Education Commons^™

Collaborating Across National Boundaries For Narrative Teaching And Learning, Haji Karim Khan, Theresa Y. Austin

College of Education Faculty Publication Series

University faculty members always learn through their collaborative engagement in teaching and research. This article reports on collaborative efforts between a Pakistani and US university professor to develop and teach a graduate seminar on narrative inquiry. We used a self-study approach to record, analyze, and report on our experience of teaching narrative inquiry in a graduate research course. We used our reflective journals, course outline, course description, session plans, class-notes, and students’ reflections as data for analysis. As a result, we developed our analytical stories of experiences under several themes.

Findings showcase insights arising from philosophical (ontological and epistemological) underpinnings, …

"Together We Are Better": Professional Learning Networks For Teachers, Torrey Trust, Daniel G. Krutka, Jeffrey Paul Carpenter

College of Education Faculty Publication Series

In recent years, many educators have turned to professional learning networks (PLNs) to grow in their craft with peers who are more accessible online because of reduced temporal and spatial constraints. While educators have cultivated PLNs, there is a dearth of research about the effects of PLNs. This manuscript reports the findings of a qualitative study that investigated PLN experiences through the analysis of survey data from 732 P-12 teachers. Data analysis suggests that the anytime, anywhere availability of expansive PLNs, and their capacity to respond to educators' diverse interests and needs, appear to offer possibilities for supporting the professional …

An Application Of Item Response Theory To Psychological Test Development, Cristian Zanon, Claudio S. Hutz, Hanwook (Henry) Yoo, Ronald K. Hambleton

College of Education Faculty Publication Series

Item response theory (IRT) has become a popular methodological framework for modeling response data from assessments in education and health; however, its use is not widespread among psychologists. This paper aims to provide a didactic application of IRT and to highlight some of these advantages for psychological test development. IRT was applied to two scales (a positive and a negative affect scale) of a self-report test. Respondents were 853 university students (57 % women) between the ages of 17 and 35 and who answered the scales. IRT analyses revealed that the positive affect scale has items with moderate discrimination and …

Language Instruction Educational Programs And Academic Achievement Of Latino English Learners: Considerations For States With Changing Demographics, Francesca López, Elizabeth Mceneaney, Martina Nieswandt

College of Education Faculty Publication Series

Little research currently examines language instruction educational programs (LIEPs) in states with a more recent growth of the Latino English learner population. To meet this need, the authors examined the content each of the state LIEPs, focusing chiefly on the extent to which the types of language support, as well as the stipulations associated with them, are made explicit. Using US Census data from 1970 and 2009, the authors assessed LIEPs in the context of Latino population patterns and examined the relationship between the degree to which state LIEPs emphasize bilingual education and fourth-grade Latino English learners’ achievement patterns in …