Phi Delta Kappan Research Articles

Research on Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers: Developing and fortifying policies that diversify the educator workforce

This special issue expands upon the Handbook of Research on Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers (Gist & Bristol, 2022a) and the practitioner-focused Phi Delta Kappan special issue, “Learning from the Voices of Black, Indigenous and People of Color Educators: Charting New Directions for Research, Policy, and Practice” (Gist & Bristol, 2021). The co-created articles in this special issue highlight the combined expertise of policy makers and education researchers. While the Handbook featured empirical research, and the Phi Delta Kappan special issue featured research briefs and teacher testimonies, the policy-driven articles in this special issue explore how research can be applied at district, state and national levels. A primary goal of this special issue is to provide evidence-based policy recommendations to support policymakers with strategies to address ethnoracial diversity related to one or more of the Handbook’s 11 research domains (i.e., recruitment, program design, mentorship, professional development, retention, pedagogical and leadership practices, induction and human resource development, intersectionalities, educational impact, minority serving institutions, and policy).

Kappan call for manuscripts, 2024-25

Phi Delta Kappan is committed to publishing lively articles and commentary on a wide range of themes related to preK-12 education. Themes for 2024-25 include: public perception of schools, education for mastery, attendance and absenteeism, the math education students need, understanding today’s students, finding funding, addressing student learning, and the new generation of educators.

A crisis of mattering: A conversation with Angela Maiers

The lessons Angela Maiers has learned from her students prompted her to explore the importance of mattering. She discovered that being valued is not a socioemotional or mental health issue. It is rooted in biology. Maiers has written four books on the concept of mattering and unleashing individual genius in students, including Genius Matters and Classroom Habitudes. She spoke with Phi Delta Kappan about what schools get wrong about student motivation, how mattering interventions take little time but yield big results, and what gives her hope.

The path of a principal: A conversation with Sham Bevel

Sham Bevel, principal of Bayside Sixth Grade Campus in the Virginia Beach City Schools, is one of three finalists for the 2024 National Principal of the Year award. The honor, awarded annually by the National Association of Secondary School Principals, recognizes outstanding school leaders who make exemplary contributions to their schools, staff, students, and the profession. Phi Delta Kappan spoke with Bevel about her path to becoming a principal, how principals keep their schools aligned and focused on their goals, and the importance of modeling expectations.

Preventing online radicalization and extremism in boys: A conversation with Pasha Dashtgard

Online extremism is on the rise, with boys and young men being targeted by misogynistic social media influencers like Andrew Tate. When boys repeat comments they’ve heard online in the classroom, educators can play a role in preventing students from being further influenced by online extremism. Pasha Dashtgard, the director of research at American University’s Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab (PERIL), talks to Phi Delta Kappan about the importance of prevention, the harms of toxic masculinity, and the crucial role of teachers and other educators.

Advantages of career learning in the early grades: A conversation with Ed Hidalgo

Career exploration traditionally starts in middle school. However, there are advantages to starting discussions about career and preference in the early grades. California’s Cajon Valley Union School District is using the World of Work curriculum systemically from kindergarten to high school. Children learn about their personality types, do activities related to professions, and hear from professionals. Ed Hidalgo, who developed the curriculum and helped put it into practice at Cajon Valley, talks to Phi Delta Kappan about the advantages of starting in the early grades, as well as the importance of encourage students to understand and explore their strengths and preferences.

If We Build It, Will They Learn? An Analysis of Students’ Understanding in an Interactive Game During and After a Research Project

Studies of educational games often treat them as “black boxes” (Black and Wiliam in Phi Delta Kappan 80: 139–48, 1998; Buckley et al. in Int J LearnTechnol 5:166–190, 2010; Buckley et al. in J Sci Educ Technol 13: 23–41, 2010) and measure their effectiveness by exposing a treatment group of students to the game and comparing their performance on an external assessment to that of a control group taught the same material by some other method. This precludes the possibility of monitoring, evaluating, and reacting to the actions of individual students as they progress through the game. To do that, however, one must know what to look for because superficial measures of success are unlikely to identify unproductive behaviors such as “gaming the system.” (Baker in Philipp Comput J, 2011; Downs et al. in Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, USA, 2010) The research reported here advances the ultimate goal of creating educational games that can provide real time, meaningful feedback on the progress of their users, enabling teachers or the game itself to intervene in a timely manner. We present the results of an in-depth analysis of students’ actions in Geniventure, an interactive digital game designed to teach genetics to middle and high school students. Geniventure offers a sequence of challenges of increasing difficulty and records students’ actions as they progress. We analyzed the resulting log files, taking into account not only whether a student achieved a certain goal, but also the quality of the student’s performance on each attempt. Using this information, we quantified students’ performance and correlated it to their learning gain as estimated by scores on identical multiple-choice tests administered before and after exposure to Geniventure. This analysis was performed in classes taught by teachers who had participated in professional development as part of a research project. A two-tailed paired-sample t-test of mean pre-test and post-test scores in these classes indicates a significant positive difference with a large effect size. Multivariate regression analysis of log data finds no correlation between students’ post-test scores and their performance on “practice” challenges that invite experimentation, but a highly significant positive correlation with performance on “assessment” challenges, presented immediately following the practice challenges, that required students to invoke relevant mental models. We repeated this analysis with similar results using a second group of classes led by teachers who implemented Geniventure on their own after the conclusion of, and with no support from, the research project.

Developing an Instrument to Assess Organizational Readiness for a Sustainable E-Learning in the New Normal

Developing an Instrument to Assess Organizational Readiness for a Sustainable E-Learning in the New Normal

Kappan call for manuscripts, 2021-22

Phi Delta Kappan announces its themes for the 2021-2022 publishing year.

A Look Back: Kappan authors ponder the role of business in schools

In this monthly column, Teresa Preston looks back at how Phi Delta Kappan magazine has covered the role of business in schools. The topic received extensive coverage in January 1967, when authors looked at the growth of the education market as big companies brought both technological equipment and expertise into schools. And in February 1995, Kappan included a special section on Channel One, with provided televisions for schools that aired its daily news broadcast, including commercials. Author opinions about the extent to which businesses should participate in education vary, but most urged some degree of caution.

Reforming the Grammar of Schooling Again and Again

Previous article No AccessCommentaryReforming the Grammar of Schooling Again and AgainLarry CubanLarry CubanStanford University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Education Volume 126, Number 4August 2020Changing the Grammar of Schooling Sponsored by the Penn State College of Education Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/709959 Views: 705Total views on this site Citations: 7Citations are reported from Crossref HistoryPublished online July 21, 2020 © 2020 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Iesha Jackson, Miguel M. Gonzales, Adjoa Mensah It is not equitable if it is not culturally sustaining: teaching and learning in 1:1 laptop schools, Journal for Multicultural Education 16, no.44 (Mar 2022): 323–336.https://doi.org/10.1108/JME-09-2021-0180Danielle Sutherland, Katharine Strunk, Jesse Nagel, Tara Kilbride Boxed in: Structural limitations to flexible pacing in Michigan competency-based education pilot districts, Journal of Educational Change 31 (Sep 2022).https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-022-09466-2Bryan A. VanGronigen, Lauren P. Bailes, Michael L. Saylor “Stuck in this wheel”: The use of design thinking for change in educational organizations, Journal of Educational Change 19 (Aug 2022).https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-022-09462-6Scott E. Grapin What the “periphery” can teach the “core” in the education of multilingual learners, International Multilingual Research Journal 16, no.33 (Apr 2022): 184–191.https://doi.org/10.1080/19313152.2022.2068113Marcus Pietsch, Pierre Tulowitzki, Colin Cramer Innovating teaching and instruction in turbulent times: The dynamics of principals’ exploration and exploitation activities, Journal of Educational Change 20 (May 2022).https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-022-09458-2Deborah Loewenberg Ball Reimagining American Education: Possible Futures, Phi Delta Kappan 103, no.77 (Mar 2022): 51–55.https://doi.org/10.1177/00317217221092236Qing Qiu, Zhilong Xie, Yueya Xiong, Fen Zhou Belief Change Before and After the Teaching Practicum Among Chinese Pre-Service ELT Teachers, SAGE Open 11, no.11 (Mar 2021): 215824402110049.https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440211004934

Changing the Grammar of Schooling: An Appraisal and a Research Agenda

Previous articleNext article No AccessEditorial IntroductionChanging the Grammar of Schooling: An Appraisal and a Research AgendaJal Mehta and Amanda DatnowJal MehtaHarvard University Search for more articles by this author and Amanda DatnowUniversity of California, San Diego Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Education Volume 126, Number 4August 2020Changing the Grammar of Schooling Sponsored by the Penn State College of Education Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/709960 Views: 913Total views on this site Citations: 7Citations are reported from Crossref HistoryPublished online July 16, 2020 © 2020 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Amanda Datnow, Mariko Yoshisato, Brandie Macdonald, Jessica Trejos, Benjamin C. Kennedy Bridging Educational Change and Social Justice: A Call to the Field, Educational Researcher 52, no.11 (Nov 2022): 29–38.https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X221138837Danielle Sutherland, Katharine Strunk, Jesse Nagel, Tara Kilbride Boxed in: Structural limitations to flexible pacing in Michigan competency-based education pilot districts, Journal of Educational Change 31 (Sep 2022).https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-022-09466-2Deborah Loewenberg Ball Reimagining American Education: Possible Futures, Phi Delta Kappan 103, no.77 (Mar 2022): 51–55.https://doi.org/10.1177/00317217221092236Cecilia Azorín, Michael Fullan Leading new, deeper forms of collaborative cultures: Questions and pathways, Journal of Educational Change 23, no.11 (Jan 2022): 131–143.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-021-09448-wCorrie Stone-Johnson The Global Challenge of Educational Reform, (Sep 2022): 985–998.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99097-8_54David F. Labaree The dynamic tension at the core of the grammar of schooling, Phi Delta Kappan 103, no.22 (Sep 2021): 28–32.https://doi.org/10.1177/00317217211051141Corrie Stone-Johnson The Global Challenge of Educational Reform, (Mar 2021): 1–14.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39666-4_54-1

Look Back: Kappan authors on play and learning

In this monthly column, Teresa Preston looks back at how Phi Delta Kappan has covered the topic of play in schools. Although Kappan authors have generally agreed that having fun and playing are important, articles dedicated to the topic of play are relatively rare. Most such articles appeared in the 1980s and later and focused on how play is imperiled in schools, despite its value for learning. Some authors advocated a fully play-based structure in which students are able to direct their own learning. Others, however, advocated for more guidance from teachers.

A Look Back: Teacher unions, quality, and professionalism, as seen in Kappan

The nature of the teaching profession has been a frequent topic in Phi Delta Kappan. Teresa Preston reviews what Kappan authors have written about the meaning of professionalism in teaching, how teacher unions and collective bargaining have contributed to perceptions of the profession, and how teacher quality has been defined.

KAPPAN call for manuscripts, 2020-21

Phi Delta Kappan magazine announces its issue themes for 2020-21 and invites contributors to submit manuscripts.

Development of teachers’ perspective on formative peer assessment

ABSTRACT Teachers’ understanding of formative assessment is quite essential for its implementation in everyday classroom practices [Heritage, M. (2007). Formative assessment: What do teachers need to know and do? Phi Delta Kappan, 89(2), 140–145]. This study investigates the development of teachers’ perspective on formative peer assessment when it is newly introduced into their teaching. A group of 18 science teachers participated in design-based research project in which they developed and enacted inquiry-based teaching units with embedded formative peer assessment instances. Teachers’ perspective on formative peer assessment was captured by means of group discussions and reporting tool at different stages of the project (before teaching the experimental units, after having taught the units and 20 months after that). Data were analysed by thematic analysis. The findings show that immersing teachers into this relatively new method, formative peer assessment, especially when they are co-investigating their own practice (in research project), may have significant impact on their conceptualisation and implementation of formative assessment in general.

A Look Back: Fair financing of public schools, as seen by Kappan authors

Questions about how best to fund public schools have concerned authors in Phi Delta Kappan for decades. In this column, Teresa Preston reviews how Kappan authors have addressed school funding formulas that rely on property taxes and court cases related to these formulas. Although authors tended to agree that basing school funding on local taxes was inequitable, not all of them held the same views on the legal arguments against such formulas. As cases moved through the courts, states reacted with new funding systems, relying more on state funding and allocating funds according to student need. Any new approach to funding, whether at the local, state, or federal level, will require considerable debate.

Equity in groupwork: the social process of creating justice in a science classroom

Over the last few decades, there has been an international focus on productive talk in science classrooms, requiring teachers to use more dialogic practices with their students. Studies promoting a dialogic approach propose that students have conversations in small, student-led groups. However, the literature in education and science education regarding groupwork has highlighted that students can struggle to work collaboratively without the proper supports and scaffolds–particularly with regards to equity (Webb, in Hmelo-Silver (ed) The international handbook of collaborative learning, Routledge, Abingdon, 2013). Equitable interactions during groupwork are linked to increased learning among all members during a group task (Cohen in Phi Delta Kappan 72(2):134–138, 1990). Thus, equity in quality and quantity of talk becomes the goal for groupwork. I argue that equity in group interactions requires justice that is socially constructed, including the flattening of social hierarchy. As such equitable groupwork has three key features: student voice, visibility (of all students), and student authority. Group interactions between middle and high school students from a suburban California city are used to highlight these features. Images from video-recorded data, event maps from student dialogue, and data from student interviews are used to examine the role of visibility, voice, and authority in creating equitable interactions in groupwork. Implications from this study point to equity as a process—a transformative social process where students use their words (reflection + action; Freire in Pedagogy of the oppressed, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2000) to shift inequities and increase communication in science. Equity as a process does not mean the absence of inequity but that students use their words to address inequity when it arises to transform the space. What, then, is the role of the teacher in allowing for this transformative work to take place among the students? What does it look like to organize this kind of classroom? What do students need to know in order to engage in such equitable practice or transformative work? I engage with questions such as these and conclude with a discussion of how teachers can create the classroom conditions necessary to cultivate productive and equitable talk in science classrooms.

Mejora escolar, liderazgo y reforma sistémica: una retrospectiva (School improvement, leadership and systemic reform: a retrospective)

Mejora escolar, liderazgo y reforma sistémica: una retrospectiva (School improvement, leadership and systemic reform: a retrospective)

A Look Back: What Kappan readers have learned about learning

This exploration of Phi Delta Kappan’s archives shows how the magazine has explored education research and science across its 100 volumes. Articles have advocated better research and a stronger connection between research and practice, while celebrating strides that have been made. Kappan has also presented multiple perspectives on the value of neuroscience to education, with some authors recommending a brain-based approach and others expressing skepticism about how the research is being interpreted and applied.