Allyn Fives

The association between academic self‐beliefs and reading achievement among children at risk of reading failure

This paper investigates whether children’s academic self-beliefs are associated withreadingachievementandwhethertherelationshipismodifiedbygenderand/orage.Datawerecollectedfromchildrenatrisk ofreadingfailure,thatis, emergentreaders(6-to8-year-olds)insocioeconomicallydisadvantagedareasreadingatalevelbelowthepop-ulationmean.Theauthors’ownmeasureofattitudetoreadingandperceivedcompetencewas used. The study found a significant positive association between attitude to readingin class and vocabulary and phonemic awareness and a significant negative associationbetween perceivedcompetence at readinginclass andsingle-word readingandspelling.Girls’attitudetoreadingandperceivedcompetenceweremorepositivelyassociatedwithreadingachievement,andthiswasmostevidentinthefirstgrade.Perceivedcompetencewas inflated among those with the poorest reading and also among boys, in associationwith reading-related skills found most challenging by children in this sample.Children’s academicself-beliefscan besignificantly associated withreading achievement,asvarious studies have shown (Chapman, Tunmer,& Prochnow, 2000;Coddington & Guthrie,2009;Guthrie,Wigfield,Metsala,CHansfordHLoganJMarsh, 2002;Marsh & Craven, 2006; Marsh & O’Mara, 2008; Mata, 2011;Mucherah& Yoder, 2008; Pullmann & Allik, 2008; Valentine, DuBois, & Cooper, 2004). Understand-ably, there is growing interest in both the factors that might in fluence changes in children’sacademic self-beliefs and the components shaping its interaction with reading achievement(Petscher, 2010). However, conceptualising and measuring self-belief create their ownchallenges. First, children’s self-belief is increasingly seen as multidimensional (Valentineet al., 2004). Therefore, as the ‘specificity matching principle’ states (Marsh & O’Mara,2008), it is important that specific self-belief variables should be used when analysing the

Virtue, justice and the human good: non-relative communitarian ethics and the life of religious commitment1

What makes a person or life good? and what is it to be just? Political philosophy poses these questions. However, a further question follows from these two. Can we provide non-relativistic standards of evaluation concerning what is good and just? If they are available, such non-relative standards can and should be used to judge the institutions, practices, and relations of any community, in particular concerning the way they bear on each individual’s efforts to be good and just. Liberalism and communitarianism are two different approaches to political philosophy. They also provide competing ways to justify non-relative standards of evaluation. These arguments also rest on further claims regarding the human good. John Rawls and Martha Nussbaum argue that independent of an attachment to any one conception of the good life individuals have the ability to form, to revise, and to rationally pursue a conception of the good life. Rights of justice also provide a framework within which each individual may pursue the good, and each individual has a right to what can be fairly distributed to all persons. Therefore, a community can and should be criticized when its institutions, practices, and relations prevent any of its members or the members of other communities from enjoying basic liberties, rights, and resources that are due to each on the basis of the principle of fairness. Recently, liberals have noted that a commitment to prevent others pursuing what they take to be the good life is a central aspect of some conceptions of the good life. This can be the result of religious, linguistic or ethnic tensions between groups; and the traditional practices of a group may involve the systematic denial of rights to some members. Stephen Gilliat warns that many people simply do not embrace liberal ideas about the good life and justice. Nonetheless, he does accept the liberal account of what it is to be good and just. Therefore, communities are open to criticism when they infringe on rights granted to individuals on the basis of the principle of fairness. Communitarian political philosophy departs from liberalism on two important issues. First, to the extent that communities provide the contexts in which we develop and then exercise virtue, the ability to pursue the good is not independent of an attachment to any one conception of the good life. Further, virtues are the states of character required to live a good life, and a just reward gives to each

Recruiting and Retaining Older Adult Volunteers: Implications for Practice

There is an increased interest in the promotion of volunteering within nonprofit organizations. In this paper organizational supports for recruiting and managing volunteering among older adults are explored. The paper describes an intervention comprising an intergenerational reading program delivered by volunteers in eight schools in the Republic of Ireland. The research draws on qualitative data from a mixed-methods research project (2009–2011) that evaluated outcome and process aspects of the reading program. The qualitative data was collected from a group of older volunteers aged 55 years and older. This present study frames the empirical findings within a volunteering framework that involved deductively analyzing the data using attributes associated with “volunteerability” and “recruitability.” Through this analytical framework a number of features were identified as contributing to greater knowledge of marketing strategies to recruit and retain volunteers within nonprofit organizations. The paper concludes with a set of core practice messages for organizations that rely on volunteers in the delivery of their service.

Non-coercive promotion of values in civic education for democracy:

This article explores the values that should be promoted in civic education for democracy and also how the promotion of values can be non-coercive. It will be argued that civic education should promote the values of reasonableness, mutual respect and fairness, but also that only public, political reasons count in attempting to justify the content of civic education. It will also be argued that the content of civic education may legitimately be broader than this, including but not restricted to the values of autonomy, integrity, magnanimity, truthfulness and generosity. At the same time, if civic education is seen merely as a means to shape and form future citizens, then the promotion of values in civic education will be a coercive imposition on children and young people. If the promotion of values instead is to be non-coercive it must be defended with reasons that children and young people should be able to accept.

Reasonable, agonistic, or good? The character of a democrat

Postmodernists reject what they call the universalist-rationalist framework of liberalism. When they do defend liberal democracy, they do so in a contextualist manner (within a ‘form of life’) and on the basis of contestation (‘agonism’). Liberals are right to charge postmodernism with self-contradiction, relativism, and immoralism. It is also argued in this article that liberalism and postmodernism are incompatible, and therefore, they cannot be joined together in response to the hegemonic construction of democratic debate. However, liberals are caught in a bind as they insist on impartiality but also believe the exercise of virtue (reasonableness, mutual respect) is a requirement of rational dialogue. This article argues that perfectionism (objectivism) in value judgements is required both to insist that virtuousity is a requirement of rationality and to reject postmodernism. However, it must be possible to separate perfectionism from two features of Alasdair MacIntyre’s Aristotelianism: he is hostile to liberal rights and his contextualism results in relativism.

The Ethics of Randomized Controlled Trials in Social Settings: Can Social Trials Be Scientifically Promising and Must There Be Equipoise?.

In a randomized controlled trial (RCT), treatments are assigned randomly and treatments are withheld from participants. Is it ethically permissible to conduct an RCT in a social setting? This paper addresses two conditions for justifying RCTs: that there should be a state of equipoise and that the trial should be scientifically promising. Illustrated with a discussion of the RCT evaluation of the Wizards of Words reading programme, this paper argues that, first, the two conditions can give rise to genuine moral conflicts, and second, efforts can be made to ensure RCTs in social settings are scientifically promising. The argument of this paper therefore is a departure from the current debate on RCTs, where it is assumed these two justifying conditions should not come into conflict, either because research ethics is derived from the professionals duty of care, or because there is a strong distinction between the ethics of research and the duty of care. This paper also addresses critics who argue that in social settings RCTs cannot be scientifically promising and for that reason they are ethically impermissible.

Evaluation Study Design--A Pluralist Approach to Evidence.

ABSTRACT There is significant controversy over what counts as evidence in the evaluation of social interventions. It is increasingly common to use methodological criteria to rank evidence types in a hierarchy, with Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) at or near the highest level. Because of numerous challenges to a hierarchical approach, this article offers a Matrix (or typology) of evaluation evidence, which is justified by the following two lines of argument. First, a pluralist approach to evidence is defended. Starting from the principle of methodological aptness, it is argued that different types of research question are best answered by different types of study. This article will address some of the key issues in the debate on RCTs (the ethical principles of duty of care and social utility, the role of random allocation, and threats to internal validity) in respect of which two opposing paradigms provide irreconcilable arguments, namely the position that RCTs are the ‘gold standard’ and the opposing position that RCTs are often if not always inappropriate in social settings. The second line of argument is that evaluations often require both experimental and non-experimental research in tandem. In a pluralist approach, non-causal evidence is seen as a vital component in order to evaluate interventions in mixed methods studies (as part of evidence-based practice [EBP]) and also is important for good practice itself (as part of practice-based evidence [PBE]). The article concludes by providing a detailed description of what an Evaluation Evidence Matrix can and cannot do.

The Association of Attitude to Reading and Reading Achievement Among a Representative Sample of Nine Year Olds in Ireland

This study explored the association between reading self-belief and reading achievement among a representative sample of nine year old children in the Republic of Ireland. Results from analysis of variance and simple effects analysis showed a positive linear association between reading achievement and attitude to reading. The association was observed in the full sample, was strongest among girls and among children in third grade, and did not differ significantly between social classes or between children who had attained different levels of reading achievement. However, there was evidence of inflated attitude to reading among children in the below average reading sub-sample.

Modeling the Interaction of Academic Self-Beliefs, Frequency of Reading at Home, Emotional Support, and Reading Achievement: An RCT Study of At-Risk Early Readers in First Grade and Second Grade.

The current article examines what factors explained the success of a reading program delivered by older adult volunteers to at-risk early readers. The article also examines the direction of the relationship over time (both direct and mediated) between reading achievement, frequency of reading at home, and academic self-beliefs. Two hundred and twenty nine socially disadvantaged children recruited at the start of first and second grade at risk of reading failure participated in the randomized controlled trial study over an 18-month period. The results from structural equation modeling show the combined instructional and emotional support was a proximal outcome, whose distal outcomes included gains in reading achievement. There was no evidence that either academic self-beliefs or frequency of reading at home mediated program impact on reading achievement. In addition, academic self-beliefs became more accurate and stable as children advanced through school. Reading achievement mediated the impact of earlier reading achievement on both academic self-beliefs and frequency of reading at home for children entering second and third grade. In contrast, for the youngest children (at the start of first grade), academic self-beliefs were negatively associated with subsequent academic self-beliefs and frequency of reading at home.

Civic Education for Democracy

What kinds of consideration are appropriate in politics, and what values should inform and shape political life? In answering these questions it has been argued that the reasons offered in political debate should be public, or reasonable, and that politics should be informed by such public values as the commitment to view others as free and equal moral persons and to offer fair terms of social cooperation. Crucially, in promoting and defending values and ideas, public reasons are to be offered in their defence, reasons it is reasonable to expect others to accept. So far, debate and disagreement have been observed between those adopting such a political conception on the one hand and on the other those who believe political debate should be based on comprehensive moral doctrines, including liberals defending the values of autonomy and liberty, along with communitarians defending the shared values of a community or tradition. This debate will be returned to now when considering the topic of civic education.