Comprehensive Validation Of A Measure Of Student School Engagement: A Pilot Study Of Middle School Students

Although it may sound reasonable that American education continues to be more effective at sending high school students to college, in a study conducted in 2009, The Council of the Great City Schools states that "slightly more than half of entering ninth grade students arrive performing below grade level in reading and math, while one in five entering ninth grade students is more than two years behind grade level...[and] 25% received support in the form of remedial literacy instruction or interventions" (Council of the Great City Schools, 2009). Students are distracted with technology (Lei & Zhao, 2005), family (Xu & Corno, 2003), medical illnesses (Nielson, 2009), learning disabilities and perhaps the most detrimental to academic success, the very lack of interest in school (Ruch, 1963). In a Johns Hopkins research study, Building a Graduation Nation - Colorado (Balfanz, 2008), warning signs were apparent years before the student dropped out of high school. The ninth grade was often referenced as a critical point that indicated success or failure to graduate high school. The research conducted by Johns Hopkins illustrates the problem: students who become disengaged from school have a much greater chance of dropping out of high school and not graduating. The first purpose of this study was to compare different measurement models of the Student School Engagement (SSE) using Factor Analysis to verify model fit with student engagement. The second purpose was to determine the extent to which the SSE instrument measures student school engagement by investigating convergent validity (via the SSE and Appleton, Christenson, Kim and Reschly's instrument and Fredricks, Blumenfeld, Friedel and Paris's instrument), discriminant validity (via Huebner's Student Life Satisfaction Survey) and criterion-related validity (via the sub-latent variables of Aspirations, Belonging and Productivity and student outcome measures such as achievement, attendance and discipline). Discriminant validity was established between the SSE and the Appleton, Christenson, Kim and Reschly's model and Fredricks, Blumenfeld, Friedel and Paris's (2005) Student Engagement Instruments (SEI). When confirming discriminant validity, the SSE's correlations were weak and statistically not significant, thus establishing discriminant validity with the SLSS. Criterion-related validity was established through structural equation modeling when the SSE was found to be a significant predictor of student outcome measures when both risk score and CSAP scores were used. The third purpose of this study was to assess the factorial invariance of the SSE instrument across gender to ensure the instrument is measuring the intended construct across different groups. Conclusively, configural, weak and metric invariances were established for the SSE as a non-significant change in chi-square indicating that all parameters including the error variances were invariant across groups of gender. Engagement is not a clearly defined psychological construct; it requires more research in order to fully comprehend its complexity. Hopefully, with parental and teacher involvement and a sense of community, student engagement can be nurtured to result in a meaningful attachment to school and academic success.

New Literacy for Reading Using ICT

This article will analyse the key strategies in the relationship between reading and writing in the area of ICT and the resulting importance in supporting literacy in this area so that the education system as a whole (primary and secondary schools and universities) can be guided to make full use of the opportunities ICT can provide. ICTs are able to help improve overall comprehension, evaluate general perspectives and raise awareness of the value of cooperation and, as a result, the essential quality of individuals and their contributions. These contributions are far-reaching and strategic. The benefits of applying ICT in reading and writing are also felt in oral expression and can result in education based more on dialogue which, in turn, leads to social change.

Effects of Dialogic Reading in the Improvement of Reading Comprehension in Students of Primary Education

Reading is an essential factor for success at school that requires certain skills and strategies of great complexity rarely taught in schools. Verbalization of comprehension strategies can be considered an effective measure in learning to read. The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of a program of teaching reading strategies implemented through interactive dialogic reading groups in the learning of reading comprehension. A quasi-experimental comparison with pretest and posttest design between groups was used. A sample of 355 participants aged between 8 and 9 years aged was used. The results weigh the potential value of the program and support the development of teaching models that integrate dialogic reading practices as they facilitate learning of reading comprehension.

A guide to reading in social ethics and allied subjects: lists of books and articles selected and described for the use of general readers

by teachers in Harvard University.

Reading framework for the National Assessment of Educational Progress, 1992-1998 : NAEP reading consensus project /

Shipping list no.: 97-0079-P.

Psychology of the common school subjects

"The following chapters are published preliminary to the preparation of a much more elaborate work along the same general lines." - Pref.

Recreational reading for young people,

Mode of access: Internet.

The church school of citizenship /

"Reading recommended" at end of each chapter.

A literary guide for home and school /

Mode of access: Internet.

The national fifth reader : containing a complete and practical treatise on elocution, select and classified exercises in reading and declamation, with biographical sketches, and copious notes : adapted to the use of students in literature /

On cover: National school series.

The Catholic reading circle review; a monthly magazine.

Mode of access: Internet.

A handbook of developmental reading.

Includes bibliographies.

Manual of the Lancasterian system, of teaching reading, writing, arithmetic, and needle-work, as practised in the schools of the Free-society, of New York.

"In the compilation of this work...the manual published in 1816, by the British and foreign school society...was carefully examined; such parts thereof adopted as were thought suitable, and alterations and additions made, calculated to render it a clear statement of the system as practised in New-York."--Pref.