Educational Research Association Research Articles

Validation of a Single Item to Assess Daytime Sleepiness for the Swiss Transplant Cohort Study

Daytime sleepiness in kidney transplant recipients has emerged as a potential predictor of impaired adherence to the immunosuppressive medication regimen. Thus there is a need to assess daytime sleepiness in clinical practice and transplant registries. To evaluate the validity of a single-item measure of daytime sleepiness integrated in the Swiss Transplant Cohort Study (STCS), using the American Educational Research Association framework. Using a cross-sectional design, we enrolled a convenience sample of 926 home-dwelling kidney transplant recipients (median age, 59.69 years; 25%-75% quartile [Q25-Q75], 50.27-59.69), 63% men; median time since transplant 9.42 years (Q25-Q75, 4.93-15.85). Daytime sleepiness was assessed by using a single item from the STCS and the 8 items of the validated Epworth Sleepiness Scale. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was used to determine the cutoff for the STCS daytime sleepiness item against the Epworth Sleepiness Scale score. Based on the receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, a score greater than 4 on the STCS daytime sleepiness item is recommended to detect daytime sleepiness. Content validity was high as all expert reviews were unanimous. Concurrent validity was moderate (Spearman ϱ, 0.531; P< .001) and convergent validity with depression and poor sleep quality although low, was significant (ϱ, 0.235; P<.001 and ϱ, 0.318, P=.002, respectively). For the group difference validity: kidney transplant recipients with moderate, severe, and extremely severe depressive symptom scores had 3.4, 4.3, and 5.9 times higher odds of having daytime sleepiness, respectively, as compared with recipients without depressive symptoms. The accumulated evidence provided evidence for the validity of the STCS daytime sleepiness item as a simple screening scale for daytime sleepiness.

Beyond Cohen's d: Alternative Effect Size Measures for Between-Subject Designs

Given the long history of discussion of issues surrounding statistical testing and effect size indices and various attempts by the American Psychological Association and by the American Educational Research Association to encourage the reporting of effect size, most journals in education and psychology have witnessed an increase in effect size reporting since 1999. Yet, effect size was often reported in three indices, namely, the unadjusted R 2, Cohen's d, and η2 with a simple labeling of small, medium, or large, according to Cohen's (1969) criteria. In this article, the authors present several alternatives to Cohen's d to help researchers conceptualize effect size beyond standardized mean differences for between-subject designs with two groups. The alternative effect size estimators are organized into a typology and are empirically contrasted with Cohen's d in terms of purposes, usages, statistical properties, interpretability, and the potential for meta-analysis. Several sound alternatives are identified to supplement the reporting of Cohen's d. The article concludes with a discussion of the choice of standardizers, the importance of assumptions, and the possibility of extending sound alternative effect size indices to other research contexts.

Collaborative learning, face-to-face or virtual: the advantages of a blended learning approach in an intercultural research group

Within Higher Education, current changes in levels of funding available and the increasingly diverse profiles of students participating have placed a greater emphasis on the need for institutions to provide more ‘flexible methods’ of delivery. In addition to traditional face-to-face, collaborative environments, the widespread use of information and communication technologies allows individuals around the globe to participate in collaborative learning. Dillenbourg emphasizes the need to differentiate the ‘notion of culture’ in the context of intercultural group learning, with that of developing a common ground or ‘micro-culture’ through which to successfully interact. The importance of building a micro-culture is echoed by Ashcraft and Treadwell, as the basis for successful collaborative learning. This article highlights the experiences of a university based, intercultural, mixed methods research project at Master's degree level, where student researchers with diverse backgrounds, worked collaboratively to create a tentative conceptual framework, in order to map research trends at the 2010 American Educational Research Association conference. This article suggests that collaborative learning in intercultural groups, rather than benefiting from one approach over another, can actually be enhanced by the combining of methods, resulting in a deeper learning experience for those participating. Furthermore, in the initial stages of negotiating and re-negotiating collective understandings and meaning, face-to-face collaboration can provide a basis for deeper learning and understanding in subsequent online collaboration, as experienced by the intercultural collective research group, which is the case study of this article.

Strategic capacity building for Australian educational research: creating spaces for action

This paper provides some background information about the Strategic Capacity Building for Australian Educational Research initiative: a joint program of work sponsored by the Australian Association for Research in Education and the Australian Council of Deans of Education. In addition, it offers some broader analysis of the contexts within which Australian Educational Research is being framed and judged, and argues that leaders of educational research need to become more adept at finding and creating spaces in which important policy battles can be won.

What (a) to do about ‘impact’: a Bourdieusian critique

This paper presents a research‐based, theoretically‐informed contribution to the debate on ‘impact’ in educational research, and specifically a response to Gardner's 2011 presidential address to the British Educational Research Association. It begins by discussing the development of the research ‘impact’ agenda as a global phenomenon, and reviews the current state of debate about ‘impact’ in the UK's Research Excellence Framework. It goes on to argue that a radical alternative perspective on this agenda is needed, and outlines Bourdieu's sociology—including his much‐neglected concept of illusio—as offering potential for generating critical insights into demands for ‘impact’. The term illusio in particular calls us to examine the ‘stakes’ that matter in the field of educational research: the objects of value that elicit commitment from players and are ‘worth the candle’. This framework is then applied first to analyse an account of how an ESRC‐funded project that I led was received by different research ‘users’ as we sought to generate impact for our findings. Second, it is used to show that the field of educational research has changed; that it has bifurcated between the field of research production and that of research reception; and that the former is being subordinated to the latter. The paper concludes by arguing that, despite many educational researchers' commitments to ‘make a difference’ in wider society, the research ‘impact’ imperative is one that encroaches on academic freedom; and that academics need to find collective ways in which to resist it.

Education: a space to survive and thrive?

The article presents our response to some ideas presented by David Kirk in his 2012 Scholar Lecture to the Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy Special Interest Group of the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference in September 2012. We seek to present an alternate view to one aspect of Kirk's argument which supports a view that physical education pedagogues are marginalised in academia and that such a status is attributed at least in part to their professional positioning within the field of education and within schools or faculties of education. We argue that a career as a scholar in the university sector means understanding the goals and priorities of the particular university where you work and how your interests and capacities align. We argue that being a teacher educator or a sport pedagogy scholar in a College of Education or in a Department of Human Movement Studies is not the central defining characteristic in progressing your career. What matters is that the priorities of your department and the attitude of your colleagues to your teaching and research align with your capacities and interests. We reject what we read as the message that being involved in teacher education is not a good career move in the contemporary university. While we acknowledge challenges to teacher education in England and elsewhere, this is not a reason to abandon research on teaching/teacher education or careers in schools/departments of education.

Introducing the physical education and sport pedagogy 2012 scholar lecture

This commentary introduces David Kirk's paper entitled ‘Making a career in Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy in the corporatized university: Reflections on hegemony, resistance, collegiality and scholarship’, which was presented in the 2012 Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy (PESP) ‘scholar lecture’ at the British Educational Research Association (BERA) conference. We briefly describe the origins of the scholar lecture and its link to the PESP special interest group of BERA and then make a few introductory comments about the lecture, highlighting a number of points of tension that the paper raises for us.

First Evidence on the Validity and Reliability of the Safety Organizing Scale–Nursing Home Version (SOS-NH)

The Safety Organizing Scale is a valid and reliable measure on safety behaviors and practices in hospitals. This study aimed to explore the psychometric properties of the Safety Organizing Scale-Nursing Home version (SOS-NH). In a cross-sectional analysis of staff survey data, we examined validity and reliability of the 9-item Safety SOS-NH using American Educational Research Association guidelines. This substudy of a larger trial used baseline survey data collected from staff members (n = 627) in a variety of work roles in 13 nursing homes (NHs) in North Carolina and Virginia. Psychometric evaluation of the SOS-NH revealed good response patterns with low average of missing values across all items (3.05%). Analyses of the SOS-NH's internal structure (eg, comparative fit indices = 0.929, standardized root mean square error of approximation = 0.045) and consistency (composite reliability = 0.94) suggested its 1-dimensionality. Significant between-facility variability, intraclass correlations, within-group agreement, and design effect confirmed appropriateness of the SOS-NH for measurement at the NH level, justifying data aggregation. The SOS-NH showed discriminate validity from one related concept: communication openness. Initial evidence regarding validity and reliability of the SOS-NH supports its utility in measuring safety behaviors and practices among a wide range of NH staff members, including those with low literacy. Further psychometric evaluation should focus on testing concurrent and criterion validity, using resident outcome measures (eg, patient fall rates).

Review: International Handbook of Research on Environmental Education

Review: International Handbook of Research on Robert B. Stevenson, Michael Brody, Justin Dillon and Arjen E.J. Wals (Editors) Stevenson, Robert B., Brody, Michael, Dillon, Justin, Wals, Arjen E.J., editors. International Handbook of Research on Education, New York: Routledge, with the American Educational Research Association (AERA). 2013. xii+576 pp. ISBN-13: 9780415892391. US$119.95, paperback.This enormous International Handbook of Research on appears with the collaboration of the American Educational Research Association (AERA); it comprises 51 commissioned chapters within nine sections written by noted scholars in based in a variety of countries. As underlined by the co-editors, contributions include philosophically and empirically grounded research (of all genres) that critically examines the conceptualization, discourses, policies, programs, processes, structures, and research approaches to in the broadest sense (p. 2).The opening chapters provide an excellent mapping of the field: Annette Gough retraces the history and the step-by-step institutionalization of this field (p. 13). Elsewhere, a group of Floridian scholars highlights some recent research trends in the thesis which are abstracted in selected databanks in (p. 45). One of the constant, underlying themes is the fundamental distinction between Environmental Education and sustainability, as Annette Gough indicates right from the first pages (p. 13). Lesley Le Grange (from South Africa) explains Why we need a language of (Environmental) Education or rather a language of learning, as she suggests (p. 108). There is indeed a complete chapter, Chapter 25, focusing solely on environmental learning. Many other contributors contribute core concepts such as ideology in order to understand and deconstruct ideologies (p. 149). Then, Chapter 21 questions the possible links between environmental education, students' life-world culture, and how environmental education itself is taught and represented in schools. These questions bring Albert Zeyer and Elin Kelsey to investigate in interviews with students the concept of Cultural border crossing (p. 206). In Chapter 33, a much needed articulation between environmental education and sustainability education (which are not synonymous) is being made; the authors keep in mind the context of the neo-liberal capitalistic society which precedes education for sustainability (p. …

グローバル化時代の教育と職業 : 移民の青少年におけるキャリア形成をめぐって(公開シンポジウムI,日本教育学会第71回大会報告)

グローバル化時代の教育と職業 : 移民の青少年におけるキャリア形成をめぐって(公開シンポジウムI,日本教育学会第71回大会報告)

Improving education through research: the relationship between research and teaching

This paper is based on a keynote address to the 2012 Scottish Educational Research Association Annual Conference. It explores the relationship between research and teaching, particularly in the context of teacher education in Scotland but also in terms of wider implications. The paper begins with a discussion of how key terms such as education, teaching, learning and research are approached. The relationship between the tasks of teaching and research in UK teacher education and higher education generally is initially considered from the perspective of Skelton’s ‘three identities’ for university tutors. The paper moves on to analyse the role which research could play in each of Winch’s three models of the teacher: the craft model; the technology model; the professional model. The paper concludes that the craft and technology models provide only limited roles for research, while the professional model requires more significant research skills in methods, theory and scholarship. This model will apply to teacher educators, university teachers more generally, and to the wider teaching profession.

First Notice and Call for Papers: Research in Post-Compulsory Education Inaugural International Research Conference, organised by the Further Education Research Association (FERA)

First Notice and Call for Papers: Research in Post-Compulsory Education Inaugural International Research Conference, organised by the Further Education Research Association (FERA)

Validity and reliability on three European language versions of the Safety Organizing Scale

The Safety Organizing Scale (SOS) offers a reliable snapshot of nurses' engagement in unit-level safety behaviors in hospitals. As no comparable questionnaire exists in German, French and Italian, we explored the psychometric properties of SOS translations into each of those languages. The psychometric properties of the nine-item SOS were tested according to American Educational Research Association guidelines. Between October 2009 and June 2010, 1633 registered medical and/or surgical nurses in 35 Swiss hospitals completed translated SOS questionnaires. For each translation, psychometric evaluation revealed evidence based on content (scale-content validity index >0.89), response patterns (e.g. average of missing values across all items = 0.80%), internal structure (e.g. comparative fit indices >0.90, root mean square error of approximation <0.08) and reliability (Cronbach's alpha >0.79). We differentiated the scale regarding one related concept (implicit rationing of nursing care). Higher SOS scores correlated with supportive leadership and lower nurse-reported medication errors, but not with nurse-reported patient falls. The SOS offers a valuable measurement of engagement in safety practices that might influence patient outcomes. Initial evidence regarding the validity and reliability of the translated versions supports their use in German, French and Italian. Concurrent validity will require confirmation via further analysis using more reliable outcome measures (e.g. mortality rates). The translated versions' predictive validity needs to be established in prospective studies.

Walking the leadership tightrope: building community cohesiveness and social capital in schools in highly disadvantaged urban communities

School leaders in highly disadvantaged urban communities across the globe walk a tightrope, caught between the needs of communities and the requirements of national policies. This article aims to enrich our understanding of the potential of school–community relationships. It examines the policy discourse on urban schools and the practice of community leadership. The policy context is one of UK and international concerns about divisions in society and the rise of political extremism: concerns which, in the UK, have led to a policy focus on community cohesion. The article offers a conceptual framework—a theory of action—as a possible road map for school leaders to manage through this complex and evolving arena of policy and practice. The template— developed through earlier work on urban schools—is underpinned by a focus on trust (as the lubricant to link communities together) and social capital (as a way of harnessing the ‘social energy’ of communities for positive good). The template is tested against the leadership of two school principals in challenging contexts in London and Greater Manchester. The author concludes that there is potential for schools to create space for the voices of the marginalised and disenfranchised to be heard. This analysis will resonate with school leaders serving disadvantaged communities in many international contexts and signals a new departure for leadership.

2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Education : Research on how Children, Nursery Schools, and Primary-Secondary Schools Have Met and are Currently Dealing with the Earthquake(Research on Special Topics,Report on the 71th Annual Conference of Japanese Educational Research Association)

2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Education : Research on how Children, Nursery Schools, and Primary-Secondary Schools Have Met and are Currently Dealing with the Earthquake(Research on Special Topics,Report on the 71th Annual Conference of Japanese Educational Research Association)

The Problems and Situation of Upper Secondary School Reform(Open Symposium,Report on the 71th Annual Conference of Japanese Educational Research Association)

The Problems and Situation of Upper Secondary School Reform(Open Symposium,Report on the 71th Annual Conference of Japanese Educational Research Association)

Between Citizens and the State, by Christopher P. Loss

Christopher P. Loss. Between Citizens and the State: The Politics of American Higher Education in the 20th Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2012. 238 p. ISBN 9780691148274. $35. Christopher Loss’s Between Citizens and the State: The Politics of American Higher Education in the 20th Century, winner of the 2013 American Educational Research Association Outstanding Book Award, traces the development of higher education and its eventual arrival at the current business model. In this book, Loss (Vanderbilt University), who has written vigorously about higher education in regards to public policy, convincingly portrays the state and higher education’s “marriage” (and eventual split) over the course of a little more than a century and begins with the educational implications of World War I and the concept in loco parentis. (p. 22). In loco parentis was a commonplace ideology in early 20th higher education because it positioned professors as parents and students as their children; a position that has shaped higher education until World War II. Though this ideology was abandoned, universities and colleges alike still implement orientations and other functions that place the university in the role of the parent. Orientations have been minimized to often only one day affairs, instead of the week long processes that they use to be, and are run by faculty and staff . Likewise, many classes have been implemented to help students adjust to their new environment and way of living

General Report(Report on the 71th Annual Conference of Japanese Educational Research Association)

General Report(Report on the 71th Annual Conference of Japanese Educational Research Association)

Research Group on Education in East Asia : Its Past and Present(Research on Special Topics,Report on the 71th Annual Conference of Japanese Educational Research Association)

Research Group on Education in East Asia : Its Past and Present(Research on Special Topics,Report on the 71th Annual Conference of Japanese Educational Research Association)

The State of Wiki Usage in U.S. K-12 Schools: A Summary for Educators

This white paper (adapted from a blog post at the EdTechResearcher website) provides a summary of the first scholarly publication from Distributed Collaborative Learning Communities project: “The State of Wiki Usage in U.S. K-12 Schools: Leveraging Web 2.0 Data Warehouses to Assess Quality and Equality in U.S. K-12 Schools.” The article was published in the February 2012 issue of Educational Researcher, the flagship journal of the American Educational Research Association. The article can be found through this direct link or at this landing page. I’m very grateful to the Hewlett Foundation’s Open Educational Resources initiative for financial support, and to my co-authors Richard Murnane and John Willett.The article is written for a general audience of education researchers, and while I think it’s highly readable (so far as scholarly articles go), many folks may prefer a simpler version of the article. This white paper, therefore, is particularly targeted at classroom teachers and other school educators to share a bit about our findings and suggestions for using social media in classrooms. First, I explain what we did, and then I give some advice for wiki using educators.