Education Commons^™

Section Three: Assessment Of Special Challenges Faced By Families

Family Assessment

The previous two sections of the volume described family assessment related to the usual issues faced by families. In this final section, the papers are concerned with assessment approaches with families facing particular challenges. Chapters concerning divorce, aggressive children, and the effects of a child with a disability on family and child functioning comprise the third section.

Dr. Paul Amato notes that empirical investigation into the impact of divorce on children lacks the theoretical base that would provide a solid foundation for future research. Amato suggest that current research includes too many dependent variables which results in weak outcomes. Studies …

4. Multicultural Family Assessment, Jane Close Conoley, Lorrie E. Bryant

Family Assessment

Assessing individuals who are members of minority or recent immigrant groups creates special and critical challenges for psychologists committed to equitable practices (Dana, 1993). As previous chapters in this volume have shown, the goal of accomplishing valid family assessments is daunting in its own right. Culturally sensitive procedures of family evaluation are, perhaps, even more difficult to conceptualize and administer.

This chapter will examine several issues relevant to expertise in assessing families whose cultural framework differs from the majority of the u.s. population. The topics to be covered include:

1. What is cultural sensitivity?
2. What are the important constructs …

7. Issues In Measuring The Effects Of Divorce On Children, Paul R. Amato

Family Assessment

The divorce rate in the United States has been increasing steadily for the last century, from 7% of first marriages in 1880 to over 50% in recent decades (Weed, 1980). Even though the divorce rate leveled off in the 1980s, current estimates indicate that nearly two-thirds (64%) of all first marriages will end in divorce or permanent separation (Martin & Bumpass, 1989). Currently, more than one million children experience parental divorce every year in this country (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1989, p. 92). This increase in the likelihood of marital disruption, and the large number of children involved, has …

8. Family Assessment In Behavioral Parent Training For Antisocial Behavior, Elaine Buterick Werth

Family Assessment

Family assessment as a means of guiding research and practice in mental health and pathology has been carefully examined in the preceding chapters of this text. Individuals, whether healthy or disturbed, function in a network of social interactions, with the primary system of interaction being that of the family. Children, as part of that family system, are not only influenced by other family members within the system but also influence other members and, simultaneously, the dynamics of the total system. The complex network of social interchanges that comprise human functioning begin with the parent-child relationship (see Lerner & Spanier, 1978, …

Mental Computation In School Mathematics: Preference, Attitude And Performance Of Students In Years 3, 5, 7 And 9, Alistair Mcintosh, Jack Bana, Brian Farrell

Research outputs pre 2011

Commencing in 1989 a team consisting of Alistair Mcintosh, Paul Swan and Ellita de Nardi at Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia, probed the strategies used by children of primary school age when calculating mentally, with a view to developing and promoting more appropriate and effective mental computation...This present monograph, which looks at the mental computation of Western Australian students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9, is one of the outcomes of this collaborative research project.

Connecting Reasoning And Writing In Student "How To" Manuals, John W. Hill

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

I'D Like To Use Essay Tests, But..., Marilla Svinicki

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

The "Writing Across the Curriculum" movement of several years ago urged instructors in all departments to help their students learn to write more coherent prose, whether it be in papers or essay tests, not just to improve student writing but to encourage more complex thinking. Having to explain an answer in prose format requires more from the student in the way of deep processing of the material than is usually the case on objectively scorable exam questions.

Many instructors across campus subscribed to these ideas enthusiastically, but were stymied when it came to putting them into practice in their classes. …

What Did I Do Right In One Freshman Seminar? What Did I Do Wrong In Another? What Will I Do Next Time?, Richard L. Schoenwald

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

An essay from a university instructor answering the questions: What did I do right in one freshman seminar? What did I do wrong in another? What will I do next time?

Emerging Trends In College Teaching For The 21st Century, Milton D. Cox

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

After national calls for the reform of undergraduate education were made a decade ago, students, parents, and legislators began to apply pressure to reestablish the importance of student learning. More recently, central administrators have begun to change reward structures. University-wide community is beginning to be built around teaching. New disciplinary journals that publish the scholarship of teaching are being started, and established ones are gaining respect. National teaching conferences and journals that provide a forum for the scholarship of teaching are expanding. With these emerging opportunities, faculty are going public about their interest in teaching and learning. Over the last …

Mentorship In The Classroom: Making The Implicit Explicit, Deanna Martin, Robert Blanc, David Arendale

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

The "under-prepared student" once something of an oddity on American campuses, now seems omnipresent. And not only in undergraduate institutions, not only in America. The government of Great Britain ordered a 25% increase in university enrollment. Black South Africans will occupy a majority of the places in previously white and apartheid universities. The Association of American Medical College will triple minority representation in medical schools in their 3000 x 2000 campaign, drawing heavily on the urban areas that have been on the receiving end of the wrenching body blows of poverty, unemployment, and despair, the areas that have provided many …

Institutional Characteristics 1995-96, Uno Office Of Institutional Effectiveness

IPEDS Institutional Characteristics

IPEDS Institutional Characteristics Annual report contains the following information:

• Admissions requirements
• Institutional price/cost data for full-time, first-time, degree/certificate-seeking undergraduate students
• Tuition and required fees by level or program
• Room and board charges

Helping First-Year Students Study: Part Ii, Better Lasere Erickson

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Few freshmen can keep pace with their courses if they study only an hour between classes and if their only study activities are reading, highlighting, and copying over notes. Faculty expect more, and those who teach freshmen play an important role both in making expectations about college work explicit and in helping freshmen develop their study skills. What, then, might we do to get students to spend more time studying and to study in more productive ways?

In The Name Of The Student... What Is Fairness In College Teaching?, Rita Rodabaugh

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

If we remember our own college days, most of us can think of at least one professor who was less than ideal. All of us have had professors who fit one or more of the following descriptions: dull, boring lecturer; confusing and hard to follow; too easy and presents no challenge; and so on. Yet if you describe your worst experience as a student, more than likely it was one in which you were treated unfairly.

For the past two years, much of my research has focused on college students' perceptions of fair practices in the classroom. From this research, …

Mistakes And Other Classroom Techniques, Harriet C. Edwards

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

As teachers, we wish to do more than present to our students the established ideas and facts of our fields. We want to give them a sense of how one thinks and creates within the discipline, to impart the tools of scholarship. In my field, mathematics, this concern has led to an increased focus on the teaching and learning of problem solving. Researchers have directed much attention to the executive functions and metacognition involved in problem solving, that is, the solver's awareness of thinking processes and of progress toward a solution (Schoenfeld, 1985). In addition to these procedural matters, attitudes …

Helping First-Year Students Study: Part I, Bette Lasere Erickson

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

In preparing to write Teaching College Freshmen, we heard negative sentiments echoed many times. Faculty complained about students' lack of motivation, their neglect of their studies, and their refusal to assume any responsibility for their learning. At the same time, freshmen told us the pace in most courses was far beyond them, it was not humanly possible to do all the work, they frequently felt overwhelmed, and their professors seemed neither to notice nor to care whether or not they learned.

What sense are we to make of these conflicting stories? For starters, freshman descriptions of "humanly impossible" work loads …

Case Studies On Educational Administration, Theodore J. Kowalski

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

This book immerses prospective administrators in the realities of practice and decision-making through the use of a wide range of open-ended case studies. Effective practice in school administration involves making decisions about management of schools and reform, including state deregulation, district decentralization, and school restructuring. Leaders need to think beyond management and consider how to affect school culture, professional development, and changing populations. The cases in this book will help leaders address those issues by honing three key skills: (1) How to identify and solve problems; (2) How to develop and evaluate alternative solutions; (3) How to continuously refine professional …

Preparing Teachers To Be Leaders: Barriers In The Workplace, Theodore J. Kowalski

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Efforts to prepare teachers to be leaders are often impeded by a number of barriers in society and schools. Obstacles in the workplace are largely products of organizational cultures and climates that place teachers in subordinate roles. The argument is made that consideration of these barriers must be incorporated into revisions of teacher education curricula.

Keepers Of The Flame: Contemporary Urban Superintendents, Theodore J. Kowalski

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

A wealth of qualitative data concerning urban districts and their school superintendents in the United States is contained in this book. Theodore J Kowalski examines the lives of 17 urban school superintendents focusing on their problems and aspirations. Of particular significance is the discussion of how factors such as community environment, organizational change and culture, and the person in the job combine to influence decision-making and administrative behaviour.

Factors Underlying Effective College Teaching: What Students Tell Us, Carolyn Ridenour, Stephen J. Blatt

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

The researchers analyzed 28,000 student evaluations of faculty across 46 departments for one academic term. A 27-item instrument on which students rated faculty was used. One global item assessing overall instructor effectiveness was predicted most strongly by three items: namely, students' perception that the instructor was prepared, presented subject matter clearly, and was interesting. The predictors of students, perceiving that they "learned a lot" were the ratings on three items: the instructor was interesting, the course met the objectives, and the instructor was well-prepared. Being prepared and being interesting seem to be critical characteristics for university faculty in the classroom.

Toward A More Functional Analysis Of Aggression, Robert A. Gable, Jo M. Hendrickson, Gary M. Sasso

Communication Disorders & Special Education Faculty Publications

Given the substantial and oftentimes irreversible human loss resulting from aggressive acts, the need for systematic, treatment-linked assessment of aggression in school-aged children and youth cannot be overstated. Based upon recent research, the authors provide a broadly framed model for the functional analysis of aggression in school-age children and youth. Our model incorporates multi-modal data collection and data triangulation to generate credible hypotheses regarding the function(s) of aggression. Three primary data sources—record review and interviews, naturalistic observation, and analogue assessment—form the cornerstone of the model. Key features of our approach to the assessment of aggression include operational definition(s) of target …