Theresa A. Thorkildsen

What Is Fair? Children's Critiques of Practices that Influence Motivation.

Children (aged 7-12 years) were interviewed about the fairness of selected practices for influencing motivation to learn. Childrens responses reflected their purposes for learning and definitions of the learning situation. Group 1 valued meaningful learning and favored practices that promote the desire to understand new ideas. Group 2 valued a dutiful commitment to education and favored practices that promote effort. Group 3 valued extrinsic rewards: Some children said fair practices should involve rewarding effort, and others said fair practices should involve rewarding superior performance. Groups 1 and 2 chose the practice of encouraging a task focus as most fair. Group 3 chose extrinsic rewards

Theories of education among academically able adolescents

Abstract The associations among views about the purposes of school, motivational orientations, and beliefs about the causes of academic success were examined in a sample of students of very high academic ability and attainment. The abilities of these students would make them especially well placed to outperform their peers academically and to attain those occupations of high status and income that require high academic attainment. Nevertheless, the view that school should help one gain status and wealth was not (whereas views that school should make one a responsible citizen were) associated with an orientation to learning for its own sake, satisfaction with school learning, or beliefs that success comes from attempts to learn. Similarly, despite the manifest competence of the sample, a competitive ego orientation was not associated with satisfaction with school learning, whereas a task orientation was. These results strengthen previous conclusions that a competitive orientation to schoolwork and the view that school should promote ones chances of gaining wealth and occupational status might be relatively incompatible with interest in learning and satisfaction with school. They also add to our understanding of the highly able.

Those Who Can, Tutor: High-Ability Students' Conceptions of Fair Ways to Organize Learning.

When conceptions of fair learning practices of high-ability students, ages 6 to 18, were compared with those from a more representative group, the high-ability students typically chose peer tutoring as fairest. This was the case even though they regularly experienced acceleration and enrichment programs. The two groups held equivalent conceptions of fair learning practices. It was not until late adolescence that students in both groups articulated a rationale for placing high-ability students in accelerated learning programs. High-ability students were also no more likely than those in the representative group to select the acceleration and enrichment practices they experience as fair

Intellectual Conventions Versus Matters of Substance: Elementary School Students as Curriculum Theorists

Elementary school students were interviewed about substantive and conventional aspects of academic knowledge They considered the learning of intellectual conventions (spelling and methods of representing addition) less important than matters of substance (mathematical logic or facts about nature). They also viewed didactic teaching as more appropriate for matters of convention than for matters of logic and fact. These results support the theses that even young students (a) distinguish intellectual conventions from the substance of disciplines and (b) construe intellectual conventions as arbitrary (rather than logically or empirically necessary) social practices that foster communication about matters of substance. We suggest that this distinction might be accorded more attention, for example, in research on the effect of teaching practices on student motivation.

Measuring Collaborative Consultation Practices in Natural Environments

This article describes the development of the Triadic Intervention and Evaluation Rating Scale (TIERS), a 33-item instrument designed to evaluate patterns of parent, service provider, and child interactions during early intervention sessions conducted in natural environments. Twenty-eight parent—provider—child triads were videotaped in home and playgroup settings, quarterly over a 15-month period. Segments representing complete routines were selected and rated by service providers and research personnel. Scoring and scaling models were developed to evaluate the quality of triadic interactions during early intervention sessions. The TIERS (a) measured differences in providers’ use of collaborative consultation strategies and parents’ level of participation with service providers and their children; (b) distinguished features inherent in different sessions; (c) was easy to administer; and (d) showed appropriate psychometric properties. With additional validation efforts, this instrument may be used to evaluate the implementation of collaborative interactions between parents and early intervention service providers in natural environments.

Toward a Fair Community of Scholars: moral education as the negotiation of classroom practices

Abstract This paper reviews research on students’ concepts and theories of fair and effective educational practices and casts them as insightful critics of schooling who should be included in the negotiation of academic practices. Formal interviews show that students consider the goal or definition of the situation when evaluating the fairness of practices, and that conceptions of fairness develop differently for each type of situation. Students also hold different theories about how school should be defined and which situations should predominate. Moral education programmes could encourage students and teachers to negotiate fair classroom practices, creating a community of scholars who collaborate to build more fair and effective schools.

8 – Reaping What We Sow: Cheating as a Mechanism of Moral Engagement1

Moral engagement model suggests two pathways for fostering strong academic performance. Adolescents reporting communitarian life goals show the most complex views about an ideal school and the strongest sense of agency to work hard, but positive signs of moral engagement are also evident among students with individualistic life goals. It is helpful to remember that moral engagement is evaluated and not moral disengagement or apathy, although the latter reflects conceptually viable approaches to school. Discussions about communal values offer helpful language and practices for encouraging students to resist the temptation to cheat. Such discussions can teach students to take collective pride in their achievements while promoting conduct-focused values of honesty and mutual respect. Educators should remember that schools promoting communitarian values also facilitate moral engagement by emphasizing the benefits of education for individuals, neighborhoods, countries, and the global community. Educators may also promote moral engagement in several ways. Establishing fair routines for achieving classroom goals and drawing connections between those routines and situational demands found in the larger society can help adolescents imagine responsibilities to local and global communities. With help in drawing connections between the details of particular lessons and more general questions of epistemology, students can clarify when and where to direct their efforts.Publisher Summary Moral engagement model suggests two pathways for fostering strong academic performance. Adolescents reporting communitarian life goals show the most complex views about an ideal school and the strongest sense of agency to work hard, but positive signs of moral engagement are also evident among students with individualistic life goals. It is helpful to remember that moral engagement is evaluated and not moral disengagement or apathy, although the latter reflects conceptually viable approaches to school. Discussions about communal values offer helpful language and practices for encouraging students to resist the temptation to cheat. Such discussions can teach students to take collective pride in their achievements while promoting conduct-focused values of honesty and mutual respect. Educators should remember that schools promoting communitarian values also facilitate moral engagement by emphasizing the benefits of education for individuals, neighborhoods, countries, and the global community. Educators may also promote moral engagement in several ways. Establishing fair routines for achieving classroom goals and drawing connections between those routines and situational demands found in the larger society can help adolescents imagine responsibilities to local and global communities. With help in drawing connections between the details of particular lessons and more general questions of epistemology, students can clarify when and where to direct their efforts.

Adolescents' Moral Engagement in Urban Settings

Adolescents who live in urban settings regularly encounter a complex array of people and circumstances that require sophisticated decision-making skills. Using their personal standards, adolescents coordinate moral thoughts and emotions when deciding how to act. After defining what the author refers to as moral engagement, several empirical examples are introduced to illustrate how parents and teachers might incorporate conversations into family and classroom routines that enhance moral engagement. These findings support several conclusions about the mental health benefits of teaching adolescents to appraise situations using moral standards.

Some ethical implications of communal and competitive approaches to gifted education

The ongoing debate about whether high ability students would be better served by acceleration or cooperative learning is considered in light of two studies with gifted students. The first study showed that adolescents who held communal notions about the purposes of school were more likely than those who held competitive views to value learning as an end in itself, to find school learning satisfying, and to plan on attending college. The second shows that, when evaluating the fairness of classroom practices, most high ability students, ages 6–18, chose peer tutoring as more fair than acceleration and enrichment for addressing individual differences in potential. It was only after about age 17, however, that most students fully understood the concerns of adults. These and other findings suggest that the moral and intellectual development of high ability students would be best fostered by collaborative learning practices and by educational programs that encourage them to seek knowledge that will be of value ...

Conceptions of fair learning practices among low-income African American and Latin American children : Acknowledging diversity

African American and Latin American elementary students (ages 6-12) from low-income, urban neighborhoods were interviewed about the fairness of 4 teaching practices. Five conceptions of fairness, identified in previous studies with Caucasian students, were evident. This suggests that, to some degree, American children from diverse ethnic groups agree on how the learning process should be organized. Nevertheless, sociocultural variation was also evident. Consistent with previous studies, most children rated peer tutoring as fairest, but some African American and Latin American children equated peer tutoring with cheating. The children of color, when justifying their positions, introduced 4 new educational issues (worry about grades, solitary work, work quality, and resistance to schoolwork): They saw learning situations as taking on some of the properties of tests. Findings support a sociocultural approach to the study of moral reasoning, and measurement that is respectful of individual as well as group variability.