewed. Background information about the children's everyday lives revealed much greater attention to academic activities among Chinese and Japanese than among American children. Members of the three cultures differed significantly in terms of parents' interest in their child's academic achievement, involvement of the family in the child's education, standards and expectations of parents concerning their child's academic achievement, and parents' and children's beliefs about the relative influence of effort and ability on academic achievement. Whereas children's academic achievement did not appear to be a central concern of American mothers, Chinese and Japanese mothers viewed this as their child's most important pursuit. Once the child entered elementary school, Chinese and Japanese families mobilized themselves to assist the child and to provide an environment conducive to achievement. American mothers appeared to be less interested in their child's academic achievement than in the child's general cognitive development; they attempted to provide experiences that fostered cognitive growth rather than academic excellence. Chinese and Japanese mothers held higher standards for their children's achievement than American mothers and gave more realistic evaluations of their child's academic, cognitive, and personality characteristics. American mothers overestimated their child's abilities and expressed greater satisfaction with their child's accomplishments than the Chinese and Japanese mothers. In describing bases of children's academic achievement, Chinese and Japanese mothers stressed the importance of hard work to a greater degree than American mothers, and American mothers gave greater emphasis to innate ability than did Chinese and Japanese mothers.

A Model for Academic Success: The School and Home Environment of East Asian Students.

Abstract: This article reviews the findings of a field-based study that compared the academic performance of East Asians and Anglo elementary school students. Variations in academic performance are viewed as the result of the relationship between sociocultural factors and interpersonal interactions. Results link the academic success of East Asian students to the values and aspirations they share with their parents, to the home learning activities, in which they participate with their families, and to the expectations and interactions they have with their teachers and classmates.

Relations Between Policy and Practice: A Commentary

Abstract: The research reported in the cases suggests that California’s new policy has affected instructional practice. Many teachers have tried to change their mathematics teaching, and some have made significant changes. But practice also has had a profound influence on the new policy. The teachers in the cases did not simply assimilate new texts and curriculum guides. They enacted new instructional policies in terms of their inherited beliefs, knowledge, and practices. Hence when teachers changed in response to the policy, they did so in terms of their pre-existing practice, knowledge, and beliefs. They reframed the policy in terms of what they already knew, believed, and did in classrooms. The result in many classrooms was a remarkable melange of old and new math teaching. This may be only the beginning of the story of the California math framework. It remains to be seen whether the reform will continue, and, if it does, whether the California system will be able to support this reform adequately.

Beliefs and Achievement: A Study of Black, White, and Hispanic Children

Abstract: School achievement among black, white, and Hispanic elementary school children was investigated, and efforts were made to study the beliefs about academic achievement of the children and their mothers. A total of approximately 3,000 first, third, and fifth graders enrolled in 20 schools in the Chicago metropolitan area were given achievement tests in mathematics and reading. Black and Hispanic children performed at a significantly lower level than white children, but at fifth grade ethnic differences in mathematics scores were no longer significant when mothers' education was statistically controlled. This was not the case in reading, where differences were found after controlling for the effects of mothers' education. Interviews with subsamples of approximately 1,000 mothers and children revealed greater emphasis on and concern about education among minority families than among white families. Black and Hispanic children and mothers evaluated the children and their academic abilities highly; they were positive about education and held high expectations about the children's future prospects for education. Mothers of minority children and teachers in minority schools believed more strongly than white mothers and teachers in the value of homework, competency testing, and a longer school day as means of improving children's education.

Teachers' attributions and beliefs about girls, boys, and mathematics

Abstract: Thirty-eight first grade teachers were asked to identify their two most and least successful girls and boys in mathematics, to attribute causation of these students' successes and failures, and to describe their characteristics. Teachers' choices of most and least successful students were compared to mathematics test scores of their students. Teachers were most inaccurate when selecting most successful boys. Teachers tended to attribute causation of boys' successes and failures to ability and girls' successes and failures to effort. Teachers thought their best boy students when compared to their best girl students, were more competitive, more logical, more adventurous, volunteered answers more often to mathematics problems, enjoyed math more, and were more independent in mathematics.

Literacy for empowerment : the role of parents in children's education

Abstract: Portillo - a community responding to diversity conducting research in Portillo conceptual framework of literacy and empowerment classroom literacy activities home socialization to literacy parents' response to homework literacy activities home-school relationships - understanding the schools' communication organization of parents and re-definition of their role in the schools empowerment - implications for theory, practice and policy.

Policy and Practice: An Overview:

Abstract: Policymakers in the U. S. have been trying to change schools and school practices for years. Though studies of such policies raise doubts about their effects, the last decade has seen an unprecedented increase in state policies designed to change instructional practice. One of the boldest and most comprehensive of these has been undertaken in California, where state policymakers have launched an ambitious effort to improve teaching and learning in schools. We offer an early report on California's reforms, focusing on mathematics. State officials have been promoting substantial changes in instruction designed to deepen students' mathematical understanding, to enhance their appreciation of mathematics and to improve their capacity to reason mathematically. If successful, these reforms would be a sharp departure from existing classroom practice, which attends chiefly to computational skills. The research reported here focuses on teachers' early responses to the state's efforts to change mathematics instructi...

Are Regular Education Classes Equipped to Accommodate Students with Learning Disabilities

Abstract: This study examined educational practices in regular education classes in grades K-5 to determine changes required to facilitate a full-time mainstreaming program for students with learning disabilities. Data collected during the planning year of a mainstreaming project permitted a detailed analysis of the elementary school and the extent to which it accommodated individual differences. Data from informal and structured observations, interviews, and surveys of students, parents, and teachers suggested that fundamental changes in instruction are necessary for the regular education initiative to work in this school.

School-based cardiovascular health promotion: the child and adolescent trial for cardiovascular health (CATCH).

Abstract: The Child and Adolescent Trial for Cardiovascular Health (CATCH) is a multisite intervention research study that builds on significant progress made in school health education research in the 1980s. The study has three phases: Phase I deals with study design, intervention, and measurement development, Phase II involves the main trial in 96 school'; in four states, and Phase III focuses on analysis. The intervention program targets third-fifth grade students and focuses on multiple cardiovascular health behaviors, including eating habits, physical activity, and cigarette smoking. Classroom curricula, school environmental change, and family involvement programs are developed for each grade level and behavioral focus. This paper describes Phase II of CATCH with a rationale for cardiovascular health promotion with youth. The process of change that appears to be necessary for school-based health promotion and that will be tested in CATCH are presented as a framework to guide these efforts.

Social Skills for Successful Group Work

Abstract: I n a 4th grade classroom the teacher is trying out learning groups \"This is a mess,\" she thinks. In one group, students are bickering over who is going to do the writing. In another group, one child sits quietly, too shy to participate Two members of a third group are talking about football while the third member works on the assignment \"My stu dents do not know how to work coop eratively,\" she sighs What is a teacher to do in such a situation? Simply placing students in groups and telling them to work to gether does not, in and of itself, pro duce cooperation and certainly not the higher achievement and positive social outcomes that can result from cooperative learning groups The rea son? Traditional group efforts may go wrong in many ways. Group members sometimes seek a free ride on others' work by \"leaving it to George\" to complete the group's tasks. Students who are stuck doing all the work sometimes decrease their efforts to avoid being suckers. High-ability group members may take over in ways that benefit themselves at the expense of lower achieving group members (the \"rich get richer\" effect). Pressures to conform may suppress individual Social skills—like other skills—must be teamed. But once learned, the abilities to cooperate and to work effectively with others will serve students well in school and later on in their careers

Effects of Repeated Reading and Listening-While-Reading on Reading Fluency

Abstract: The development of reading fluency is an important goal of reading instruction. Two approaches that are effective in fostering fluency are the methods of repeated reading and reading-while-listening. In this study, the effectiveness of the two approaches in promoting fluency for third-grade students was compared. Subjects practiced reading one passage independently and another passage while listening to a fluent oral rendition. Each treatment consisted of a pretest, two practice sessions, and a posttest. Both approaches resulted in significant gains in reading speed and word recognition accuracy. However, no significant differences between methods were detected. Implications for classroom reading instruction are discussed.

Vocational education and training

Abstract: This is a complete survey of vocational education in schools and colleges, examining new training arrangements for students in their last years of compulsory education, set against the background of changes in the labour market. It is fully illustrated with examples and shows incorporation of vocational training in National Curriculum.

Teacher Development in Professional Practice Schools.

Abstract: In the current period of educational reform, the movement to restructure schools has been linked with initiatives to improve the preparation and ongoing development of teachers. Professional practice schools, also known as professional development schools, have emerged as a promising model for connecting school renewal and the reform of teacher education. Unlike laboratory schools sponsored by universities and operating independently of public education, professional practice schools exist as part of public school systems, are governed by lay boards of education, and serve public school populations. These schools are best characterized as having three complementary agendas: (1) to provide a context for rethinking and reinventing schools for the purpose of building and sustaining the best educational practices, (2) to contribute to the preservice education of teachers and induct them into the teaching profession, and (3) to provide for continuing development and professional growth of experienced in-service teachers. This third agenda, teacher development, is the focus of this article. We approach the topic of teacher development in professional practice schools with both optimism and caution. We are optimistic because we think the time is ripe for the creation of professional practice schools and because we know from our own experience and the experience of others that teacherdevelopment activities can enhance efforts to improve teaching and to improve schools. We are cautious because we also know that in the name of professional development, educators have committed a multitude of sins. Too often, structured activities and programs have served to reinforce the status quo rather than change it, perpetuating the “paternalistic system that

Cultural Diversity Awareness Inventory: Assessing the Sensitivity of Preservice Teachers

Abstract: (1990). Cultural Diversity Awareness Inventory: Assessing the Sensitivity of Preservice Teachers. Action in Teacher Education: Vol. 12, Diversity in Today's Classroom: Teacher Education's Challenge, pp. 23-30.

Growth of reading vocabulary in diverse elementary schools: Decoding and word meaning.

Abstract: The authors charted growth of reading vocabulary for first- through fourth-grade students at three dissimilar elementary schools: School A, a suburban school enrolling While students who spoke standard English; School B, an inner-city school enrolling Black, dialect-speaking students; and School C, a semirural school enrolling economically disadvantaged, dialect-speaking Asian/Pacific students

Creating Successful Learning Contexts for Bilingual Literacy

Abstract: The Philadelphia School District, like other large urban school districts in the United States, serves an increasingly bilingual school population. Of the district’s nearly 200,000 students in 1989, approximately 9 percent were Hispanic and 3 percent Southeast Asian.’ The two elementary schools reported on here, each with about one thousand students, have concentrated language-minority populations: the Potter Thomas School, grades K-5, counts approximately 78 percent of its students as Hispanic (of which the vast majority are Puerto Rican); the Henry C. Lea School, grades K-8, counts about 37 percent of its students as Southeast Asian (of which the vast majority are Cambodian).2 As these and other schools seek to serve linguistically and culturally diverse student populations, teachers are confronted with a complex teaching challenge. Such a challenge requires not one uniform solution but a repertoire of possibilities and alternatives. This article seeks to open up some of those alternatives by focusing on two teachers, in very different contexts, who appear to be successfully creating learning contexts for biliteracya new term designating bilingual literacy. The two classrooms, a fourth/fifth grade at Potter Thomas and a fourth grade at Lea, are situated in widely disparate communities, within different types of programs, and the particular languages involved contrast in a number of ways thought to be relevant to the development of biliteracy; yet in both classes, language-minority children appear to be successfully becoming biliterate. This article asks what the teachers do that permit this.3

Effects of Program Implementation on Adolescent Drug Use Behavior: The Midwestern Prevention Project (MPP)

Abstract: This study evaluated the relationship between level of program implementation and change in adolescent drug use behavior in the Midwestern Prevention Project (MPP), a school- and community-based program for drug abuse prevention. Trained teachers implemented the program with transition year students. Implementation was measured by teacher self-report and validated by research staff reports. Adolescent drug use was measured by student self-report; an expired air measure of smoking was used to increase the accuracy of self-reported drug use. Regression analyses were used to evaluate adherence; exposure, or amount of implementation; and reinvention. Results showed that all schools assigned to the program condition adhered to the research by implementing the program. Exposure had a significant effect on minimizing the increase in drug use from baseline to one year. Exposure also had a larger magnitude of intervention effect than experimental group assignment. Reinvention did not affect drug use. Results are discussed in terms of research assumptions about quality of program implementation, and possible school-level predictors of implementation.

Success for All: First-Year Outcomes of a Comprehensive Plan for Reforming Urban Education

Abstract: This article reports the first year's outcomes of Success for All, a program designed to bring all children to grade level in basic skills by the third grade. The program uses one-to-one tutoring, research-based reading methods, frequent assessment, enhanced preschool and kindergarten programs, family support, and other interventions to prevent learning problems from developing. An evaluation of the program in an inner-city elementary school found substantially enhanced language skills among preschool and kindergarteners and reading skills among students in Grades 1–3 in comparison to matched controls. Special education referrals and retentions in grade were also substantially reduced. Implications of the findings for compensatory and special education are discussed.

Mainstream assistance teams: a scientific basis for the art of consultation.

Abstract: The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether a consultant-driven prereferral intervention may be shortened in duration, thereby improving its efficiency, without reducing its effectiveness. Subjects were 60 general educators; their 60 most difficult-to-teach pupils without disabilities; and 22 consultants, representing 17 elementary schools in a large metropolitan school system. The teachers were assigned randomly to a short (n = 24) and long version (n = 24) of the prereferral intervention and to a control group (n = 12). Analyses indicated that the two variants of the prereferral intervention improved teacher perceptions of their difficult-to-teach students and decreased referrals for testing and possible special education placement. Moreover, results suggested that the short and long versions were equally effective. Implications for consultation-related activity are discussed.