The state of educational intervention research as viewed through the lens of literacy intervention

Promoting Handwriting Fluency for Preschool and Elementary-Age Students: Meta-Analysis and Meta-Synthesis of Research From 2000 to 2020

Handwriting is a complex activity that involves continuous interaction between lower-level handwriting and motor skills and higher-order cognitive processes. It is important to allocate mental resources to these high-order processes since these processes place a great demand on cognitive capacity. This is possible when lower-level skills such as transcription are effortlessness and fluent. Given that fluency is a value in virtually all areas of academic learning, schools should provide instructional activities to promote writing fluency from the first stages of learning to write. In an effort to determine if teaching handwriting enhances writing fluency, we conducted a systematic and meta-analytic review of the writing fluency intervention literature. We selected 31 studies: 21 true and quasi-experimental studies, 4 single-group design, 3 single-subject design, and 3 non-experimental studies, conducted with K-6 students in a regular school setting. A total of 2,030 students participated in these studies. When compared to no instruction or non-handwriting instructional conditions, teaching different handwriting intervention programs resulted in statistically significant greater writing fluency (ES = 0.64). Moreover, three specific handwriting interventions yielded statistically significant results in improving writing fluency, when compared to other handwriting interventions or to typical handwriting instruction conditions: handwriting focused on training timed transcription skills (ES = 0.49), multicomponent handwriting treatments (ES = 0.40), and performance feedback (ES = 0.36). There were not enough data to calculate the impact of sensory-motor and self-regulated strategy handwriting interventions on writing fluency. The significance of these findings for implementing and differentiating handwriting fluency instruction and guiding future research will be discussed.

The Relationship Between Family Support and e-Learning Engagement in College Students: The Mediating Role of e-Learning Normative Consciousness and Behaviors and Self-Efficacy

Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, colleges and universities have implemented network teaching. E-learning engagement is the most important concern of educators and parents because this will directly affect student academic performance. Hence, this study focuses on students’ perceived family support and their e-learning engagement and analyzes the effects of e-learning normative consciousness and behaviors and self-efficacy on the relationship between family support and e-learning engagement in college students. Prior to this study, the relationship between these variables was unknown. Four structural equation models revealed the multiple mediating roles of e-learning normative consciousness and behaviors and self-efficacy in the relationship between family support and e-learning engagement. A total of 1,317 college students (mean age=19.51; 52.2% freshman) voluntarily participated in our study. The results showed that e-learning normative consciousness and behaviors and self-efficacy played significant and mediating roles between students’ perceived family support and e-learning engagement. Specifically, these two individual variables fully mediated the relationship between students’ perceived family support and e-learning engagement. The multiple mediation model showed that family members can increase family support of their children by creating a household environment conducive to learning, displaying positive emotions, demonstrating the capability to assist their children, advocating the significance of learning normative consciousness and behaviors, and encouraging dedicated and efficient learning. The findings complement and extend the understanding of factors influencing student e-learning engagement.

Do Children Classified With Specific Language Impairment Have a Learning Disability in Writing? A Meta-Analysis

In this meta-analysis, we examined whether children classified with specific language impairment (SLI) experience difficulties with writing. We included studies comparing children with SLI to (a) typically developing peers matched on age (k = 39 studies) and (b) typically developing younger peers with similar language capabilities (k = six studies). Children classified with SLI scored lower on writing measures than their typically developing peers matched on age (g = -0.97) when all writing scores in a study were included in the analysis. This same pattern occurred for specific measures of writing: quality (g = -0.92), output (g = -1.00), grammar (g = -0.68), vocabulary (g = -0.68), and spelling (g = -1.17). A moderator analysis revealed that differences in the writing scores of children classified with SLI and typically developing peers matched on age were not as large, but were still statistically significant, when assessment involved a contrived response format (vs. measured based on students' writing), researcher-created measures (vs. norm-referenced tests), or SLI included just children with a speech disorder (vs. children with a language disorder). Children classified with SLI further scored lower on writing than typically developing peers with similar language capabilities (g = -0.47). We concluded that children with SLI experience difficulties with writing.

DELINEAMENTOS INTRASSUJEITOS NA AVALIAÇÃO DE PRÁTICAS PSICOEDUCACIONAIS BASEADAS EM EVIDÊNCIA

Em diversos países, a educação baseada em evidências (EBE) ocupa um papel central na tomada de decisões acerca dos processos e procedimentos educacionais. No Brasil, a EBE ainda não é muito difundida na educação, mas dado o aumento gradual de publicações e organizações relacionadas a esta temática e dada a sua importância no cenário educacional internacional, é esperado que esta prática passe a ser mais discutida no país, especialmente pelos profissionais que trabalham na interseção entre a psicologia e a educação. Tendo por base o processo de tomada de decisão da EBE, mais especificamente, a necessidade de avaliação sistemática das intervenções educacionais e, tendo como corpo teórico-conceitual a análise do comportamento, os objetivos deste artigo são (a) apresentar como as formas de avaliação diagnóstica e formativa propostas pela análise do comportamento se relacionam a formas tradicionais de implementar avaliações de práticas psicoeducacionais e (b) demonstrar a importância dos delineamentos intrassujeitos como forma de avaliação e monitoramento de intervenções psicoeducacionais na busca por decisões que levem à EBE a partir da literatura da área. As análises realizadas neste manuscrito permitem a conclusão de que delineamentos intrassujeitos podem ser utilizados como avaliações na prática educacional como produtores de evidência.

Current Views on Cognitive Education: A Critical Discussion and Future Perspectives

This article is, first of all, a synthesis of the various views on cognitive education (CE) as presented by the guest authors of this issue, and it is also a critical discussion of the field. We discuss how Sternberg’s initial 5 questions were addressed by the authors, and we place these within the larger framework of the scientific literature on CE, metacognition, and dynamic assessment (DA). We try to unveil the strong and weak points of the various approaches, and we discuss some perspectives for the future.

Förderung selbstregulierten Lernens im schulischen Kontext

Selbstreguliertes Lernen umfasst gedankliche und verhaltensbezogene Aktivitäten, die Lernende dazu befähigen, aufgabenspezifische Fertigkeiten effizient erwerben sowie wirksam und nachhaltig einsetzen zu können. In dem vorliegenden Editorial werden einschlägige Funktions- und Ordnungssysteme selbstregulierten Lernens sowie charakteristische Formen der Vermittlung und Anwendung strategischer Fertigkeiten gekennzeichnet, einschließlich eines Überblicks zu den Beiträgen des Themenschwerpunktes zur «Förderung selbstregulierten Lernens im schulischen Kontext». Als Bestandsaufnahme vorliegender Beiträge werden Grenzen bisheriger und Perspektiven zukünftiger Forschung in diesem Bereich benannt.

Psychological theory and pedagogical effectiveness: the learning promotion potential framework

BACKGROUND

After a century of educational psychology, eminent commentators are still lamenting problems besetting the appropriate relating of psychological insights to teaching design, a situation not helped by the persistence of crude assumptions concerning the nature of pedagogical effectiveness.

AIMS

To propose an analytical or meta-theoretical framework based on the concept of learning promotion potential (LPP) as a basis for understanding the basic relationship between psychological insights and teaching strategies, and to draw out implications for psychology-based pedagogical design, development and research.

METHOD

This is a theoretical and meta-theoretical paper relying mainly on conceptual analysis, though also calling on psychological theory and research.

CONTENT

Since teaching consists essentially in activity designed to promote learning, it follows that a teaching strategy has the potential in principle to achieve particular kinds of learning gains (LPP) to the extent that it embodies or stimulates the relevant learning processes on the part of learners and enables the teacher's functions of on-line monitoring and assistance for such learning processes. Whether a teaching strategy actually does realize its LPP by way of achieving its intended learning goals depends also on the quality of its implementation, in conjunction with other factors in the situated interaction that teaching always involves. The core role of psychology is to provide well-grounded indication of the nature of such learning processes and the teaching functions that support them, rather than to directly generate particular ways of teaching. A critically eclectic stance towards potential sources of psychological insight is argued for. Applying this framework, the paper proposes five kinds of issue to be attended to in the design and evaluation of psychology-based pedagogy. Other work proposing comparable ideas is briefly reviewed, with particular attention to similarities and a key difference with the ideas of Oser and Baeriswyl (2001).

Educational psychology and the effectiveness of inclusive education/mainstreaming

BACKGROUND

Inclusive education/mainstreaming is a key policy objective for the education of children and young people with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities.

AIMS

This paper reviews the literature on the effectiveness of inclusive education/mainstreaming. The focus is on evidence for effects in terms of child outcomes with examination also of evidence on processes that support effectiveness.

SAMPLES

The review covers a range of SEN and children from pre-school to the end of compulsory education.

METHOD

Following an historical review of evidence on inclusive education/mainstreaming, the core of the paper is a detailed examination of all the papers published in eight journals from the field of special education published 2001-2005 (N=1373): Journal of Special Education, Exceptional Children, Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, Journal of Learning Disabilities, Remedial and Special Education, British Journal of Special Education, European Journal of Special Needs Education, and the International Journal of Inclusive Education. The derived categories were: comparative studies of outcomes: other outcome studies; non-comparative qualitative studies including non-experimental case studies; teacher practice and development; teacher attitudes; and the use of teaching assistants.

RESULTS

Only 14 papers (1.0%) were identified as comparative outcome studies of children with some form of SEN. Measures used varied but included social as well as educational outcomes. Other papers included qualitative studies of inclusive practice, some of which used a non-comparative case study design while others were based on respondent's judgements, or explored process factors including teacher attitudes and the use of teaching assistants.

CONCLUSIONS

Inclusive education/mainstreaming has been promoted on two bases: the rights of children to be included in mainstream education and the proposition that inclusive education is more effective. This review focuses on the latter issue. The evidence from this review does not provide a clear endorsement for the positive effects of inclusion. There is a lack of evidence from appropriate studies and, where evidence does exist, the balance was only marginally positive. It is argued that the policy has been driven by a concern for children's rights. The important task now is to research more thoroughly the mediators and moderators that support the optimal education for children with SEN and disabilities and, as a consequence, develop an evidence-based approach to these children's education.